-born September 24, 1896 in St. Paul, MN
-Irish/ old American stock roots
-Enjoyed reading a children's book about small animals and large animals, and the author was clearly one sided and favored the larger animals
-larger animals represented high society individuals while the small ones symbolized the poor to middle class people
-he could really relate to the small fox in the story because of how the fox was mistreated and wasn't important
-believed he was a son of a king
-always wanted to improve in every way possible
-father lost his job
-his family had to live off of his mother's inheritance

-the "American Dream" for him is to do better than anyone else
-he wanted the "glittering" things for himself
-went to Princeton but was asked to leave because of his poor grades
-was highly drawn to the better things in life
-but, had distrust and animosity towards richer people
-found love with a woman named Zelda, later married her
-his story, "This Side of Paradise", signified a start of a career and marriage; start of a legend
-later wrote "The Beautiful and Damned"
-Fitzgerald was a true alcoholic but wrote his stories sober
-needed an escape from NYC so went to Europe and was influenced to write his greatest "masterpiece", "The Great Gatsby"

-prohibition: outlawed the production, transportation and sale of alcoholic beverages during the 1920's
-bootlegger: someone who smuggles alcohol
-flapper: a fashionable young woman intent on enjoying herself and flouting conventional standards of behavior
-nouveau riche: a pejorative term for one who has recently become rich and spends money conspicuously

-Fitzgerald wrote "The Great Gatsby" in between 1923-1924 but was published in 1925.
-he wanted to create something greater with his work
-Fitzgerald portrayed the 1920s as an era of the loss of social and moral values, evidenced in its overarching cynicism, greed, and empty pursuit of pleasure, which therefore caused the disintegration of the American dream in an era of groundbreaking prosperity and material excess.

-considered various names for the story including: "Among Ash-Heaps and Millionaires", "Trimalchio", and "On the Road to West Egg"

-"The Great Gatsby" received a lot of mixed reviews and poor reviews and didn't sell much at first.

-human aspiration to start over again
-social politics and the corruption behind it
-brutality and betrayal
- the prestigious "American Dream"
-justice, power and greed
-the injustices with different levels of social classes

-Ultimately, "the American Dream" is about freedom, equality, and fairness.
-In "The Great Gatsby" the American Dream plays a big role; in it you can see what happened to the American Dream during the 1920s. The values have extensively changed, instead of striving for equality, the characters within the story just want to get as rich as they could possibly get.