F Scott Fitzgerald

May Day Illustrated F Scott Fitzgerald

May Day was sold directly to Smart Set before Fitzgerald had a literary agent (later Harold Ober). It is noted that Fitzgerald based some of the events on those he experienced in New York City.[1] The city is detailed as both a source of unfathomable creative inspiration and horrid realities. The story is noteworthy for its length, the familiar themes of lost youth and wealth as well as two distinct yet interrelated plots. All were aspects Fitzgerald would revisit throughout his literary career. Fitzgerald described the story as illustrating a "general hysteria...that inaugurated the Jazz Age..."During the story a Jewish man is beat up by a crowd as he expounds socialist rhetoric. Fitzgerald, however, was not an anti-semite, and his characterizing of the Jewish man can be seen as a commentary of the brutality of the crowd contrasted with the man's wit and fervor