The Great Gatsby
Let's play a game called Free Association. When we say the words "Roaring Twenties," what are the first things that pop into your head? Go for it. We'll wait here for you.
Cool? Let's check out your list. Maybe you came up with something like this:
Author F. Scott Fitzgerald associated this moment in American history – the Jazz Age – with materialism ("I want things! Lots of things!") and immorality. Materialism and immortality were the name of the game for many of the newly wealthy of the post-World War I era. The novel's star is Jay Gatsby, a young, rich man in love with a society girl from his past. A girl who, as it happens, is married to someone else. Do we smell a Twilight-esque love triangle approaching? We do indeed.
And that's not the only reason why Gatsby still feels fresh today. The novel's very title has become a kind of buzzword for periods of excess and fake luxury. The economic collapse of 2008 brought back, to many, distant and unwelcome memories of the stock market crash of 1929, casting the boom times of the 1990s and early 2000s as the modern-day analogue of the Roaring Twenties. In the 1920s it had been a bubble in stocks that brought easy prosperity, while in our own time the bubble had been in the housing market.
In both cases, though, unsustainable boom times led to devastating crashes with profound cultural consequences. In the 1920s and the 2000s, easy money meant that many people could begin to dream of living out their days like Jay Gatsby, with life as just one grand party in a seersucker suit. But as that vision of easy luxury crashed and burned (in both 1929 and 2008), newfound hard times required a redefinition of the American Dream.Gatsby tackles the American Dream, as well as issues of wealth and class, materialism, and marital infidelity.
And while Gatsby is a work of fiction, the story has many similarities to Fitzgerald's real-life experiences. Gulp. Fitzgerald's personal history is mirrored in the characters of Jay Gatsby and narrator Nick Carraway. Nick is both mesmerized and disgusted by Gatsby's extravagant lifestyle, which is similar to how Fitzgerald claimed to feel about the "Jazz Age" excesses that he himself adopted. As an Ivy League educated, middle-class Midwesterner, Fitzgerald (like Nick) saw through the shallow materialism of the era. But (like Gatsby) Fitzgerald came back from World War I and fell in love with a wealthy southern socialite – Zelda Sayre.
The Great Gatsby is swaddled in Fitzgerald's simultaneous embrace of and disdain for 1920s luxury. Since Fitzgerald did indeed partake in the Jazz Age's high life of decadence, it's not surprising that the details of the setting and characters make The Great Gatsby a sort of time capsule preserving this particular time in American history. Gatsby is taught all over the world partly because it's a history lesson and novel all rolled into one delicious lettuce wrap of intrigue. Mmmmm…intrigue. You may find that when many people refer to the "Jazz Age" or the "Roaring Twenties," they automatically associate it with Gatsby, and vice versa.
(Introduction from schmoop.com)
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-Here is a link to the full text of the novel online.
-Here is a link to the audio version of the novel.
Listed below are the links to the F. Scott Fitzgerald documentary. It is one documentary, split into five very short videos:
-Part 1: The Great American Dreamer
-Part 2: The Great America Dreamer
-Part 3: The Great American Dreamer
-Part 4: The Great American Dreamer
-Part 5: The Great American Dreamer
Here are the questions you should answer after viewing the documentary. Please answer in complete sentences:
1. What time period is the focus of the documentary? Describe its attributes in detail.
2. Why did Fitzgerald feel like an outsider? What made him fit in?
3. Who was Fitzgerald's first love? Why did they break up? How did he deal with the breakup and what does this show about him?
4. Describe Fitzgerald's wife. Why was he drawn to her?
5. Describe Scott and Zelda’s life together after they were first married.
6. After hearing the brief plot summary of The Great Gatsby, what intrigues you or catches your interest about this story?
7. Why is this film appropriately titled “The Great American Dreamer”? Use specific examples from the film to support your answer.
8. How did Fitzgerald’s work reflect his life? Give three (3) specific examples.
9. After viewing the documentary, what connections can you make between contemporary American society and society in the 1920s? What images are immediately familiar to you?
10. Have you ever read or seen a work that takes place during the 1920s? If so, name the work and describe how the time period is portrayed.
Gatsby Assignments: Questions-Chapter 1, Questions-Chapter 2, Questions-Chapter 3, Questions-Chapter 4, Questions-Chapter 5, Questions-Chapter 6, Questions-Chapter 7, Questions-Chapters 8&9, Winter Dreams, Winter Dreams Questions, Focus Question - Chapter 3, Focus Question - Persuasive,
Cool? Let's check out your list. Maybe you came up with something like this:
- Flappers
- Bobs
- Bootleggers
- The Harlem Renaissance
- Old cars
- Partays
- Those long cigarette holders
- Lillian Gish and old movie stars
- And much more, eh what?
