Fitzgerald’s Portrayal of The Jazz Age in The Great Gatsby

Introduction

Following the end of WWI, the 1920s brought around an abrupt economic boom within America which brought the country tremendous wealth. After having lived through the depravity of WWI, the American society saw the 1920s, better known as the Jazz Age, as an opportunity to indulge. The 2013 film adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel, The Great Gatsby, is an exhilarating story that depicts the narrative of American Dream hopeful, Nick Carraway, as he becomes increasingly entangled in the lavish lives of New York’s most elite. The film utilises Fitzgerald’s perception of the Jazz Age to explore the rapid cultural changes in 1920 America including; segregation, the growth of consumerism, the effects of the alcohol prohibition and the American Dream.

Fitzgerald’s Portrayal of The Jazz Age in The Great Gatsby

As is the case with many novels, authors’ stories are often influenced by their personal experiences. Fitzgerald is no exception to this trend, in fact, some would say that The Great Gatsby is almost biographical in the way in which it reflects Fitzgerald’s life. Most strikingly, the character of Jay Gatsby is seemingly based off Fitzgerald, who fell in love with seventeen-year-old Zelda Sayre whilst serving in the military. Much like Daisy, Zelda was materialistic and valued wealth, and so Fitzgerald worked towards achieving a decadent lifestyle that Zelda would approve of. He began to idolise the rich and became consumed in his exciting, new lifestyle. However, Fitzgerald gradually became critical of how excessive and morally empty the lifestyle that he and many others pursued was. This is similar to Nick’s progression throughout the film, starting off as being wide-eyed and ready to indulge in his new lifestyle, before eventually seeing the damage his lifestyle has upon others and himself. He expresses during “Myrtle's party scene” that he “was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.” This is an expression of Nick’s internal conflict in being attracted to such a rich lifestyle, while also being adverse to how superficial it is. This is emphasised through how he, a now dishevelled and intoxicated Nick, hallucinates a well-put-together Nick silently judging the role that he plays in the party from the sidewalk. It is scenes like these and stark parallels between Fitzgerald, Nick, and Gatsby that make The Great Gatsby into a film that, in hindsight, represents Fitzgerald’s conflict and regret in himself and others for pursuing a lavish, but shallow lifestyle.

The Rise of Jazz and Segregation

The 1920s was also dubbed the Jazz Age, due to the rapid rise in popularity of jazz music. With jazz having originated from African American culture, the majority of jazz musicians were African American, the popularity of which conflicted with the political ramifications of segregation at the time. Staying true to the nature of its time period, The Great Gatsby reflects the racist attitudes and anxieties of the white American population during the 1920s, specifically through the character of Tom Buchanan. Tom is the embodiment of white privilege and prejudice towards African Americans, as expressed through his admiration of a white supremacy book called “The Rise of the Coloured Empires” that “everyone ought to read.” It should also be noted that African American people are hardly ever shown socialising with white people or in positions of power. Instead, they are often depicted as living in the slums of The Valley of Ashes, or discreetly placed in the background of the Elite’s lives, acting as servants. This divide between black and white is further emphasised during a scene in which Nick and Gatsby drive over the Queensboro Bridge and observe a wealthy group of African Americans being driven by a white chauffeur in an expensive car. To a modern-day audience, the close-up shots of Nick’s bewildered face and his mental narration of him being “impossibly confused” and not knowing “what to think” is quite troubling, as it clearly shows that racism was so deeply rooted in American society that it made a wealthy black person into an anomaly.

The Illusion of the American Dream

One of the most central ideas of The Great Gatsby is The American Dream, an ideal which states that through hard work, anyone can achieve success and social mobility. However, what started off as being a noble cause was corrupted by a number of factors mentioned in the opening sequence of the film. The first factor was the unprecedented rise of the stock market during the 1920s, which transitioned America into an era of wealth, materialism, and widespread consumerism. The American society became fixated on owning the fastest automobiles, the largest homes, and throwing the most decadent parties, as demonstrated by Gatsby’s extravagant parties. Additionally, the prohibition on the sale of alcohol backfired drastically and instead inspired the rise of organised crime and made millionaires out of bootleggers. This is symbolised by the successes of characters such as Meyer Wolfsheim and Gatsby, who were most likely modelled after powerful Chicago mob boss, Al “Scarface” Capone, who greatly benefitted from the prohibition enactment. It is this greed, social climbing, and blood money that was used to obtain wealth, which corrupted the nobility of the American Dream.

The corruption of the American Dream is further conveyed through Gatsby’s own ambitions. On the surface, Gatsby’s rise to fame is an emblem of the American Dream as it proves that people can escape a poor upbringing through hard work. However, Gatsby’s ultimate dream of loving Daisy is corrupted by his criminal connections, Daisy’s aggressively materialistic lifestyle, and the divide between old money, new money, and the lower classes, which is emphasised by the symbolic geography of East and West Egg and the Valley of Ashes. Gatsby’s inability to be accepted by the most elite due to his humble beginnings shows that social mobility is simply an illusion. This idea is reinstated by how Daisy and Tom suffer no consequence for their destructive actions, instead, it is only those from the lower classes such as Gatsby, Myrtle, and George that experience loss. Nick’s final words about the green light being an “orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us,” show that the American Dream will always be a dream and never a reality.

Conclusion

The Jazz Age, an era that was built upon the resultant wealth from WWI, made its exit at the turn of the new decade to transition America into the bleakness of the Great Depression. As a result of having spent the decade celebrating America’s newfound wealth by exploiting the luxuries of life, the party abruptly ended when Wall Street Crashed and drove the economy to the ground and the population into poverty. Though Fitzgerald could not have possibly predicted such a turn of events, The Great Gatsby clearly holds a message that the country’s rampant appetite for luxury would ultimately result in societal instability and moral corruption.

References

• Fitzgerald, F. S. (1925). The Great Gatsby. Charles Scribner's Sons.
• Luce, H. (2013). The Great Gatsby: The Film and Its Era. Simon & Schuster.
• Bloom, H. (Ed.). (2006). F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. Chelsea House Publishers.
• Bruccoli, M. J. (2002). Some Sort of Epic Grandeur: The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald. University of South Carolina Press.