Social Commentary of 1920s America

THE GREAT GATSBY

Social hierarchy is a natural and necessary part of a

functioning society.

PHILOSOPHICAL CHAIRS

In some cases, infidelity in relationships is acceptable.

PHILOSOPHICAL CHAIRS

The American Dream is corrupted by the desire for

wealth.

PHILOSOPHICAL CHAIRS

Attainment of a dream is often less satisfying than the

pursuit of it.

PHILOSOPHICAL CHAIRS

It is better to earn wealth than to be born into it.

PHILOSOPHICAL CHAIRS

In American society, it is more advantageous to be attractive

than educated.

PHILOSOPHICAL CHAIRS

Think about these statements now from the perspective a person in the 1920s – a time of prosperity,

prohibition, and carefree attitudes. Do any of your responses change?

How? Why? Which remain the same? Why do you think that is?

REFLECT

Social commentary is the act of using rhetorical means to provide

commentary on issues in a society. This is often done with the idea of

implementing or promoting change by informing the general populace

about a given problem and appealing to people's sense of justice.

SOCIAL COMMENTARY

• Practice close reading of text• Practice taking AP style exams (mc and written)• Learn and apply literary terms and vocabulary• Apply the historical lens for reading• Analyze Fitzgerald’s style • Evaluate how Fitzgerald uses tone, diction, syntax, and

figurative language to comment on his society at the time• Argue through writing that Fitzgerald’s style portrays a

theme that reflects the societal issues of his time

Prompt: Using The Great Gatsby as evidence, choose one of the AP prompts to analyze Fitzgerald’s social commentary about 1920s American society/culture.

OBJECTIVES

1987. Some novels and plays seem to advocate changes in social or political attitudes or in traditions. Choose such a novel or play and note briefly the particular attitudes or traditions that the author apparently wishes to modify. Then analyze the techniques the author uses to influence the reader’s or audience’s views. Avoid plot summary.

1991. Many plays and novels use contrasting places (for example, two countries, two cities or towns, two houses, or the land and the sea) to represent opposed forces or ideas that are central to the meaning of the work. Choose a novel or play that contrasts two such places. Write an essay explaining how the places differ, what each place represents, and how their contrast contributes to the meaning of the work.

1995. Writers often highlight the values of a culture or a society by using characters who are alienated from that culture or society because of gender, race, class, or creed. Choose a novel or a play in which such a character plays a significant role and show how that character’s alienation reveals the surrounding society’s assumptions or moral values.

1997. Novels and plays often include scenes of weddings, funerals, parties, and other social occasions. Such scenes may reveal the values of the characters and the society in which they live. Select a novel or play that includes such a scene and, in a focused essay, discuss the contribution the scene makes to the meaning of the work as a whole. You may choose a work from the list below

or another novel or play of literary merit.

2015. In literary works, cruelty often functions as a crucial motivation or a major social or political factor. Select a novel, play, or epic poem in which acts of cruelty are important to the theme. Then write a well-developed essay analyzing how cruelty functions in the work as a whole and what the cruelty reveals about the perpetrator and/or victim.

OxymoronAnalogyParadox

HyperboleEuphemism

SimileImagery

MetaphorOnomatopoeia

MetonymySynecdocheNon-sequiter

LIT TERMS FROM AP TEST

Irony – verbal, situational, dramaticFigurative Language

ChiasmusSynesthesia

AllusionApostrophe

SymbolPersonification

AllegoryEllipsis

AnecdoteLitotes

• Social Commentary Analysis Essay• AP Style Multiple Choice Exam• In-class FRQ• Symbolism Group Project• Socratic Seminars

ASSESSMENTS

A little background to start…

HISTORY

THE ROARING TWENTIES

• 1920's collectively known as the "Roaring 20's", or the "Jazz Age"

• In sum, a period of great change in American Society - modern America is born at this time

• For first time the census reflected an urban society - people had moved into cities to enjoy a higher standard of living

