The Rough Crossing

F. Scott Fitzgerald
The Jazz Age or the Roaring Twenties:
after World War I – onset of the Great Depression (1929)

The lively, loose beat of jazz captured the carefree

spirit of the times. Louis Armstrong

The era’s social and cultural legacy lives on and still

influences American life today.
The Prohibition

The introduction of commercial radio

- experience vastly different styles of music without leaving home
- created a more standardized culture of similar tastes and references
- created celebrities by bringing national events into people’s homes,
e.g. Charles Lindbergh and Charlie Chaplin (most popular male film star)

The advent of the movie and the opening of theatres

- increased the spread of culture

The birth of jazz music

- from New Orleans, an early vehicle for the integration of some aspects
of African American culture into white society

Sports figures became heroes because they restored the belief in the
power of the individual to improve their life.
Young people in the 1920s, inspired by jazz, were the first generation of teenagers to rebel against their parents and their parents’ traditional culture.

New fads and fashions

The popular culture idolized young people and their taste for the new and startling.

African American trends were adopted first by white young people

and eventually by society at large, e.g. the Charleston, the fox-trot,
the jitterbug dances.

Mass culture also spread stereotypes on African Americans and

other ethnic groups.
The consumer culture had its beginnings in the Jazz Age.

Laboursaving appliances and shorter working hours gave

Americans more leisure time. Higher wages gave them money
to spend on leisure activities. People wanted more fun and
were willing to spend money to have it.

Mass manufacturing: the rise of readymade clothing in standard

sizes

Electrical appliances, the telephone, home phonograph records,

and cigarette smoking and cosmetic use

Advertising became far more visual and psychologically-based.

Americans also began shopping at chain stores and eating

more canned and frozen food.
Henry Ford had introduced the assembly line to automobile
production, allowing cars to be produced ever more quickly and
cheaply.
Ford cut automobile prices down to $290, which made cars
affordable
Ford also instituted a minimum wage, shortened the workday
to 8 hours, and reduced the work week from 6 days to 5 days.
Ford saw automobiles as functional, useful products.
In contrast to Ford's emphasis on efficiency in manufacturing, Alfred
Sloan, president of General Motors, introduced new concepts in
advertising and marketing.

‘The primary object of a corporation was to make money, not just

to make cars’

Sloan advertised his cars as symbols of luxury and wealth:

General Motors introduced yearly model changes so people would
feel compelled to buy new cars more often to keep up with the latest
automotive fashion.
Sloan also diversified his cars, presenting some as higher
status, luxury automobiles that were thus more desirable.
He opened the first consumer credit agency.
The women's suffrage movement gained steam in the 1920s as
women entered the work force after World War I and
gained the vote in 1920. Many men had died in the war,
leaving opportunities open to women.

The image of the flapper, with its associated notions of

equality and sexual freedom, allowed some women to live
more liberated lives.
Vast numbers of African Americans moved from the South to
the North, mainly to
cities, to escape from poverty and the hopeless life of tenant farming
or sharecropping. They were forced by local laws and customs to
settle in all-black neighbourhoods, where they swelled the labour
force in cities such as Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland, as well as New
York City.

Harlem in New York City became

the unofficial capital of black
American culture, a hotbed of
intellectuals, artists, and musicians.
The profound social changes brought about during the Jazz Age led
to divisions between rural, more traditional people and
those who belonged to the more worldly urban culture. They
also fostered divisions between younger and older generations.
Young people thought older people were hopelessly out of date;
older people were convinced that the young people were victims of
decayed morals, and they believed the United States was headed in
the wrong direction
For some artists and writers, the decade after the war was a time of despair as they
had seen the ideas of the Progressives end in a senseless war. They were filled with
resentment and saw little hope for the future. They were known as the Lost
Generation.

The Progressive Era (1896–1917) was a period in the US of widespread social

activism and political reform across the country that focused on defeating
corruption, monopoly, waste, and inefficiency. Progressives sought to address the
problems caused by rapid industrialization, urbanization, immigration, and
political corruption; and by the enormous concentration of industrial
ownership in monopolies. They were alarmed by the spread of slums, poverty,
and the exploitation of labour.

For many of the Lost Generation, Paris was the only place
that offered freedom and tolerance. It became a gathering
place for American expatriates, e.g. Ernest Hemingway.

