Modernism and Gatsby
The Great Gatsby
Literary terms to know and apply:
Symbol
Allusion
Motif
Image
Foreshadowing
1st Person Narrator
Connotation
Denotation
Analogy
In Class Journal Prompts:
Journal 1: How would you define "the American Dream"? Is it corrupted by the desire for wealth? What means are used to attain it? Does the gap between the rich and poor seem too great to you, and why? How does today's version of the American Dream differ from the original?
Journal 2: Are outward appearances deceptive? Give examples from your/our life. How are we too concerned with outward appearance? Is what you and we value in America empty or substantial? How much would a significant other's money or looks matter to you, or most other people?
Journal 3: Does our fascination with scandal, gossip, rumor, and celebrity lifestyles affect our behavior? Does it encourage scandalous behavior among us? Examples? Do you read gossip magazines or watch gossip television or trash reality television? (TMZ, The Soup, Snookie and Jersey Shore) What does it say about us that we have these options in the first place?
Journal 4: Does wealth cause carelessness, as with the Buchanans (see pg. 63)? Or are wealthy people usually generous and sensitive to others? Examples? If you become wealthy, what will you do for others?
Journal 5: Why might pursuing a dream or goal be more satisfying than actually achieving it? Like Gatsby (pg. 101), have you ever become blindly obsessed with a goal (money, soul mate, vehicle, group membership, G.P.A.,etc)? Were the results destructive for anyone? Explain with examples.
Journal 6: Would you have attended Gatsby's funeral? Was he "great" enough, after all? Should family members of criminals honor them by attending their funerals? Support with specific reasons.
About the author...F. Scott Fitzgerald
READ THIS! This is a thorough and brief biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald from the University of South Carolina. Notice the similarities between Gatsby and Fitzgerald's life...
http://www.sc.edu/fitzgerald/biography.html
Images of the Modern Age
In-Class 1: The Modern Age begins as the Industrial Revolution hits full stride in America in the early 1900s especially with the outbreak of the Great War (WWI) in 1914 which shocked and saddened the world with its barbaric violence and loss of life - all made possible by the war inventions of the new "modern" world.
This video is actual footage of the Battle of the Somme in France. In this battle alone over 1/2 million men are wounded or killed.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Tv5gBa9DQs
In-Class 2: a decent, brief video by a high school student that covers art music and literature...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJYDcBOfw2A
good for the music of the 1920s...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3uR6gVC0DL0&feature=related
In-Class 4: Great look at NYC in the 1920s, plays on the silent film ideas of the time...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkqz3lpUBp0&feature=related
In-Class 3: good remix to many images of the 1920s...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDkZsZ2joYc&feature=related
If you like art, this is a good slideshow of Modern American Art that transcends the 1920s...
http://www.slideshare.net/MrG/art-of-the-1920s-presentation
Silent film star, Charlie Chaplin, uses his famous physical humor to comment or reflect modern society's discomfort with the machine age and the alienation of man within it in his famous film, Modern Times. Take note of how Chaplin "interacts" and depicts the Modern Age of machines. How does Chaplin illustrate his purpose in the film?
It's only 8 minutes...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTfs8Qqj-Ig
Some important dates of the early Modern Era:
November 1888: Kaiser Wilhelm II becomes ruler of Germany and begins Germany's movement forward as a world power(An allusion is made to the Kaiser in Gatsby. You should research him.)
July 28, 1914: Start of World War I
November 11, 1918: End of World War I (Armistice Day)
August 26, 1920: 19th Amendment was ratified giving women the right to vote. This was the culmination of the Women's Suffrage Movement.
1920 to 1933: Prohibition in the United States was a nationwide constitutional ban on the sale, production, importation, and transportation of alcoholic beverages.
October 1917-1921: Bolshevik Revolution in Russia (also known as Red October) seating the Socialists in power (Lenin and Trotsky) and leading to Fascist rule in Soviet Russia.
1924-1925: Adolph Hitler is imprisoned for sedition and writes Mein Kampf
October 24, 1929: Black Tuesday - The beginning of the Great Depression
1933: Hitler named Chancellor of Germany
Sept. 1, 1939: World War II begins as Germany invades Poland.
