The Great Gatsby:

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The Great Gatsby

• The American Dream in the Jazz Age
• By Laura Preble
• West Hills High School
• 2006

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1920s America

• an era of prosperity
• people wanted to have fun
• the message was that to be happy, you must be
  rich
• Immigrants were able to transform their lives

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Social groups

• Daisy and Tom belong to the upper class, which
  is represented by the East (East Egg)
• Nick is a Midwestern, which means that he is
  honest, hard-working, and represents the
  traditional values of integrity
• Gatsby WAS from the Midwest, but has transformed
  himself into a wealthy East coast man. However,
  he lives in WEST Egg, which implies that hes not
  truly of the upper class.

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Immigration in the 20s

• "That was always my experiencea poor boy in a
  rich town a poor boy in a rich boy's school a
  poor boy in a rich man's club at Princeton....
  However, I have never been able to forgive the
  rich for being rich, and it has colored my entire
  life and works.
• F. Scott Fitzgerald A Life in Letters, ed.
  Matthew J. Bruccoli. New York Scribners, 1994.
  pg. 352. (Cited in "Quotations," from the
  EDSITEment-reviewed F. Scott Fitzgerald
  Centenary.)

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Anti-immigrant sentiment in the 20s

• The first Immigration Quota Law is passed by
  Congress in 1921 after booming post-war
  immigration results in 590,971 people passing
  through Ellis Island. Only 3 of an ethnic group
  living in the U.S. in 1910 will be allowed to
  enter the country in a year.
• With the Immigration Act of 1924 restricting
  further immigration, the annual quota of
  immigrants reduces to 164,000. The buildings on
  Ellis Island begin to fall into neglect and
  abandonment. America is experiencing the end of
  mass immigration.
• The National Origins Act is passed (1929) banning
  immigrants from East Asia. It also decreases the
  quota of European immigration to 2 of the
  figures recorded in the 1890 census.

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F. Scott Fitzgerald A Midwesterner

• F. Scott Fitzgerald was, in many ways, like
  Gatsby. He came from the Midwest, and he wanted
  to be part of the rich, intellectual East Coast
  culture. He felt that writing would allow him to
  escape what he hated, the boring, humdrum life of
  the common working man.

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James Gatz vs. Jay Gatsby

• Jay Gatsby was born James Gatz, and came from an
  immigrant family. He knew that to truly achieve
  the American Dream, he needed to be truly
  American, and that meant erasing his immigrant
  roots and all traces of his true heritage.

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The end justifies the means?

• There are rumors about how Gatsby got his
  moneyby bootlegging, illegal gambling, or
  working with criminals. Does the end justify the
  means? Do you think it was okay for Gatsby to do
  what he felt he had to do to get the woman he
  loves? Oris it unethical? Is it wrong for him to
  live a lie, even if it gets him the American
  Dream?

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America is a country of lost innocence.

• Ultimately, Fitzgerald felt that chasing after
  the American Dream robbed people of their
  innocence, or their ability to see the good in
  what they had. Always wanting more and better
  things, he came to realize, only made most people
  miserable. Gatsby dies trying to get what will
  make him happy.

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