Author F. Scott Fitzgerald associated this moment in American history – the Jazz Age – with materialism ("I want things! Lots of things!") and immorality. Materialism and immortality were the name of the game for many of the newly wealthy of the post-World War I era. The novel's star is Jay Gatsby, a young, rich man in love with a society girl from his past. A girl who, as it happens, is married to someone else. Do we smell a Twilight-esque love triangle approaching? We do indeed.
And that's not the only reason why Gatsby still feels fresh today. The novel's very title has become a kind of buzzword for periods of excess and fake luxury. The economic collapse of 2008 brought back, to many, distant and unwelcome memories of the stock market crash of 1929, casting the boom times of the 1990s and early 2000s as the modern-day analogue of the Roaring Twenties. In the 1920s it had been a bubble in stocks that brought easy prosperity, while in our own time the bubble had been in the housing market.
In both cases, though, unsustainable boom times led to devastating crashes with profound cultural consequences. In the 1920s and the 2000s, easy money meant that many people could begin to dream of living out their days like Jay Gatsby, with life as just one grand party in a seersucker suit. But as that vision of easy luxury crashed and burned (in both 1929 and 2008), newfound hard times required a redefinition of the American Dream.Gatsby tackles the American Dream, as well as issues of wealth and class, materialism, and marital infidelity.
And while Gatsby is a work of fiction, the story has many similarities to Fitzgerald's real-life experiences. Gulp. Fitzgerald's personal history is mirrored in the characters of Jay Gatsby and narrator Nick Carraway. Nick is both mesmerized and disgusted by Gatsby's extravagant lifestyle, which is similar to how Fitzgerald claimed to feel about the "Jazz Age" excesses that he himself adopted. As an Ivy League educated, middle-class Midwesterner, Fitzgerald (like Nick) saw through the shallow materialism of the era. But (like Gatsby) Fitzgerald came back from World War I and fell in love with a wealthy southern socialite – Zelda Sayre.
The Great Gatsby is swaddled in Fitzgerald's simultaneous embrace of and disdain for 1920s luxury. Since Fitzgerald did indeed partake in the Jazz Age's high life of decadence, it's not surprising that the details of the setting and characters make The Great Gatsby a sort of time capsule preserving this particular time in American history. Gatsby is taught all over the world partly because it's a history lesson and novel all rolled into one delicious lettuce wrap of intrigue. Mmmmm…intrigue. You may find that when many people refer to the "Jazz Age" or the "Roaring Twenties," they automatically associate it with Gatsby, and vice versa.
(Introduction from schmoop.com)
------------------------------
-Here is a link to the full text of the novel online.
-Here is a link to the audio version of the novel.
Listed below are the links to the F. Scott Fitzgerald documentary. It is one documentary, split into five very short videos:
-Part 1: The Great American Dreamer
-Part 2: The Great America Dreamer
-Part 3: The Great American Dreamer
-Part 4: The Great American Dreamer
-Part 5: The Great American Dreamer
Here are the questions you should answer after viewing the documentary. Please answer in complete sentences:
1. What time period is the focus of the documentary? Describe its attributes in detail.
2. Why did Fitzgerald feel like an outsider? What made him fit in?
3. Who was Fitzgerald's first love? Why did they break up? How did he deal with the breakup and what does this show about him?
4. Describe Fitzgerald's wife. Why was he drawn to her?
5. Describe Scott and Zelda’s life together after they were first married.
6. After hearing the brief plot summary of The Great Gatsby, what intrigues you or catches your interest about this story?
7. Why is this film appropriately titled “The Great American Dreamer”? Use specific examples from the film to support your answer.
8. How did Fitzgerald’s work reflect his life? Give three (3) specific examples.
9. After viewing the documentary, what connections can you make between contemporary American society and society in the 1920s? What images are immediately familiar to you?
10. Have you ever read or seen a work that takes place during the 1920s? If so, name the work and describe how the time period is portrayed.
Gatsby Assignments: Questions-Chapter 1, Questions-Chapter 2, Questions-Chapter 3, Questions-Chapter 4, Questions-Chapter 5, Questions-Chapter 6, Questions-Chapter 7, Questions-Chapters 8&9, Winter Dreams, Winter Dreams Questions, Focus Question - Chapter 3, Focus Question - Persuasive,