Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American writer during the Roaring Twenties, also known as the Jazz Age, who was most known for writing The Great Gatsby, a novel that described the effect of wealth during his lifetime. His writings focused primarily on the American Dream—which was extremely sought after during his era—and the methods of approach it took to achieve it. Overall, critics agree that F. Scott Fitzgerald’s life and works, which defined the Jazz Age, were symbolic of the Roaring Twenties and that he is credited as being one of the most important American authors of the 20th century.
According to Katie de Koster in Readings on F. Scot Fitzgerald, F. Scott Fitzgerald was named after Francis Scott Key, a distant relative of his and writer of “The Star Spangled Banner”. He was born on September 24, 1896 in St. Paul, Minnesota (de Koster 13). His parents were Edward and Mary McQuillan Fitzgerald, who was the daughter of an Irish immigrant and came from an affluent background (de Koster 14). Fitzgerald mentioned that his father’s refined lifestyle and “Confederate sympathy” has influenced the way he behaved as a child (de Koster 13). He also remarked that his mother embarrassed him because she was unattractive to him and old (de Koster 14). On the other hand, Fitzgerald was the third child in his family although his two older sisters died during his pregnancy; as a result, he was greatly spoiled by his mother and was given much attention (de Koster 15). However, his spoiling only increased his resentment towards her (de Koster 15).
Unfortunately, Scott’s father lost his furniture business in St. Paul and the family experienced a period of several relocations with the first move To Buffalo, New York on April 1898 where F...
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... Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner, 2013. Print. Fitzgerald, F. Scott, Matthew J. Buccoli, and Fredson Bowers. The Great Gatsby. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2006. Print. Key, Francis Scott, and Peter Spier. The Star-Spangled Banner. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1973. Print.
Through his vivid depiction of the valley of the ashes in the acclaimed novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald unveils the truth about 1920s America: economic prosperity did not guarantee happiness and resulted in depreciating conditions for those that were not able to connive their way to the top.
Conclude ideas that are related between the great Gatsby & modern society and say how things have changed over time
Wealth can be a noble thing or a dangerous thing, depending on who does what with it. In The Great Gatsby, the wealth of Jay Gatsby was used for a multitude of reasons, the main one being to get the attention of Daisy. In contrast, the Joad family’s wealth, in The Grapes of Wrath, was staying together throughout the loses and hardships. One of the aims of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby was to show how money and materialism could change a person again and again until they were hardly the same person anymore. In comparing their work it is clear that Fitzgerald and Steinbeck felt that materialism changed people for the worse. While both of their novels deal with wealth and poverty, each novel conveys its message from a very different perspective-
Merriman, C. D. "F. Scott Fitzgerald." The Literature Network. Jalic Inc., 2007. Web. 17 Jan. 2014.
The quote, “Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction.” by Enrich Fromm truly describes the effect greed can cause others. In the novel The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald and the play Macbeth by William Shakespeare various themes are shown throughout. One of the most important themes is greed for wealth and power. These works focus on the impact greed for wealth and power causes on the main character and how it affects their relationships with others. At first, these characters are so infatuated by what they want that they do not realize the harm they are causing. However, as these works continue each character reaches a moment of epiphany realizing how
F. Scott Fitzgerald was born Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald. He was the author of The Great Gatsby and was born on September 24, 1896 in St. Paul, Minnesota, and died on December 21, 1940 in Hollywood, California. Fitzgerald published the book The Great Gatsby on April 10, 1925, among other books like The Other Side of Paradise, another of Fitzgerald’s successes when living which permitted him to marry the woman he loved. Although The Great Gatsby was not much of a success during his time it became a very popular novel that appropriately portrayed the Jazz Age also known as the Roaring Twenties later in time. The author’s purpose for the book was to inform and at the same time entertain the audience of what the Jazz Age was mainly about and peoples
Fitzgerald, F. Scott, and Matthew J. Bruccoli. The Great Gatsby. New York, NY: Scribner, 1996.
Bruccoli, Matthew J. Preface. The Great Gatsby. By F. Scott Fitzgerald. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995. vii-xvi.
The Great Gatsby is a well written and exemplary novel of the Jazz age, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald desired writing his books about the roaring twenties and would explain what happened during that time frame. The majority of the characters in The Great Gatsby cared more about money, power, and having a good time then the people in their lives. This lack of caring for others resulted in the hardships the characters faced. Especially, Jay Gatsby was one of these cruel characters.
Thesis: Through the flawed characteristics of Tom and Daisy as well as the irresponsible actions of Jordan in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, it is evident that the theme “wealth can breed carelessness” causes certain characters to forget about their responsibilities and minimizes any potential forethought.
The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald relates to the current event video in a few ways. It applies to the reading of Great Gatsby because of the idea of affluenza; which is a way of saying that somebody was raised wealthy and with privilege, and had no consequences for bad behavior, so they do not know how to act or make the best decisions in the real world. Daisy specifically relates to this because she was raised very wealthy and even married wealthy to keep living her luxurious and privilege filled life. “For Daisy was young and her artificial world was redolent of orchids and pleasant, cheerful snobbery and orchestras…” (151). She even got away with killing Myrtle because her and Tom were wealthy enough to just disappear, and
The Great Gatsby “The Great Gatsby”, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, depicts the vast social difference between the old aristocrats, the new self-made rich and the poor. He vividly interprets the social stratification during the roaring twenties as each group has their own problems to deal with. Old Money, who have fortunes dating from the 19th century, have built up powerful and influential social connections, and tend to hide their wealth and superiority behind a veneer of civility. The New Money made their fortunes in the 1920s boom and therefore have no social connections and tend to overcompensate for this lack with lavish displays of wealth. As usual, the No Money gets overlooked by the struggle at the top, leaving them forgotten or ignored.
Web. 24 Feb. 2014. Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York, NY: Scribner, 1996.
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, Gatsby’s obsessive pursuit of goals suggest that Fitzgerald believe that obsessiveness and constant desires often lead to a wrong psychological impact, destructive of one’s traditions, morals, and would have an unplanned end of the lesson or life.
The 1920’s were a time of economic indulgences. The stock market was in a period of wild growth and Americans were enjoying their newfound prosperity. America just came off a triumphant success in the First World War and the 1920’s and was the outlandish victory party. The New York Times said, “Gin was the national drink and sex the national obsession” of the 1920’s. The morality which the common citizen had previously upheld became corrupted, and the American Dream, which once meant making a living through integrity and hard work, became tainted, emphasizing the quick, not necessarily honest, acquisition of money and wasteful spending. The life, desires, and ultimate failure of Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald deprecates