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"Jazz is a good barometer of freedom. In its beginnings, the United States spawned certain ideals of freedom and independence through which, eventually, jazz was evolved, and the music is so free that many people say it is the only unhampered, unhindered expression of complete freedom yet produced in this country." --Duke Ellington

What differences do you see between these two dance styles?

How might these differences reflect a change in the zeitgeist?

When Klipspringer had played The Love Nest he turned around on the bench and searched unhappily for Gatsby in the gloom.

"I'm all out of practice, you see. I told you I couldn't play. I'm all out of prac-"

"Don't talk so much, old sport," commanded Gatsby. "Play!"

"In the morning,

In the evening,

Ain't we got fun-"

"[The flapper] symbolized an age anxious to enjoy itself, anxious to forget the past, anxious to ignore the future." (from Jacques Chastenet, "Europe in the Twenties")

Suffrage: 19th amendment ratified in 1920 (forbade suffrage restrictions based on gender)

In 1830, American men drank, on average, 88 bottles of whiskey per year (3x today's average)

Alcohol dependence

Societies dedicated to sober living formed to fight "demon liquor"

A constitutional amendment to ban alcohol sales and production became law in 1920 (Prohibition)

Bootlegging: illegally making and distributing liquor

• Consumer society
• Conspicuous consumption
• Thorstein Veblen (1857–1929), 1899

The Self-Made Man

Stuffed with Stuff

• The nation’s total wealth more than doubled between 1920 and 1929
• Automobiles, radios, magazines, fashionable clothes, beauty products, vacuums, phonographs, magazines

Work in groups of 3

• Does The Great Gatsby depict a consumer society? If so, where do we see examples of consumerism in the text? How does the novel feel about consumerism (i.e. is it "good" or "bad" or a "neutral" phenomenon)?
• Let's talk "things." What specific consumer goods seem to play an important role in the story? How does the novel feel about "things."
• Does the novel depict any conspicuous consumption? What role does conspicuous consumption play? How might the library scene be read as a critique of conspicuous consumption?

The Roaring Twenties

Prohibition

Jazz

• Bracketed by World War I (1914-1918) and the Great Depression (1930s)
• Also known as the "Jazz Age"

Women

• "a man who has achieved wealth, status, etc., through personal effort or hard work, rather than by accident of birth, esp. one who has come from a poor background" (Oxford English Dictionary)
• Concept linked distinctly to the USA
• The American Dream
• Independence, freedom, class mobility
• Benjamin Franklin's Autobiography (1791)
• From candle maker to successful businessman
• Cultivating virtues: "Temperance, Silence, Order, Resolution, Frugality, Industry, Sincerity, Justice, Moderation, Cleanliness, Tranquility, Chastity, and Humility"
• How is Franklin's strategy for attaining "Moral Perfection" similar to/different from the young Gatsby's plan for becoming successful (pg. 173)?

How is Gatsby a "self-made man"? How are we, as readers, meant to feel about Gatsby's social and economic climbing?

Wealth and Happiness: Searching for Textual Evidence

• How does Gatsby acquire his fortune?
• Does becoming wealthy make Gatsby happy? Why or why not?
• How does Daisy fit into Gatsby's obsession with wealth/success?
• How/why is Gatsby's "nouveau riche" wealth different from Tom and Daisy's "old money" wealth?

What Money Can't Buy: The Great Gatsby and Consumerism in the 1920s