THE ROARING TWENTIES

• Economic expansion

• Assembly line• Mass production• The automobile• Ailing agriculture

THE ROARING TWENTIES

Agricultural Depression• World War I ends• Agricultural market declines• Efficiency increases and food prices plummet• Farmers lose help and farms

THE ROARING TWENTIES

Agricultural Depression

THE ROARING TWENTIES

Black America• Most in poverty – came back

to old homes after fighting in WWI

• Sharecropping in the south• Boll weevil destroys cotton• Landowners force laborers

to leave

THE ROARING TWENTIES

Black America• The Great Migration• Harlem Renaissance • Black culture flourished• Cultures still separated

THE ROARING TWENTIES

THE ROARING TWENTIES

Racial Tensions• Marcus Garvey –

Jamaican-born immigrant

• Black Pride • Back to Africa

THE ROARING TWENTIES

Racial Tensions• Ku Klux Klan –

Resurgence in worse form

• Biggest private group

• Lynchings rampant

REPUBLICAN POWER

• President Harding

• Elected 1920

• Legacy of Scandals

• Died in office

REPUBLICAN POWER

• “The chief business of the American people is business.”

• Laissez-faire government –free from taxes and restrictions

• Revenue Act 1924• No relief for famers

American Consumerism

THE ROARING TWENTIES

THE ROARING TWENTIES

Play time!

• Radio – programmed like TV today• Movies – Silent films and the “Talkies”

Celebrities

THE ROARING TWENTIES

The Jazz Age• Jazz - It don’t mean a thing, if it ain’t got

that swing!• Flappers – short skirts and public

intoxication• Writers – The Lost Generation/Expatriates

THE ROARING TWENTIES

Women’s Rights• Won the right to vote in 1919 – 19th

amendment• First voted in 1920• Shorter…everything! Hair, dresses, skirts• Education/work

THE ROARING TWENTIES

Prohibition• The 18th amendment –

adopted in 1919• Temperance movement

from WWI – (sobriety)• Difficult law to enforce –

Speakeasies, bootleggers, mob

• Al Capone • Ended in 1933 with the

21st Amendment

THE ROARING TWENTIES

Social Conflicts• “Give me your tired, your

poor. Your huddled masses…” – a thing of the past

• Anti-immigration laws• South and East Europeans

entering the States – new religions

• Nativism arose

THE ROARING TWENTIES

Social Conflicts• Scopes “Monkey Trial”• Dayton, Tennessee • Science vs. Religion• Evolution vs. Creationism

THE ROARING TWENTIES

Ultimately, the twenties were a time of great prosperity, excitement, and invention. It is romanticized often as the golden age. However, it was not without its conflicts and controversy. As with all eras in history, times are always

wrought with contradiction and calamity as much as celebration and progression.

As we read Fitzgerald’s Gatsby, remember the social constructs of the time. Consider why Fitzgerald writes the

characters as he does and how these influence our understanding of his time period. Use the historicist lens to

consider his commentary about his world.

THE ROARING TWENTIES

• Born September 24, 1896 – died December 21, 1940 (heart attack)• Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald• St. Paul, Minnesota (midwest)• Mother was Irish Catholic• Father furniture builder and salesman• Lived in New York and New Jersey during his childhood• Joined the army• Met Zelda (future wife) – she needed convincing• Wrote texts: This Side of Paradise, “Curious Case of Benjamin Button,”

The Beautiful and the Damned, The Great Gatsby, Tender is the Night

• http://www.biography.com/people/f-scott-fitzgerald-9296261#final-years

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD

Anticipating Style

1. If you were an author, what color(s) would you incorporate in a passage when trying to convey a feeling of freshness and possibly sterility?

2. What are three specific shades that convey wealth and luxury?

3. What effect is produced by incorporating wind into a scene?

4. What would you typically associate with the word “buoy” (boo-ee)?

5. How can someone, even if feebly, control nature?

6. What three adjectives would you use to describe the actual image of a wedding cake? (not its sentiments)

DIALECTICAL JOURNAL #1

• The questions you have just answered are directly related to the passage you are about to read.