1941: America enters World War II; usually seen as the end of the Great Depression as the war effort bolsters the economy and puts America back to work.
August 15, 1945: End of World War II; For many, this signals the end of the Modern Era.
General Tenets of Modern Literature: (With thanks to Dr. Paul Maltby and Dr Tim Newcomb of West Chester University, PA)
1. Modernist literature is marked by a presentation of experience as layered, allusive, discontinuous, and uses, to these ends, fragmentation and juxtaposition, motif, symbol, allusion.
2. The (re)presentation of inner (psychological) reality, including the 'flow' of experience, through NEW literary devices such as stream of consciousness.
3. Modernist literature attempted to introduce concepts such as disjointed timelines. Meaning that they break up story narratives to reflect the way we relate back and forth to our past and present
4. In fact, "a common motif in Modernist fiction is that of an alienated individual--a dysfunctional individual trying in vain to make sense of a predominantly urban and fragmented society." These characters are often “uncomfortable or lost” in the world in which they live, and are unable to re-insert themselves into a meaningful existence.
5. Modernism as a literary movement is seen, in large part, as a reaction to the emergence of city life as a central force in society. The modern city was now being built, eg. Skyscrapers. Its imposing nature began to “swallow up” people making us feel “small” in a world where we used to be much more influential.
Some characteristics found in Modernistic works:
1. Alienation from Society and Loneliness – meaning characters seem to be alone in their world and are sometimes attempting to “rejoin” a society that may not have a place for them.
2. Procrastination/An inability to act – means that often, modern characters can’t seem to make relevant positive changes in their lives, because what they see in this new reality is strange and difficult to define – also they may have traits that prevent them from “acting” or “making change” in their own lives.
3. Agonized recollection of the Past-constant flashbacks into the past – means that characters are often haunted by their past which prevents them from fully being able to exist in their present.
4. Fear of death and the Appearance of Death – Dark negative themes, and the spector or constant fear of death in a modern world that seems to have created more death than we’ve ever known. Also can show itself by the idea that machines and industry can consume people, that humans are disposable in a new industrialized society.
5. Inability to feel or express Love – coupled with alienation, in a world that seems so dark and ominous, these characters seem to be unable to experience deep feelings of love or acceptance because the very nature of relationships began to be redefined by a new psychological perspective.
6. World as a Wasteland: poor Environmental portrayal – dark, troubling settings, often industrialized, point to a world bent on destroying itself through production without moral value.
7. See Man creating his own myths within his mind to fall back upon – means that the ways in which we thought about salvation and a loving accepting God has begun to evaporate due to the cruelties and ironies of war. What God would let this happen?
Major literary themes emerging in the period:
1. violence and alienation – war is prominent, characters may be very violent in the way they react to a changing world or the setting in which they live may be violent and unaccepting.
2. decadence and decay – absent of a moral compass in a modern world (think war and massive death), characters may be indulgent in the desires of the self for self-gain both emotionally/pschologically and economically. Also, cities, while new and developing, were not pretty places and this forces us to examine how our previous understandings about society and self had begun to decay.
3. loss and despair – the lives we had known, and the methods of existing we were sure of as a people had evaporated and shifted so radically that many were unable to regain a foothold in this new and confusing world. Thus, modern characters are seen as struggling for identity, love, and belonging.
4. rejection of history – Means that the way we usually use history to guide our present or inform us of future decisions was no longer viable in such a new, different, ironic, and challenging world. Also, artists and writers decided that the way we used to express ourselves could no longer be used because those methods were insufficient in describing this new world.
5. race relations – means conflicts between races for power and identity begins to take center stage.
6. unavoidable change – means that these characters (us/we) were swept up in change they couldn’t control, which also supports and extends the way we were alienated in this new, modern world.
7. sense of place, local color – settings become more specific and “real” showing the troubling realities of life. Nothing was romanticized! Mostly gone are the pastoral settings of the countryside and their comforting, nurturing elements.