May Day (short story)

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Published in the July 1920 issue of The Smart Set.

"May Day" is a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald published in The Smart Set in the July 1920 issue. The story was included in the 1922 short story collection Tales of the Jazz Age.

It has been compared to J.D. Salinger's "A Perfect Day for Bananafish."[1]

Plot[]

The story uses the May Day Riots of 1919 as the historical backdrop. During these events, as the lower-class is fighting for certain causes, a group of privileged Yale alumni meet for a dance.

The May Day riots of 1919 erupted after a march of unionists and socialists protesting the conviction of Eugene Debs. Violence followed when police demanded that the marchers turn over their socialist flags. These riots took place in Cleveland, Ohio, while the setting for Fitzgerald's story is New York City.

The story opens with an influx of recently decommissioned World War I soldiers descending on New York. Gordon Sterrett is an army veteran on his way to the Biltmore Hotel to meet his friend from college, Philip Dean. Sterrett informs him that he needs to borrow money because he is unemployed and he is the victim of a blackmailing plot by a woman named Jewel Hudson. Sterrett needs $300 to pay off Jewel. He envisions pursuing a career as an artist. Dean, however, is not convinced, characterizing Sterrett as "bankrupt—morally as well as financially."

Dean invites Sterrett to breakfast where they discuss a Yale alumni dance hosted by the Gamma Psi fraternity. Dean pays for the breakfast and offers Sterrett $80. They agree to meet at the fraternity dance.

Two other demobilized soldiers, Carroll Key and Gus Rose, are introduced. Key and Rose are described as "ugly and ill-nourished." A Jewish man preaches on the street about the deleterious effects of the war before he is assaulted by a group of soldiers. The group increases in size, marching down Sixth Avenue toward Tenth Street. Key and Rose join the group but abandon it in search of booze. They travel to Delmonico's restaurant where Key's brother, George, works as a waiter. George takes them to a storeroom that is connected to the ballroom where the fraternity dance is taking place.

Edith Bradin, Sterrett's ex-girlfriend, is at the dance. She seeks to dump her date, Peter Himmel, and meet up with Sterrett. When she sees him, however, she is dismayed by his appearance. Himmel, realizing that Edith has lost interest in him, mingles with Key and Rose, who have joined the party and are intoxicated. Edith leaves the party to meet with her brother, Henry, a reporter, at the newspaper office. Jewel Hudson arrives at the dance looking for Sterrett. Sterrett informs her that he could not obtain the $300. They leave the party together.

At the newspaper office, Henry and his co-worker Bartholomew explain to Edith the violent nature of the conflict taking place on the streets. Though they are against war protesters and socialists, the soldiers "don't know what they want, or what they hate, or what they like." The group of soldiers, of which Key is a part, attacks the office. The reporters are called traitors. Key is thrown out of a window to his death. Henry's leg is broken.

Intoxicated members from the party go to Child's restaurant after the dance. This group, like Dean and Himmel, is made up of the wealthy. Rose is not. He learns that his friend Key has died. Jewel and Sterrett show up at the restaurant as chaos erupts. Unlike the group of soldiers, this gathering is made up of the well off. Himmel and Dean are thrown out of the restaurant for threatening a waiter and starting a food fight.

After "breakfast and liquor," Himmel and Dean return to the Biltmore after seeing Edith who does not want to speak with them.

Sterrett awakens intoxicated in a seedy hotel on Sixth Avenue. He learns that he and Jewel had gotten married the night before. He then leaves the hotel to purchase a gun and returns to his rented room on East Street. He shoots himself in the head and dies from the wound, with the blood spattering on his art supplies.

According to Fitzgerald, "May Day" was written to capture the "general hysteria...that inaugurated the Jazz Age."

History[]

May Day was sold directly to The 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.[2] 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.[3]

References[]

  1. ^ Smith, Dominic (2003). "Salinger's Nine Stories: Fifty Years Later". The Antioch Review. 61 (4): 639. doi:10.2307/4614550. ISSN 0003-5769.
  2. ^ May Day: An Introduction Archived 2010-03-27 at the Wayback Machine
  3. ^ Notes on F. Scott Fitzgerald and the Passing of the Great Race M Gidley - Journal of American Studies, 1973

Sources[]

  • Bruccoli, Matthew. Some Sort of Epic Grandeur: The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald. New York: Harcourt, 1981.
  • Fitzgerald, F. Scott and Matthew J. Bruccoli, ed. The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald. New York: Scribner's, 1989.
  • Fitzgerald, F. Scott and Matthew J. Bruccoli, ed. A Life in Letters: A New Collection Edited and Annotated by Matthew J. Bruccoli. New York: Scribner's, 1995.
  • Trumball, Andrew. Scott Fitzgerald. New York: Scribners, 1962.

External links[]

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