• Read the passage once for comprehension.• Then write it down.

• What do you notice? (ONLY make observations – not judgments) Jot down what you notice Fitzgerald doing. For example: “He uses the color red to describe ____.”

GATSBY PASSAGE ANALYSIS

We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-colored space, fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end. The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding-cake ceiling, and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.

The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.

GATSBY PASSAGE ANALYSIS

Read it again, noting the similarities between your questions and the context of the text.

1. Next to your original responses, answer the questions now using the text.

a) If you were an author, what color(s) would you incorporate in a passage when trying to convey a feeling of freshness and possibly sterility?

b) What are three specific shades that convey wealth and luxury?

c) What effect is produced by incorporating wind into a scene?

d) What would you typically associate with the word “buoy” (boo-ee)?

e) How can someone, even if feebly, control nature?

f) What three adjectives would you use to describe the actual image of a wedding cake? (not its sentiments)

DIALECTICAL JOURNAL 1

Take out the Dialectical Journal entry from yesterday. In the next ten minutes, respond to the passage using the following elements to analyze Fitzgerald’s style.1. Literary devices – figurative language (similes,

metaphor, personification, hyperbole), onomatopoeia, polysyndeton, asyndeton

2. Symbols – what objects does the author focus on…what might these represent?

3. Words that stand out to you – look closely at the diction; what words do you not know? What words evoke an emotional response?

DIALECTICAL JOURNAL 1

Evaluation

1. What do you notice about Fitzgerald’s unique style?

2. What clues is Fitzgerald leaving us so that we may anticipate characters, plot points, mood, message?

DIALECTICAL JOURNAL 1

First-person POV – character tells the story from his/her perspectiveThird-person POV – omniscient, limited omniscient, objectiveSecond-person POV – often not used in fiction

What are the limitations and enhancements in using each of these perspectives in text?

CHAPTER 1POINT OF VIEW

First-person POV • Major Character – Huck in The Adventures of

Huckleberry Finn• Minor Character – Unnamed narrator in Heart of

Darkness• Reliability??? – To what extend do we trust our

narrator?• Narrator is a character – Whether first person or

not, it is an imaginative story-teller constructed by the author

CHAPTER 1POINT OF VIEW

Turn and learn:

Discuss with partners how much credence you give to Nick’s story at this point…what evidence led you to this conclusion?

Is Nick a major/minor character? Explain your reasoning.

CHAPTER 1POINT OF VIEW

• As we go forward in reading the text, how should we interpret Nick’s words?

• How much validity should we give him? • How much must we give him?

CHAPTER 1POINT OF VIEW

Setting – the context in which the action of a story occurs.Major elements:

1. Time2. Place3. Social Environment

Discuss each of these generally with a neighbor – share your responses to question one from last night’s homework.

CHAPTER 2 SETTING

Each group will be assigned one of the settings from the text. You will do the following:

- Find one or two significant quotes that capture the character of that setting

- Write in your own words what significance this place has on the text (Is it to contrast something? Foreshadow? Symbolize?)

1. West Egg and East Egg

2. Valley of Ashes

3. Gatsby’s house

4. The Buchanans’ house

5. Nick’s house

6. The New York apartment

CHAPTER 2SETTING

“This is a valley of ashes—a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of ash-gray men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air.… [And the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg] brood on over the solemn dumping ground.”

Turn and learn: What setting came just before this one? Why might Fitzgerald include this setting immediately following the last?

CHAPTER 2SETTING (PAGE 27)

Characterization – methods by which authors create people in a story so that they seem to exist. (speech, looks, personality, other characters, actions)

1) Protagonist/Antagonist2) Antihero3) Dynamic/Static4) Flat/round5) Stock 6) Foil

CHAPTERS 3CHARACTERIZATION

Plot – the author’s arrangement of incidents in a story. It is the organizing principle that controls the order of events.

1) Chronologicala. Expositionb. Rising Actionc. Climaxd. Falling Actione. Denouement

2) in medias res3) Flashback

CHAPTER 4 PLOT

Take out your questions from chapters 3 and 4 on character and plot – discuss your responses with a partner.

