The Great Gatsby By F. Scott Fitzgerald - 2105 Words

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald takes place in New York in the 1920’s and focuses on life during the Roaring Twenties. This time period can also be referred to as the Jazz Age, where music was highly influenced and â€Å"’jazzing’ the classics was an issue thought to be a sign of the â€Å"creeping vulgarization of culture† (Mansell 5). The jazz age began after World War 1 and ended at the beginning of the Great Depression in the 1930’s. This is the era of dancing, drinking, and spending. People were partying and acting immoral. Spouses had affairs, women known as â€Å"flappers† flaunted their bodies, and everything was about status and money. F. Scott Fitzgerald began writing as the twenties were beginning to roar. Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great†¦show more content†¦The author is well-known for dating his scenes â€Å"by putting in them specific details his readers would associate with a particular year† (Mans ell 3). Examples of contemporary music in The Great Gatsby include pieces by Paul Whiteman, Fats Waller, and Van Schenck. â€Å"In The Great Gatsby, the orchestras in Daisy’s Louisville are said to set ‘the rhythm of the year’ like the ‘Beale Street Blues’—the year 1918 and ‘Three O’Clock in the Morning’, played at one of Gatsby’s parties—the year 1922† (Mansell 3). Gatsby also used examples in his other novels such as This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, and The Diamond as Big as the Ritz. Even the orchestra in The Great Gatsby reflects on the theme in the novel as the vulgarization of European culture by the way they â€Å"looked at one another and smiled as though this [playing classical music as jazz] was†¦ a little below them† (Fitzgerald 42). The orchestra also plays a role in setting the mood for people at the party. As they finished playing Vladimir Tostoff’s â⠂¬Å"Jazz History of the World†, Nick states â€Å"girls were putting their heads on men’s shoulders in a puppyish way, girls were swooning backward playfully into men’s arms†¦Ã¢â‚¬  (Fitzgerald 50), insinuating that the music made the women vulnerable and increased their need for comfort. The effect of jazz music is also shown when a young woman begins