How does Fitzgerald use Jazz of the 1920s to enhance his novel The Great Gatsby?
F. Scott Fitzgerald was born in Minnesota, to the daughter of a millionaire. From his mother, Fitzgerald inherited the aspiration that any young American could achieve their dream through hard work. From his father, Fitzgerald inherited the propensity for failure (Reynolds 860). Fitzgerald married above his social standing, a Southerner by the name of Zelda Sayre, in 1920. The Great Gatsby was set in the 1920s, a symbol of a nation of change for many, from a state of post-war nervousness and shock, to the path to a realisation of the American Dream. Like The Great Gatsby, the Fitzgeralds’ existence during the 1920s was one of flair and extravagance, of excess spending, riotous parties, and the company of the elite. Writing in 1931, Fitzgerald described how the Jazz Age “bore him up, flattered him and gave him more money than he could dream of” – simply for his recollection and vigorous literary realisation of the “nervous energy stored up and unexpended in the War” (Jo Tate 64) in his
