context Flashcards
The American dream
-Supposed to be that ‘hard work can lead one from rags to riches.’
-People came from Europe seeking wealth and freedom.The novel portrays this shift as a symbol of the American Dream’s corruption (no longer a vision of building a life; just about getting rich)Gastby symbolises both the corrupted dream and the original uncorrupted dream. He sees wealth as the solution to his problems yet this is motivated by an incorruptible love for Daisy.
-Corruption and materialism prevails over hard work, integrity and real love. And eventually, due to it being unachievable in its nature, all who seek it are unsatisfied and restless
The automobile
-invented in 1886 by Karl Benz
-Henry Ford’s advances in assembly-line efficiency created a truly affordable automobile, making car ownership a possibility for many Americans.
-The automobile changed the face of America, both economically and socially.
-in the GG the automobile represents this new technology, and Fitzegeralds skepticism towards it, as many accidents are caused by the cars in the novel
new technology
-The prosperity of the 1920s led to new patterns of consumption, or purchasing consumer goods like radios, cars, vacuums, beauty products or clothing.
-the booming economy also gave opportunities for people not from old money to make a living through the innovations of the time, or in gatsbys case through crime. this lead to the risefo the new money class
post war restlessness
The First World War, also known as The Great War, was a predominantly European conflict fought between July 1914 and November 1918.
* America was drawn into the conflict in 1917.
* The demands of war accelerated America’s industrial production resulting in the economic boom of the 1920s.
* Nick Carraway says that he participated in the Great War, and it left him feeling ‘restless’ (p. 9). Nick tells us that Jay Gatsby ‘did extraordinarily well in the war’
- post war restlessness lead people t seek pleasure and sitar ion from losses experienced in the war, people also turned away from the religious roots of America
race
-New York abolished slavery in 1827, nealy 100 years before th gg
-however, racial stereotypes still endure, the book tom was reading ‘The Rise of the Colored Empire’, a book playing on Lothrop Stoddard’s ‘The Rising Tide of Color: The Threat Against White-World Supremacy (1920)’
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flapper girl
-Generation of young Western Women in the 1920s who wore short skirts and were sexually free and independent.
-flapperdom turned traditions notions of femininity on its head
-On Aug. 18, 1920, the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote was ratified, 72 years after the struggle for women’s suffrage began.
new vs old money
“the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water”; this is from Nick Carraway’s perspective as he first observes the wealthy enclave across the bay from West Egg, where Gatsby’s mansion resides.
- Tom is old money, and resists the way of new money, replacing his garage with stables
-european settlers became the American aristocracy, a line of inherited wealth
-threatended by the rise of new money as its a challenge to their status
-The Upper class were awarded tax benefits and admired due to their wealth
the lost generation
-amid that decade of newfound prosperity and economic growth, Fitzgerald—like other writers of the so-called “Lost Generation”—wondered if America had lost its moral compass in the rush to embrace post-war materialism and consumer culture. While The Great Gatsby captures the exuberance of the 1920s, it’s ultimately a portrayal of the darker side of the era, and a pointed criticism of the corruption and immorality lurking beneath the glitz and glamour.
jazz age
-Jazz originated in New Orleans and spread across the United States
-Speakeasies, illegal bars that became popular during Prohibition align with the growth of the jazz age
harlem reneissance
-a cultural and artistic movement that took place in Harlem, New York City from the end of World War I to the Great Depression. It was a time of great creativity and expression for African Americans.
prohibitions
-Between 1920 and 1933 there was a ban on making and selling alcohol in America.
* A great deal of alcohol is consumed nonetheless in the pages of this novel.
* The unlawful supplying of alcohol was known as bootlegging.
* It is rumoured that bootlegging was the source of Jay Gatsby’s wealth.
- In The Great Gatsby, Prohibition finances Gatsby’s rise to a new social status, where he can court his lost love, Daisy Buchanan, whose voice (as Gatsby famously tells Nick in the novel) is “full of money.”
influence of Europe
-Gatsby’s attempts to emulate a European lifestyle, often portrayed as a symbol of wealth and sophistication, by flaunting extravagant possessions and claiming a European education, highlighting the American obsession with Old World status and the pursuit of an idealized, unattainable image of wealth and social standing
