The “Jazz Age,” was a time in American history rich in history and literature, and no one defined it better than F. Scott Fitzgerald. In fact, Fitzgerald was first to coin the term in 1922 in his book, “The Great Gatsby” (USC n.p.) Fitzgerald stated that the 20s “…was an age of art, it was an age of excess, and it was an age of satire" (Bruccoli n.p.) Fitzgerald, by many scholars opinions, defined the American 1920s and 30s, and offers a unique perspective on the time period that was oh so new to the minds of Americans of the time. Those in his novels and short stories like that of “Winter Dreams,” are filled with this sort of unruly-attitude previously unseen by men and women before the 20s and 30s. But Fitzgerald’s unique writing style and purpose was not an accident, and was the result of many events that occurred throughout his rather short life.
One of the ways F. Scott Fitzgerald became who he came to be was through his heavy drinking. Although he only wrote when sober, much of his time spent during the latter part of his life was spent behind a bottle (Bruccoli n.p.) When Fitzgerald moved to Hollywood in the 1930s after his wife Zelda’s emotional collapse, is when he really took up drinking, and soon became known for it widely (Bruccoli n.p.) Many of the characters in his short stories and novels lived a Bacchic lifestyle, like Jay Gatsby of “The Great Gatsby” (USC n.p.) Fitzgerald lived a life of moderate wealth, but he went through the wealth faster than he could earn it (Bruccoli n.p.) This lifestyle that Fitzgerald lived is exactly like his writing style, and most likely contributed to the attitude of the stories.
The short story, “Winter Dreams” defined the Fitzgerald style of writing beautifully. The cri...
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...the most famous writers ever (Bruccoli n.p.) The man to coin the term “Jazz Age,” in doing so, defined an entire era in American history (USC n.p.) Fitzgerald put it simply this way, “ it was an age of art, it was an age of excess, and it was an age of satire" (Bruccoli n.p.)
Works Cited
Baremore, Annaleigh. “An Analysis of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s: Winter Dreams.” TeenInk. Emerson Media, n.d. Web. 14 May 2014.
Bruccoli, Matthew J. “A Brief Life of Fitzgerald.” Biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald. The F. Scott Fitzgerald Society, n.d. Web. 07 May 2014.
“Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald.” 2014. The Biography.com Website. Web. 08 May, 2014.
USC. “A Brief Life of Fitzgerald.” Board of Trustees of the University of South Carolina, 04 Dec. 2003. Web. 05 May 2014
F. Scott Fitzgerald is known as a great author for his several works that do a great job at capturing the 1920s and allowing readers to get a look inside what the 20s would actually be like. The 1920s was a booming time period, people were getting richer and businesses were growing larger and larger with each year. This was a decade during the prohibition and even so, alcohol and partying was everywhere. Fitzgerald provides a very interesting look into the 1920s through both his short story, “Winter Dreams,” and in his novel The Great Gatsby. The main character in “Winter Dreams,” Dexter Green, is an upper middle class man who falls in love with an old money girl and spends his life
Francis Scott Fitzgerald, also known under his writer’s name, F. Scott Fitzgerald, is revered as a famous American novelist for his writing masterpieces in the 1920’s and 1930’s. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about his extravagant lifestyle in America that his wife, Zelda, their friends, and him lived during that era. In fact, a lot of his novels and essays were based off of real-life situations with exaggerated plots and twists. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novels were the readers looking glass into his tragic life that resulted in sad endings in his books, and ultimately his own life. F. Scott Fitzgerald lived in a nice neighborhood, but growing up, he wasn’t privileged.
The. Fitzgerald, F. S., and Matthew J. Bruccoli. The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald: A New Collection. The. New York: Scribner, 1989.
The novel is set in the Roaring Twenties, or the “Jazz Age,” which was actually a term coined by F. Scott Fitzgerald himself! He called it the Jazz Age due to the fact that Jazz music was quickly on the rise in their culture. Along with Jazz came some effects that some considered to be “mischievo...
