This thesis examines how F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novels reflect the images of American society and the American way of life in the 1920s or the "Jazz Age,” focusing on his biography as well as plots, themes, characters, and settings in his novels. It attempts to demonstrate that Fitzgerald's novels and American society in the “Jazz Age” are closely related in 3 ways: novels reflect society, society influences a writer and his work, and novels influence society. In this thesis, I argue that Fitzgerald incorporates incidents that occurred in the “Jazz Age” -- World War I, the progress of science, technology and industry, indulgence in drinking, eating, and going out for pleasure, ignorance of morality, and changes of youth's behavior -- as well as his biography, his family, and the lives of acquaintances into his literary works. His works are the products of his imagination and his sagacious employment of plots, themes, characters and settings. Fitzgerald’s novels reflect problems in American society in the “Jazz Age," which he sees as being caused by materialism. In his novels, Fitzgerald tries to convey that an emphasis on wealth and an ignorance of moral and spiritual values induced the Americans to lead an amoral and purposeless life. Fitzgerald also suggests that people in the "Jazz Age" attempt to find their own identity that was independent of society’s materialistic values.
