The American Modern Era 1920s in Fitzgerald's Selected Short Stories = The American Modern Era 1920s in Fitzgerald's Selected Short Stories

This study aims to identify the modern conditions of the American era as depicted in the characters in the two short stories The Jelly Bean and The Rich Boy. The writer identifies some of the effects of the progress of the modern era on the young generation in the 1920s depicted in the two short stories.
In conducting this research, the writer used the genetic structuralism approach by Lucien Goldmann to analyze intrinsic elements, namely character, plot, setting, and theme. In addition, this approach also analyzes extrinsic elements that include the conditions of the modern era that occurred in society, especially the younger generation at that time. The object of this research were the short story The Jelly Bean (1922) and The Rich Boy (1926) by Francis Scott Fitzgerald. The writer also used qualitative method research that explains the depiction of the modern era at that time.
Based on the research, the results of the research analysis of this thesis show that the characters Jim Powell, Nancy Lamar, Anson Hunter, and Paula Legendre portray themselves as people who live in the Modern Era. Then, the writer discovered American social conditions in the modern era depicted in the short stories The Jelly-bean and The Rich Boy, namely alcoholism, flappers, and speakeasies. Alcoholism at that current time was rampant even though there was a ban on the circulation of alcohol which was reflected in the characters of Anson and Nancy, who always went to nightclubs to enjoy alcohol until they got drunk. The author also finds the character of Nancy Lamar, the girl in the club, Dolly Karger, who styled and behaved as an illustration of the flapper that emerged due to the granting of rights for women in the 1920s. And the last one is Speakeasies, where nightclubs are used to find pleasure and illegal drinks are represented in both short stories that they often go to nightclubs to have parties and get drunk.

Keywords : Modern Era, The Jelly-bean, The Rich Boy, Fitzgerald