Certain authors, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, wanted to reflect the horrors that the world had experienced not a decade ago. In 1914, one of the most destructive and pointless wars in history plagued the world: World War I. This war destroyed a whole generation of young men, something one would refer to as the “Lost Generation”. Modernism was a time that allowed the barbarity of the war to simmer down and eventually, disappear altogether. One such author that thrived in this period was F. Scott Fitzgerald, a young poet and author who considered himself the best of his time. One could say that this self-absorption was what fueled his drive to be the most famous modernist the world had seen. As The New Yorker staff writer Susan Orlean mentions in her literary summary of Fitzgerald’s works, “I didn’t know till fifteen that there was anyone in the world except me, and it cost me plenty” (Orlean xi). One of the key factors that influenced and shaped Fitzgerald’s writing was World War I, with one of his most famous novels, This Side Of Paradise, being published directly after the war in 1920. Yet his most famous writing was the book, The Great Gatsby, a novel about striving to achieve the American dream, except finding out when succeeding that this dream was not a desire at all. Fitzgerald himself lived a life full of partying and traveling the world. According to the Norton Anthology of American Literature, “In the 1920’s and 1930’s F. Scott Fitzgerald was equally equally famous as a writer and as a celebrity author whose lifestyle seemed to symbolize the two decades; in the 1920’s he stood for all-night partying, drinking, and the pursuit of pleasure while in the 1930’s he stood for the gloomy aftermath of excess” (Baym 2124). A fur...
The Jazz age was a time of glamour, sparkle, parties, music, the extreme rich, the extreme poor, and the exultation of lawlessness; F. Scoot Fitzgerald was no exception. Fitzgerald was enamored by the life of money, status, and beautiful people on a hopeless spiral into self destruction. The moral decadence of America became a prevailing theme in the works of Fitzgerald, taking birth fully within The Great Gatsby.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. “Winter Dreams.” American Literature. Ed. Nina Baym. Seventh ed. Vol. II. New York: Norton & Company, 2008. 1010-25. Print. The Norton Anthology.
F. Scott Fitzgerald was a romantic character in both his fiction life and his real life and “…was perhaps the last notable writer to affirm the Romantic fantasy, descended from the Renaissance, of personal ambition and heroism, of life committed to, or thrown away for, some ideal of self"(Voegeli). The inspiration for The Great Gatsby came from the experience Fitzgerald had with a Jewish bootlegger and his symbolism for the book is “never more ingenious than in his depiction of the bankruptcy of the old agrarian myth” (Trask). The realization that America had been changed and transformed into a new world arose. America has become a new world with a new set of traditional beliefs. The beliefs were onset by the growing fields of industrialization and urbanization. America is now a place in which “a revolution in manners and morals was inevitable” (Trask). The trend of this new life style and tradition was reinforced by World War 1 and the writers critiqued the traditional faiths. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald paints a story about love and intrigue. He shows the possibility of movement between the different social classes during the Roaring Twenties in the United States. The American dream was the thought that people who had talent in the 'land of opportunity' could gain success if they followed a set of well-defined behavioral rules. During this time period, Americans believed that satisfaction would automatically follow success. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald raises many important political questions: "What does it mean to live well, and on what terms people can live together?” and it shows America's thoughts and answers to these essential questions (Voegeli). These questions are referring to the different social classes and be...
Magill, Frank N. "F. Scott Fitzgerald." Critical Survey of Long Fiction. Vol. 3. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Salem, 1983. 953-67. Print.
"A Brief Life of Fitzgerald." A Brief Life of Fitzgerald. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Mar. 2014. .
Trilling, Lionel. "F. Scott Fitzgerald." Critical Essays on Scott Fitzgerald's "Great Gatsby." Ed. Scott Donaldson. Boston: Hall, 1984. 13-20.
Although it was a time of improvements in the way of life for all Americans, along with that came a certain moral decadence. In a new sense of comfort and thoughtlessness, a contempt for law and order, and a desire for wealth, the Jazz Age marked a crucial turning point in America, captured precisely by Fitzgerald. Works Cited "The Decade That Roared. " Ushistory.org. Independence Hall Association.
Also known as the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties, the American people felt that they deserved to have some fun in order to forget the emotional toll and social scars left from the war. The Jazz Age was appropriately named due to the illegal activities and good times, which included music, parties, and flapper girls. Jazz was a new style of music that originated out of the New Orleans area, where one of the greatest jazz musicians of all time – Louis Armstrong – began his career. The energy of jazz was a very new and almost uncomfortable style for the very traditional, rigid family of the 1920s. Young people in particular seemed to enjoy this new music the most, as it made them feel carefree. The energy of jazz was symbolic of the era’s trans...
Stern, Milton R. The Golden Moment: The Novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1971.
Trilling, Lionel. "F. Scott Fitzgerald." Critical Essays on Scott Fitzgerald's "Great Gatsby." Ed. Scott Donaldson. Boston: Hall, 1984. 13-20.