The Jazz Age: A historical and literary

approach

Notable Authors and their Literature

• F. Scott Fitzgerald– His works characterized the

extravagant lifestyles of high society and the downfalls and benefits of being a member of this class.

– Literature: The Great Gatsby, This Side of Paradise

F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald

Notable Authors and their Literature

• Ernest Hemmingway– Most notable for using his real-world

experiences as a soldier in the Spanish Civil War and World War one.

– Uses simple text to write about inner conflicts against circumstances.

– Part of the “lost generation” of authors that went abroad to write.

– Literature: For Whom the Bell Tolls, A Farewell to Arms, The Old Man and the Sea

Ernest Hemmingway

Notable Authors and their Literature

• Sinclair Lewis– Lewis did not approve of the

new liberalism of society in the ’20s and used this disapproval as themes in his literature.

– Lewis was also an author of the “lost generation”

– Literature: Babbit, Main Street

Sinclair Lewis

Notable Poets and their Works

• Carl Sandburg– Sandburg established himself

as a realist by writing unrhymed free-verse poetry

– His poems expressed optimism for the American future

– Poetry Collections: Cornhuskers (1918), Smoke and Steel (1920), and Good Morning America (1928)

Carl Sandburg

Notable Poets and their Works

• Robert Frost– Uses everyday experiences

as the topic for his poems. – He typically used New

England, his home, for his poems and used a pastoral style to describe the images.

– Frost is best known for “The Road not Taken.”

Robert Frost

Notable Poets and their Works

• Langston Hughes– One of the most impressive

writers of the Harlem Renaissance

– He wrote Broadway musicals, short stories, long stories, a novel, and of course poetry.

– Hughes wrote about black culture through a new rhythmic style that complemented the music of the jazz age.

Langston Hughes

The Great Gatsby• Written by F. Scott Fitzgerald between 1932 and 1924, the novel

takes place in the summer of 1922 in Long Island and New York City.

• The major conflict of the story is that Jay Gatsby has amassed a great deal of money in attempts to win over the affections of Daisy Buchannan, but she later turns him down.

• The rising action of the story occurs between Gatsby’s elaborate and glamorous parties and arranging a meeting between Daisy and Gatsby at Nick Carraway’s house.

• Themes include the following: The decline of the American dream, the spirit of the 1920s, the difference between social classes, the role of symbols in the human conception of meaning, the role of the

past in dreams of the future • In reading the novel, the reader simultaneously sees Gatsby’s life

and the spirit of the 1920’s through rich description that paints pictures through the choice of words and the rhythm of the text.

The Harlem Renaissance

• The movement in literature was a way for African Americans to escape the trials and tribulations of their lives like poverty and discrimination.

• Influential writers of the time: Zora Neale Hurston (Their Eyes Were Watching God), Langston Hughes, and Nella Larsen.

• Common themes of the literature included: alienation, marginality, use of folk material, and the use of blues material.

• Transcending literature, the Harlem Renaissance not only was a literary movement, it was also about racial consciousness, a “back to Africa” movement led by Marcus Garvey, and the explosion of music (particularly jazz).

A Literary Conclusion

• The writers of this time took personal experiences and happenings from the world around them to get their message out to the public.

• Each author represented a location, culture, genre, and time that culminated in creating the period that have come to know as the Jazz Age.

Changing Times

• WWI brought prosperity

• Contracts ended

• Farmers suffer

• Others will bounce back

Technology

• Appliances cut down time spent on house work-vacuum and washing machine

• Refrigerators

• Radios

• Electric shavers

• Fans

Model T

• Henry Ford and “Fordism”

• Assembly line• At end of decade 60

percent of families own one

Advertising

• Clever and persuasive

• Needed for all the new products

• Radio relied on advertising for income

• Women targeted for halitosis

Women

• In 1921 the Nineteenth Amendment grants suffrage

• Many women do not take advantage

Prohibition

• The Eighteenth Amendment passed in 1919

• Speakeasies

• Women in speakeasies

• Organized crime

• “Great Experiment”

• Ended in 1933

Al Capone

Immigrants

• Feared after WWI• The first Red Scare• KKK in the North• Restrictions placed on immigration• Sacco-Vanzetti Case-anarchist immigrants

executed for murder. Belief that they were not the real murderers. Sacco may have been guilty.

• Nativists

Sacco and Vanzetti

Scopes Trial

• Showed ideas were changing

• Scopes on trial for teaching Darwinism, which was illegal in Tennessee

• On trial by William Jennings Bryan

• Clarence Darrow made Bryan look foolish

• Scopes convicted

• People not ready to come forward yet

Celebrity Culture

• Babe Ruth sets a record for 60 homeruns in a season

• Charles Lindbergh was the first to fly across the Atlantic Ocean in The Spirit of Saint Louis

Movies

• Millions of people flock to the movies each week

• First “talkie”-The Jazz Singer in 1927

The Jazz Age

• Debate over Jazz Music-either loved it or hated it

• Reflected rebellious spirit of youth

The Flapper

• Bobbed hair• Short dresses• Beads• Cigarettes• Pleasure mad young

woman• Epitomized youth

culture

The Roaring Twenties

• Business was booming

• Flashy and indulgent lifestyle

• Would be longed for during Great Depression

Everything Good Must Come To An End

• Stock Market crash-Black Thursday-October, 29, 1929

• Onset of Great Depression

• Height in 1933