The twenties, also known by some as the "Jazz Age", were the time for experiments and discovering new jazz-styles. In that period of growing industrialization black people and new-Orleans-musicians moved from the country site south to Chicago. There they helped creating the (white) Chicago-Style. Lots of Chicago musicians finally moved to New York, which was an important centre of jazz, too.
Jazz bands started the musical revolution using for the first time the saxophone. It has been known to provoke close intimate dancing and many people were shocked by the loud and extraordinary sound of the sax (which happens to sound like sex).That’s why older people blamed jazz to be a bad influence on the younger generation. They began to rebel and refuse to follow the moral traditions.
With the help of national radio, the barely known new jazz sound spread quickly over America, and found many supporters. Lots of important clubs, or speakeasies (illegal pubs), helped jazz bands to get famous and featured their songs. Jazz often got connected with alcohol, intimate dancing and “other socially questionable activities”.
In New York the Jazz Age was a time where hardly anybody worried about money. “It was in such a profusion around you.” and prodigality belonged to everybody’s life-style. This is also a reason for the hospitality that was indispensable for all the parties that were given. To throw a party is not a cheap affair and so stinginess was very unpopular and supposed to be unfriendly.
Gatsby’s parties are typical for this time period. On his extravagant festivities “charm, notoriety [and] mere good manners weighted more than money as a social asset.” Proofs for this statement can be in all the gossip about Gatsby that is talked by his guests. Interesting at this point is that most of his guests do not even know him and spread rumors about him all the same. That’s how he got his notoriety: “I‘ll bet he killed a man.” The good manners are reflected by gentlemen who always offer a helpful hand to charming ladies.
At Gatsby’s parties “people were not invited – they went there […] came for the party with a simplicity of heart that was its own ticket of admission.” For this spontaneous society Gatsby’s huge “party lawn” is an amusement park, a place animated with chatter and laughter where “casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot” are on the agenda. Since these parties are very large, there is time for privacy when anybody wants it and time for intimate moments without anybody realizing.
While reading Nick Carraway’s descriptions of Gatsby’s garden and all the decorations that are put up for the party, it seems a little exaggerated: “Several hundred feet of canvas and enough colored lights to make a Christmas tree out of Gatsby’s enormous garden” are hung up so that “the halls and salons and verandas are gaudy with primary colors”. Also, Gatsby does not save any money with the food. Each evening a great buffet table with glistening hors-d’oeuvre, turkey, ham, salads and pastry pigs waits for his guests. Once a week five crates of oranges and lemons are delivered to impress his visitors with fresh fruits. Despite Prohibition alcohol is poured out.
The way the people dress during this jazz age period is also very interesting. Their hair is “shorn in strange new ways” and around the women’s necks are “shawls beyond the dreams of Castile”. They wear “golden and silver slippers” and the best example is Gatsby “in a white flannel suit, silver shirt, and gold-colored tie” himself.
Moreover, Gatsby’s guests are, of course, entertained by cocktail music played by a typical jazz orchestra consisting of oboes, trombones, saxophones, viols, cornets and piccolos, low and high drums. They know how to play popular jazz songs, for example the “neat, sad little waltz of that year” “Three O’Clock in the Morning” or W.C.Handy’s (1873-1958) “Beale Street Blues”, a famous jazz blues melody. Another song that is played is Vladimir Tostoff’s “Jazz History of the World”.
Virtues and Morality in the Jazz Age
Virtues and morality were not held particularly highly during the Jazz Age. False and corrupted values were present at this time and can be found in the novel:
“The American public not only embraced customs that fell outside the arm of the law, but it also admired figures who lived without restraint. One such character is Gatsby, who flaunts the law with his business dealings and socializes with seemingly endless funds. Gatsby is tied to possibly shady dealings throughout the course of the novel. He repeatedly takes mysterious phone calls and steps aside for private, undisclosed conversations” (Fitzgerald, “The Great” 151).
It is apparent that this devious type was also admired in real life:
“Real-life personalities were highly esteemed for their alleged bootlegging under Prohibition... At the onset of Prohibition, a bootlegging industry flourished from the start, and drinking became more in vogue than ever. Upper-class citizens gained prestige by offering outlawed alcohol to their house guests and by taking friends to popular speakeasies” (Fitzgerald, “The Great” 151).
However, although this way of life may have been accepted and even prized at the time, Fitzgerald does not show it to have positive effects. “Fitzgerald’s novel, however, does not appear to champion this lifestyle, for Gatsby dies without a genuine friend” (Fitzgerald, “The Great” 151).
Materialism in the Jazz Age and The Great Gatsby
Another theme prevalent in the Jazz Age was a tendency towards materialism. In The Great Gatsby, characters are superficial and materialistic.
For example, Daisy Buchanan is very affected by the mere presence of shirts. “Suddenly with a strained sound Daisy bent her head into the shirts and began to cry stormily. ‘They’re such beautiful shirts,’ she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. ‘It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such—such beautiful shirts before’” (Fitzgerald 98). Clearly, Daisy is infected with materialism.
Other emphasis on objects and money can easily be found. “Every Friday five crates of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruiterer in New York – every Monday these same oranges and lemons left his backdoor in a pyramid of pulpless halves” (Fitzgerald 43).
These pulpless halves can also be seen as a metaphor for the guests themselves. These fruit shells are compared to the guests, soulless people preoccupied with appearance and material goods.
The effect that image and money have on people can also easily be seen in the movie The Great Gatsby; for example, Daisy’s reaction to Gatsby’s mansion. It is readily apparent that materialism, central to the Jazz Age, is incorporated into The Great Gatsby.
Disillusionment in The Great Gatsby
False values and excess materialism eventually combined to create a third element essential in The Great Gatsby: disillusionment. After the glamour and sparkle and thrill fades, is disillusionment: “Finally... comes disillusionment: the inner life of dreams loses its power, and they find themselves alone in the emptiness of a purely material universe” (Way 171).
In the novel, not all of the characters are aware of their disillusionment; however, they all are affected. For example, while Gatsby never lets go of his dream, he is still a clear victim of disillusionment.
The complete aloneness that results from disillusionment is underlined in The Great Gatsby when Gatsby, surrounded in life by the crowds at his parties, his shady business accomplices, and numerous other people with whom he has connections with, has no friends to attend his funeral:
“The minister glanced several times at his watch so I took him aside and asked him to wait half an hour. But it wasn’t any use. Nobody came.” (Fitzgerald 182). America also eventually became disillusioned with the American dream after the glory and glitter of the Jazz Age evaporated.
http://classiclit.about.com/od/greatgatsbythe/a/aa_g