Be ready to share out!

CHAPTERS 3 AND 4PLOT AND

CHARACTERIZATION

First, write a 2-3 sentence summary of the plot of The Great Gatsby up to this point.

Choose a poignant (or confusing, or beautiful, or poetic) passage from your reading thus far. Copy this passage

exactly in your Dialectical Journal section of your journal. Then, closely analyze the details and strategies

that Fitzgerald uses in this passage to assist in your deeper understanding of the text. You can focus on plot, setting, character, POV, etc. or any combination of these.

The point is to discuss what Fitzgerald is doing in this section of the text. (Remember social commentary!)

DIALECTICAL JOURNAL 2

Symbol – a person, object, or event that suggests more than its literal meaning

a) conventional symbols (widely accepted and recognized)

b) literary symbol (setting, character, action, object, name – anything really)

c) allegory – single, fixed meaning

CHAPTER 5SYMBOL

Discuss last night’s questions with your table group – make sure to consider outside-of-the-box interpretations (remember: symbols can have more than one meaning)

Be prepared to share out!

CHAPTER 5SYMBOL

Style – the distinctive manner in which a writer arranges word to achieve particular effects.

- Individual word choices (diction)- Sentence lengths and structure

(syntax)- Tone

CHAPTER 6STYLE

Groups of four – share your sentences from last night’s homework

Choose ONE – write it EXACTLY as it is in the book on your newsprint in the middle, fairly large

CHAPTER 6STYLE

Silent Discussion - respond to various quotes

- What is the quote saying?- What does the quote signifying?- What choices is Fitzgerald making?

(Diction, conventions, syntax, tone, fig lang)

- What effect does Fitzgerald achieve?

CHAPTER 6STYLE

Theme – the central idea or meaning of a story; it provides a unifying point around which the plot, characters, setting, point of view, symbols, and other elements of a story are organized.

Bedford Reader – Read page 247-250 and jot down in your notes specific elements of theme and strategies to help you develop theme.

CHAPTER 7 THEME

With a partner:

Edit the theme you developed from last night’s homework for The Great Gatsby using the tips from page 249-250.

We will share out!

CHAPTER 7 THEME

Choose a selection from Chapter 8 or 9 in The Great Gatsby that stands out to you as the sentence/paragraph that encapsulates Fitzgerald’s message. Copy it exactly in your Dialectical Journal.

Analyze his style choices and explain their impacts on the theme he is portraying in the novel.

DIALECTICAL JOURNAL #3

To prepare for tomorrow’s seminar, you will be in groups of four and discuss the text The Great Gatsby. Things to consider:

- Point of view- Setting- Characterization- Plot- Symbolism- Style- How all of these contribute to THEME!

Then, each person should develop ONE inquiry to pose in the seminar tomorrow grounded in one of these topics.

SOCRATIC SEMINAR PREP

Goal: To deepen our understanding of

Fitzgerald’s complex text by analyzing the plot, character,

setting, POV, style so as to consider his social commentary on

1920s America.

SOCRATIC SEMINAR

The following were the statements with which you agreed or disagreed before we read this text…considering Fitzgerald’s text, how do you think he would respond?- Social hierarchy is a natural and necessary part

of a functioning society.- In some cases, infidelity in relationships is

acceptable.- The American Dream is corrupted by the desire

for wealth.- Attainment of a dream is often less satisfying

than the pursuit of it.- It is better to earn wealth than to be born into it.- In American society, it is more advantageous to

be attractive than educated.

SOCRATIC SEMINAR

Passage 1

1. B

2. C

3. A

4. D

5. D

6. B

7. A

AP PRACTICE EXAM

Passage 2

8. C

9. A

10. D

11. B

12. D

13. E

14. C

15. C

Passage 4 (12)

24. B

25. C

26. D

27. D

28. E

29. C

Passage 3

16. C

17. A

18. D

19. D

20. A

21. D

22. B

23. D