Context (Leaving Cert English): Revision Notes

Context

F. Scott Fitzgerald's life and influences

Francis Scott Fitzgerald was born in 1896 and named after his ancestor Francis Scott Key, who wrote the lyrics to the American national anthem. This connection to American heritage would later influence his exploration of American identity in his novels. Fitzgerald grew up in Minnesota and attended Princeton University, though he left his studies to join the army during the First World War in 1917.

During his military service, Fitzgerald met seventeen-year-old Zelda Sayre, and their relationship would become central to understanding The Great Gatsby. Zelda delayed their marriage until Fitzgerald could prove his financial success, which mirrors Gatsby's desperate pursuit of Daisy. When Fitzgerald published This Side of Paradise in 1920, it became an immediate literary sensation, providing him with the wealth and fame needed to marry Zelda.

The Fitzgeralds became known for their extravagant lifestyle, wild parties, and excessive drinking. However, their relationship was turbulent and troubled. Zelda had affairs, suffered mental health problems, and experienced two nervous breakdowns in the 1930s. Fitzgerald himself struggled with alcoholism throughout his life. These personal experiences of love, loss, wealth, and disillusionment deeply influenced the themes and characters in The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald died of a heart attack in 1940 at just forty-four years old, while working in Hollywood.

Autobiographical elements in the novel

The Great Gatsby contains numerous autobiographical elements that reflect Fitzgerald's own experiences. The narrator Nick Carraway shares many similarities with Fitzgerald himself - both came from the Midwest, attended prestigious universities, and moved to New York after serving in the First World War. This parallel allows Fitzgerald to tell his story through a narrator who understands both the allure and the emptiness of the wealthy lifestyle.

Gatsby's character reflects Fitzgerald's own relationship with wealth and social status. Like Gatsby, Fitzgerald came from a modest background but desperately wanted to belong to the upper classes. Gatsby's obsessive pursuit of Daisy mirrors Fitzgerald's own romantic struggles, particularly his relationship with Zelda, who initially rejected him due to his lack of money. The famous quote about hoping for "a beautiful little fool" of a daughter comes directly from something Zelda said about their own child, showing how closely Fitzgerald's personal life influenced his fictional characters.

The novel's structure, told through Nick's memories, creates distance between Fitzgerald and his story, allowing him to examine his own experiences with both involvement and detachment. This autobiographical foundation gives the novel its authentic emotional depth and helps explain why the themes of love, wealth, and the pursuit of the American Dream feel so genuine and painful.

Historical context: First World War and the Jazz Age

The First World War fundamentally changed American society and created the world in which The Great Gatsby takes place. The war was unprecedented in its scale and brutality, leaving many survivors disillusioned with traditional values and institutions. Both Gatsby and Nick served in the war, and this shared experience connects them while also highlighting their different responses to post-war life.

The 1920s, known as the Jazz Age, emerged as a reaction to the war's devastation. This decade was characterised by economic prosperity, technological innovation, and dramatic social change. The era saw the rise of consumer culture, mass entertainment, and new forms of music and dance. People embraced pleasure and excess as a way of forgetting the war's horrors, which explains the lavish parties and reckless behaviour depicted in the novel.

However, this prosperity was built on unstable foundations. The decade's extravagance eventually led to the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression of the 1930s. Fitzgerald was writing during the height of the Jazz Age, but he could already see the cracks in American society. The novel captures both the excitement and the underlying emptiness of this period, showing how the pursuit of wealth and pleasure ultimately fails to provide meaning or happiness.

The Lost Generation

The term "Lost Generation" was coined by American writer Gertrude Stein to describe the generation that came of age during the First World War. This generation felt disconnected from traditional values and struggled to find meaning in a world that seemed to have lost its moral compass. The war had destroyed many people's faith in progress, honour, and traditional institutions, leaving them feeling spiritually adrift.

In The Great Gatsby, this sense of spiritual emptiness is reflected in the characters' desperate pursuit of pleasure and meaning. Gatsby's "extraordinary gift for hope" makes him stand out from the other characters precisely because most people of his generation had lost their ability to believe in anything greater than themselves. The novel shows how this generation tried to fill their spiritual void with material possessions, parties, and romantic obsessions, but these substitutes ultimately proved inadequate.

The Lost Generation's disillusionment helps explain the moral ambiguity that runs throughout the novel. Characters like Tom and Daisy drift through life without taking responsibility for their actions, while others like Gatsby pursue impossible dreams that are doomed to failure. This generational context is crucial for understanding why the novel's ending is so pessimistic about American society and the possibility of genuine human connection.

Women's liberation and the "flapper" phenomenon

The 1920s witnessed dramatic changes in women's roles and behaviour, particularly among young, urban women. The 19th Amendment, passed in 1920, gave women the right to vote, symbolising their growing independence and social freedom. Many young women began to challenge traditional expectations by cutting their hair short, wearing shorter skirts, smoking, drinking, and engaging in more open discussions about sexuality.

