Reflections of Jazz Age in Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby

USA has always been an important and a powerful country in our world. By starting from

its discovery, USA managed to become one of the most rapidly growing countries and it helped
them throughout the history. USA joined many wars and finished them with little damage
compared to other participants. Americans played their roles effectively, they almost used every
opportunity to be wealthier than they are normally are and it caused them to be one the most
economic powers shortly. While talking about USA and its being powerful, it should be
mentioned that the biggest splash of USA happened with the end of World War I in 1918. World
War I was one of the biggest victories of USA because it showed Americans power to all world.
A new age started for them after WWI and it meant more money, a better education, a better life
for them. Literally, Americans realized that they didnt even have to work because of their
richness. Instead, they started to live for fun in this sense. Living for fun became their aim in
their life and their culture moved to this point. Their literature or music even changed after this
situation and this change also included peoples rights especially womens rights. This was a big
change for USA. It was a start of an age which is called Jazz Age in history. Jazz Age took its
name from Jazz Music generally but this name was also used in literature. When we look at
American literature, we see many sources or works about Jazz Age in 1920s. Authors or poets
wanted to show people what Jazz Age actually was and what it brought to them. F. Scott
Fitzgerald was one the most important authors who wrote about Jazz Age. He wrote many novels
about Jazz Age or American culture. It is said by many critics that Fitzgerald was able to see the
most significant parts of Jazz Age. In his novel The Great Gatsby, we can see his views about
Jazz Age clearly. Therefore, we can definitely say that reflections of the Jazz Age in USA can be
seen in Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby.

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Firstly, party culture occurred in USA as an effect of the Jazz Age and we can see this
situation in the novel clearly. Jay Gatsby who is the protagonist of the novel always gives huge
parties and people are dying to join to those parties even if they are not invited because they only
care about being free and having fun. This is their way of seeing freedom. In this example, we
actually see how socializing changes in peoples mind and those changes are really big ones. By
looking at those parties and people who attended it, we also see that peoples desire to personal
pleasures rose in Jazz Age which means social or politic problems are ignored by American
society. This can be considered as a big chance because they are blinded by the pleasures and
they cant really see reality and it shows how people can destroy their own future even when they
are in a perfect situation.
Besides that, there also have been some changes in music style and it changed
individuals view to culture and politics. When we talk about Jazz Age, we must say many words
about music especially Jazz Music because Jazz Music genre developed at those times and this
music was frequently used in Gatsbys parties. Music actually tells us many things. It affects
peoples mind with its words and its style. It can be seen as a symbol which criticizes Jazz Age
peoples behaviors. It is an open and effective way of telling and explaining cultural
developments so we can say that music is an important symbol which deals with cultural events
in that area. There are some good examples about Jazz music in the novel. When we look at
novel, we see two important artist and two good songs which is important for Jazz genre and
they are played in parties. We see Vladimir Tostoffs Jazz History of the World and W.C.
Handys Beale Street Blues. Those songs are good examples of this age and they generally
give us the idea of the age. Why are songs used? This is also explained in Gerald Earlys article.
Early explains Jazz genre by saying:

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It is perhaps fitting that F. Scott Fitzgerald, the man who dubbed the 1920s "the
Jazz Age," although he did not, apparently, care much for that style of music,
should, in his 1925 novel The Great Gatsby, give us a richly comic scene about a
jazz orchestra. It occurs at one of Gatsbys parties:
There was the boom of a bass drum, and the voice of the orchestra leader rang out
suddenly above the echolalia of the garden. "Ladies and gentlemen," he cried. "At
the request of Mr. Gatsby we are going to play for you Mr. Vladimir Tostoffs
latest work, which attracted so much attention at Carnegie Hall last May. If you
read the papers you know there was a big sensation." He smiled with jovial
condescension, and added: "Some sensation!" Where-upon everybody laughed.
"The piece is known," he concluded lustily, "as Vladimir Tostoffs Jazz History of
the World (129-130).
Early clearly believes that music is Fitzgeralds one of the most important objects to create a
good atmosphere in the novel.
Another important reflection in the novel is about women rights. There have been
significant changes about women rights with the Jazz Age in USA. Women became freer than
before. We can definitely say that they were different compared to other ages women. Until this
time in USA, women were not allowed to drink, enjoy or dance in parties and they didnt have
their own sexual freedom but they gained those opportunities with Jazz Age. They could go and
drink in parties. They had a chance to choose whom they will love or marry. It changed the
women model in peoples mind. They had more rights than before. They even named this
change. People then started to call Jazz Age women as Flappers. When one thinks about

