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Teresa Foster

Mrs. Benson

ENC1102

12, February 2010

The Society of the 1920’s in Fitzgerald’s Stories

The decade of the 1920’s was a decade filled with ups and downs in society and

government. World War I had just ended in1918, and the economy was beginning to show

improvement. There were multiple authors during this time period whom were considered

popular, with Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald being among the top of the list. Fitzgerald was a

novelist as well as a short story writer. He wrote five novels and a number of short stories. The

short stories titled, The Diamond as Big as the Ritz, and Babylon Revisited were both written in

the time period between 1920 and 1930. Although these stories are vastly different, they include

ideas of high spending, drinking alcohol, going to parties, and living a luxurious lifestyle that

represent the time period in which they were written.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s full name is Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald. He was born in 1896, and

died of a heart attack in December of 1940. Fitzgerald was married to Zelda Sayer, and together

they had one child, a daughter named Frances. Fitzgerald began publishing his stories in the

early 1920’s. Although he wrote a total of five novels, his most well known novel was titled The

Great Gatsby written in 1925.’The Great Gatsby was voted "one of the nation's 100 best-loved

novels" by the British public as part of the BBC's The Big Read, 2003’ (qtd. in F(rancis)).
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John T. Unger is the main character in the short story The Diamond as Big as the Ritz.

The story begins with John leaving his home in Hades to attend St. Midas’s highly regarded

preparatory school. He spends his school breaks visiting his friend’s wealthy families. During

John’s second year at school he meets Percy Washington. Percy and John become friends, and

Percy invites John to come home with him for the summer. As they are traveling Percy tells John

that his father has a diamond as big as the Ritz Hotel, and is by far the richest man in the world.

After a long ride the boys arrive at Percy’s stunning home that is built in a mountain that is

actually a huge diamond. Percy’s house and grounds are stunning, and contain luxuries that the

average person could never dream of having. These ideas of luxury that Fitzgerald describes can

be related to the growing economy in the 1920’s. After the war the economy was better than

ever, and there were many new inventions created such as the radio, cars, refrigerators, dish

washers and the washing machine (Boyer). “The 1920’s are often understood as a time of

economic abundance” (Glickman). The story describes the Washington’s dinner plates being

sculpted from diamonds. The economy in the 1920’s was experiencing an increase in salaries,

and people were spending much of their earnings, including Fitzgerald himself. It was known

that Fitzgerald did not live within his means. Fitzgerald certainly seemed to take the spending

increase in the 1920’s to a higher level in this story, but it does relate to the way people were

spending an abundance of money in this period in time.

When John is heading to school in the beginning of the story he mentions arriving in a

“Rolls-Peirce” motorcar. It seems that he was combining the Rolls Royce and Peirce-Arrow

luxury cars that were becoming very popular in that time period. “Advanced technology and old-

fashioned craftsmanship became keynotes of the 1920s. For people with enough money to buy

the finest cars available, these were golden years” (Georgano). Fitzgerald also describes Percy’s
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car that the boys are picked up in to get to Percy’s home. He describes the car as large and

magnificent, and the interior was decorated with silk, gold cloth, and jewels. Cars were

becoming very popular in the 1920’s, and with mass production the cost to purchase a car made

them much more available to the average person.

Another short story by Fitzgerald titled Babylon Revisited is set in the time period

following the collapse of the market known as the Great Depression. The story goes back and

forth between the late 1920’s and around 1931. The protagonist in this story is named Charlie

Wales, and he has returned to Paris to regain custody of his young daughter, Honoria. Fitzgerald

writes the story going back and forth between Charlie’s flawed past and the present where he is

trying make up for past mistakes. Charlie and his wife Helen spent their time and money

attending grand parties and drinking in the bars of Paris. In 1920 the 18th amendment of the

constitution was put in place which called for the elimination of alcohol sales and distribution in

the United States. This did not stop people from consuming alcohol; it was sold illegally to bars

and individual people. This obviously caused problems with many people breaking the law, and

the amendment was later replaced by the 21st amendment in 1933 which left the decision of

alcohol sales to each state (Prohibition). With all of this attention on alcohol in the 1920’s it is

easy to see why this would be such a large part of Fitzgerald’s story. Charlie’s wife and Lorraine

are mentioned in the story to be involved in the partying, and drinking with the gentlemen.

Women in the 1920’s also began drinking and smoking in public, which was a big change from

the previous years.

Babylon Revisited was based around the time period after the great depression, and also

goes back to the time before the depression occurred. The story discusses the character’s riches
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that were acquired in the 1920’s, and how he spent his money with no concern of losing it. As I

pointed out earlier in this essay people in the 1920’s were more carefree about their spending

habits because of the booming economy, and Fitzgerald brings those ideas into this story as well.

Charlie had apparently done well in the stock market and gained a great deal of money. “The

1920's saw a stock market boom in the U.S. as the result of general optimism: businessmen and

economists believed that the newly-born Federal Reserve would stabilize the economy, and that

the pace of technological progress guaranteed rapidly rising living standards and expanding

markets” (DeLong). After the great depression Charlie not only lost his money, but his wife and

daughter as well. When Charlie returns to Paris he wanders around to the different places he

would frequently visit during his days of drinking and partying. He realizes that nothing is the

same as it was when he was a part of that scene. After the depression there was a drastic change

in the way people spent their money. Most people had to come to a sobering reality that life was

going to be very different as did Charlie once he realized all that he had lost.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s two stories The Diamond as Big as the Ritz and Babylon Revisited

are exceptionally different stories in that one is highly imaginative and the other is realistic in

many ways. Even with their differences I am able to find similarities in the way they have ideas

that represent the society of their time. Fitzgerald’s stories portray the 1920’s as an exciting time

filled with new technologies, a changing society, and a booming economy.

 Work Cited

Bloom, Harold. "Plot Summary of "Babylon Revisited." Bloom's Major Short Story Writers:

ScottFitzgerald (1999): 53-55. Literary Reference Center Plus. EBSCO. Web. 12 Feb. 2010.

Boyer, Paul S.. "Household Technology." The Oxford Companion to United States History.

2001. Encyclopedia.com. 19 Feb. 2010 <http://www.encyclopedia.com>.

DeLong, J. Bradford. Slouching Towards Utopia?: The Economic History of the Twentieth

Century. February 1997. 12 February 2010

<http://econ161.berkeley.edu/TCEH/Slouch_Crash14.html>.

Fitzgerald, F.Scott. The Diamond as Big as the Ritz LitFinder Classic Collection. Detroit: Gale,

Literature resources from Gale.Gale. St.Petersburgh College,CCLA. 3 Feb 2010

<http://go.galegroup.com/ps/start.do?p=LitRG&u=lincclin_spjc>.

"F(rancis) Scott (Key) Fitzgerald." Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2004.

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Georgano, G.N. "Chapter 3: THE LUXURY CAR." Vintage Years 1920-1930. 71. US:

Mason Crest Publishers, 2003. History Reference Center. EBSCO. Web. 12 Feb. 2010.

Glickman, Lawrence B. "Rethinking Politics: Consumers and the Public Good during the "Jazz

Age." OAH Magazine of History 21.3 (2007): 16-20. History Reference Center. EBSCO.

Web. 12 Feb. 2010.

"Prohibition." West's Encyclopedia of American Law. 2005. Encyclopedia.com. 20 Feb. 2010

<http://www.encyclopedia.com>.