These liberated young women became known as "flappers", and they represented a complete break from Victorian ideals of femininity. In The Great Gatsby, Jordan Baker embodies this new type of woman. Her masculine name, career as a professional golfer, and unmarried status all signal her rejection of traditional female roles. She moves through the world with confidence and independence, avoiding the emotional vulnerability that traditional femininity might require.

However, Fitzgerald also shows the limitations and contradictions of this new freedom. While Jordan achieves independence, she does so by becoming emotionally detached and morally careless. Myrtle Wilson represents a different approach to women's liberation - she uses her sexuality to try to climb the social ladder, but this strategy ultimately destroys her. The novel suggests that while women gained new freedoms in the 1920s, they still faced significant constraints and dangers in their attempts to reshape their lives.

The American Dream

The concept of the American Dream - the belief that anyone can achieve success and prosperity through hard work and determination - became increasingly prominent during the 1920s. America had long been seen as a land of opportunity where people could escape their circumstances and create new identities for themselves. Many immigrants came to America seeking this promise of a better life, and the economic boom of the 1920s seemed to confirm that the dream was achievable.

However, Fitzgerald challenges this optimistic vision by showing how the American Dream had become corrupted by materialism and greed. Gatsby embodies both the promise and the failure of the American Dream - he successfully transforms himself from a poor farm boy into a wealthy man, but this transformation is built on crime and illusion. His pursuit of Daisy represents his desire not just for love, but for acceptance into the established upper class, something that his new money can never truly buy.

The novel suggests that the American Dream has become a product to be sold rather than an ideal to be pursued. Myrtle Wilson's death, crushed by a car that represents both wealth and the American Dream, symbolises how the dream can destroy those who chase it most desperately. Fitzgerald shows that in a society obsessed with wealth and status, the American Dream becomes a cruel illusion that promises everything but delivers only emptiness and destruction.

Consumer culture and mass media

The 1920s saw the emergence of modern consumer culture, driven by mass production, advertising, and new forms of media. For the first time, people across America could buy similar products and share similar cultural experiences through radio, films, and mass-produced goods. Advertising became increasingly sophisticated, creating desires for products and lifestyles that people had never imagined they needed.

In The Great Gatsby, the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg on the billboard represent the power of advertising to create false gods and empty promises. The billboard watches over the valley of ashes like a deity, suggesting that advertising has replaced traditional religion in American society. This symbolism shows how consumer culture promised to solve spiritual and emotional problems through material consumption, but ultimately left people feeling more empty and disconnected.

The novel also explores how photography and media create false images of reality. Gatsby has a photograph of Dan Cody and keeps pictures that represent his imagined past, showing how images can be used to construct identity and memory. The prevalence of parties, cars, and luxury goods throughout the novel demonstrates how consumer culture encouraged people to define themselves through what they owned rather than who they were, leading to the shallow materialism that Fitzgerald criticises.

Prohibition and organised crime

The Prohibition Act of 1919 made the manufacture, sale, and transport of alcohol illegal in America, but this law had the unintended consequence of creating a massive illegal economy. People continued to drink alcohol, but now they had to buy it from criminals who operated secret bars called "speakeasies". By 1925, New York alone had an estimated one hundred thousand speakeasies, showing how completely the law had failed.

This illegal alcohol trade was controlled by organised crime syndicates led by figures like Al Capone, who became wealthy and powerful through bootlegging. In The Great Gatsby, Meyer Wolfsheim represents this criminal underworld. Fitzgerald based this character on Arnold Rothstein, a real gambler who was rumoured to have fixed the 1919 World Series. Gatsby's connection to Wolfsheim suggests that his wealth comes from illegal activities, highlighting how Prohibition corrupted American society.

The prevalence of organised crime during this period reflects the broader moral confusion of the Jazz Age. When the government made alcohol illegal, it forced ordinary citizens to break the law for activities they considered normal and acceptable. This created a culture where legal and illegal became blurred, and where criminal figures could become wealthy and respected members of society, as Gatsby attempts to do through his lavish parties and careful cultivation of his image.

Immigration and racial prejudice

The 1920s was a period of significant tension regarding immigration and race in America. Millions of immigrants had arrived in previous decades, particularly from Southern and Eastern Europe, and many established Americans felt threatened by these newcomers. The Immigration Act of 1924 severely restricted immigration, particularly from non-Western European countries, reflecting widespread prejudice and fear.

This prejudice is reflected in the novel through the treatment of Meyer Wolfsheim, who is portrayed through anti-Semitic stereotypes. Fitzgerald describes Wolfsheim's physical features in terms that emphasise his supposed foreignness and connects him to criminal behaviour. While this representation reflects the prejudices of the time, it also shows how such stereotypes were used to exclude certain groups from full participation in American society.

The novel also touches on racial prejudice through Tom Buchanan's references to theories about racial superiority and his fear that the white race is being overtaken by other races. These attitudes reflect real anxieties among white Americans during the 1920s, when social changes and demographic shifts challenged traditional power structures. Nick's surprise at seeing African-American people in positions of apparent wealth and status shows how unusual such sights were in the segregated society of the time.