F. Scott Fitzgerald's elite syncopations: The racial make-up of the entertainer in the early fiction

F. Scott Fitzgerald's earlier work harbours the racial meaning of his major fiction. From the outset of his career, and in response to his own overnig ht popularity, Fitzgerald critically engaged the notion of "whiteness" by r epresenting as irresistible the allure of a darker, melting-pot America. "W hiteness", however, also grounder Fitzgerald's resistance to the role of co mmodified entertainer and the licentiousness of the jazz age. Thus, while F itzgerald's celebration of modern times necessitated a critical view of whi te supremacy, his moralistic denunciation of it depended on an elegiac evoc ation of an older world where racial boundaries were more firmly in place.