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Flappers, this ideal image of women occurs in his or her mind and it was an important chance for
USA and humanity.
Lastly, Collapse of moral values has been a bad effect in Jazz Age for American society.
This reflection could be considered as maybe the most important, worst effect of Jazz Age
because it caused Jazz Age people to be called as The Lost Generation. They were called as
The Lost Generation mostly because they lost their insanity and they didnt care about moral
values. Fitzgerald could see it and explain it in his novel. He showed it by using characters. He
firstly wanted to show the change of characters in the novel to criticize the change of real Jazz
Age people in his fiction and Kenneth Eble explains it in his article. Eble says that After the
first half of the novel, we start to see the opposite ways of the Characters and change of them but
readers still should understand the difference between fantasy and fact while reading the novel to
get the idea. This example from his article shows that we see some chances about characters in
novel and it is perfectly written by Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald also used lies to explain this idea of
him. Lies also show us that people changed and moral doesnt really mean anything to them. For
example in novel there is a quote about lies and gossip;
Somebody told me they thought he killed a man once. A thrill passed over all of
us. The three Mr. Mumbles bent forward and listened eagerly. I dont think its so
much THAT, argued Lucille sceptically; its more that he was a German spy
during the war. One of the men nodded in confirmation. I heard that from a man
who knew all about him, grew up with him in Germany. He assured us positively.
Oh, no, said the first girl, it couldnt be that, because he was in the American army
during the war. As our credulity switched back to her she leaned forward with

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enthusiasm. You look at him sometimes when he thinks nobodys looking at him.
Ill bet he killed a man (49-50).
This quote is a famous quote of Fitzgerald and it tells us the general idea of The Lost
Generation. It helps us understand peoples inner side clearly. There is also another significant
example about losing morals in the novel. While people are having fun in parties, we see a lonely
girl in a room near a piano and this girls cries and she is not happy. She cries because she can see
the reality and she actually cries for humanity. This girls screams are the screams of awakening
for Fitzgerald. In this age, collapse of moral values also helps people understand that it is also
collapse of American Dream idea. Fitzgerald emphasizes that American Dream has collapsed and
it is not true. Like Marius Bewley explains in his article about The American Dream that:
CRITICS of Scott Fitzgerald tend to agree that The Great Gatsby is somehow a
commentary on that elusive phrase, the American dream. The assumption seems
to be that Fitzgerald approved. On the contrary, it can be shown that The Great
Gatsby offers some of the severest and closest criticism of the American dream
that our literature affords. Read in this way, Fitzgerald's masterpiece ceases to be a
pastoral documentary of the Jazz Age and takes its distinguished place among
those great national novels whose profound corrective insights into the nature of
American experience are not separable from the artistic form of the novel itself
(223).
This quote gives us the basic idea about how Fitzgerald uses The American Dream in his novel.
In the novel, he also uses Gatsby as an idealistic dreamer, the idealistic dreamer of American
Dream. He is seen as the symbol of The American Dream and John Rohrkemper also believes
this is true in his writing. He says that:

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He talked a lot about the past, and I gathered that he wanted to recover something,
some idea of himself, perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been
confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain
starting place and go over it slowly, he could find out what that thing
was.
This epigraph from The Great Gatsby not only suggests a Gatsby who is an
idealistic dreamer, who, like the country he represents within the novel, is a boat
"against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past" (180), but it also
suggests Fitzgerald's aim in writing the novel: to explore America's past, to
recover some idea of ourselves as a people, to look to a starting place and "find
out what that thing was" that was America (153).
He generally explains Gatsby as the idealistic dreamer in this example very well.
Consequently, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a well written novel which
clearly tries to explain the cultural and social situations in USA in 20th century by taking Jazz
Age as its main subject. Reflections of this period can easily be seen in novel because Fitzgerald
also lived in this age and there are many similarities between reality and novel. Those similarities
show us what Fitzgerald wrote matches with the real Jazz Age period. When we compare the
novel with real life, we can easily see that nothing is randomly added to novel and they all
actually have a deep meaning and this helps us understand that Fitzgerald is successful about
what he tries to show with the help of the novel. They are all reflected to novel successfully and
Fitzgeralds views about Jazz Age are completely accomplished.
Works Cited
Bewley, Marius The Sewanee Review Scott Fitzgerals Criticism of America Vol. 62, No.

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2(Apr. Jun., 1954), Web. 11 May 2015.
Early, Gerald American Literary History The Lives of Jazz Vol. 5, No. 1 (Spring, 1993) Web.
11 May 2015.
Eble, Kenneth College Literature. The Great Gatsby Vol 1, No. 1 Web. 11 May 2015.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. .The Great Gatsby. England: Penguin Group, 1926: 49-50. Print.
Rohrkemper, John College Literature The Allusive Past: Historical Perspective in The
Great Gatsby Vol. 12, No. 2 (Spring, 1985), Web. 11 May 2015.