Novelists F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sinclair Lewis

were 2 other members of the Lost Generation.
Fitzgerald and his wife, Zelda, lived the whirlwind
life of the Jazz Age – fast cars, nightclubs, wild
parties, and trips to Paris.
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (1896-1940) was an American
writer, best known for his novels depicting life in the US in the
1920s during
the Jazz Age. His first novel, This Side of Paradise (1920)
was a success and in 1922 he published his second novel,
The Young and the Beautiful, which also sold well. The
Great Gatsby (1925) is considered to be his finest work
and portrays the Jazz Age.
‘The Rough Crossing’ was published in the Saturday
Evening Post in 1929.
‘The Rough Crossing’ was published during the golden age of ocean liners. If a
civilian wanted to cross the Atlantic in the 1920s, they would embark on a liner,
which was the principal form of travel between the old and new continents.
Ocean liners had to be built robustly to manage all sorts of weather conditions,
and to travel fast. On the other hand, a cruise ship deliberately
avoids rough weather, and as such can be built
less robustly, with little focus on its speed.

Ocean liners had a tourist class system in place:

first, second, and third class (also known as
‘steerage’).

From 1920, all US registered ships counted as

an extension of US territory, making them ‘dry
ships’ according to the National Prohibition Act.
However, if the ship was not a US registered
ship, alcohol could be freely served.
The Story

Eva Smith and her husband Adrian Smith, a playwright, cross the
Atlantic abroad the Peter I Eudin. They are headed to Paris
together with their children. Little do they know that the crossing
shall be a turbulent one as the ship encounters a hurricane. As the
ship is jostled by the waves, so too is the relationship of the
married couple. Adrian Smith falls for the pretty eighteen-year-old
Elizabeth D’Amido (Betsy). Eva is pestered by Mr Butterworth,
who seems to be around to inebriate her. Eva demands a divorce
and on her way to the wireless room to contact her lawyer, she is
swept off her feet by a rogue wave. Mr Stacomb ensures that the
couple socialize, but as the ship makes it out of the hurricane,
battered but in one piece, so too their relationship survives.
Pathetic fallacy happens when
nature reflects the interiority of the
character/s
The opening passage instils the idea that a ship is a world unto itself, full of
people from different backgrounds who congregate onboard and are forced to live
together for some time. The ship is a frame of mind, and upon embarkation,
‘one is no longer so sure of anything’.

In the introduction, uncertainty is created by that diction that captures twilight,

e.g. the adjective ‘ghostly’, the vagueness in ’no longer here and not yet there’,
lights are a muted colour, again the undefined adjectives ‘hazy yellow’; the ’dim’
alley.
Sounds are muffled, e.g. ‘echoing voices’, ’rumble of trucks’, ‘chatter of a crane’;
adverbs ‘too confusedly’ fail to define the flurry of activity in the harbour;
‘one is no longer sure of anything’ captures that feeling of uncertainty that is typical
when one embarks on an adventure into the unknown. This is also seen in epithets
such as 'a ghostly country', 'mournful whistles’.

The unknown future is also depicted as a ‘glowing mouth on the side of the
ship’ adding to the mystery of what it holds in store.
Eva and Adrian are still in love after 7 years of marriage. Clearly, pre-
voyage, they have quarreled in the past but on petty things. Yet the
statement, ‘one is no longer so sure of anything’ applies to their
relationship too.
Ships are constructed to navigate the open waters and so too
must Eva’s and Adrian’s bond be tested.

Unlike Eva who insists that they keep to themselves and not mingle
with the rest of the passengers, Adrian is interested in the world
around him: ‘[h]is antennae were already out, feeling over this new
world’.
As the voyage progresses, the couple end up hanging out in the
lounge, playing tennis, and taking part in the fancy dance party. This
idea that on a ship one acts differently extends also to matters
of the heart.
The opening of the short story foreshadows the events that
will lead to the climax: Betsy’s presence intruding on the
couple’s privacy. She is described as young and very attractive: ‘a
dark little beauty’. Her eyes ‘linger’ when she catches sight of the
famous playwright.

Adrian will be greatly flattered by Betsy’s attention and her

confession of love. She will later threaten to destroy his marriage.
Eva can immediately sense that her husband’s attention is
elsewhere: ‘Yet even as he strained her against his side she knew
that the moment of utter isolation had passed almost before it had
begun’. While she makes promises to remain true to their
marriage and improve her attitude in their relationship, he is
barely aware of what she is saying to him.

Once Betsy has Adrian’s attention, Eva is quick to notice her

husband’s childish behaviour and will later confront him about his
comportment. His attitude in this passage foreshadows his
behaviour later in the story when instead of tending to his
wife’s needs, he seeks Betsy’s company.

The use of the third-person omniscient narrator allows the

reader to be aware of the characters’ thoughts and
emotions during the different parts of the crossing.
The story is an allegory, full of symbolic representations which
can be interpreted to reveal a hidden meaning. The ship may
represent their marriage, and the hurricane force storm
signals the trials and tribulations facing a couple who are
married. As the storm gains in intensity, so do the
problems facing Eva and Adrian.

The storm is a metaphor for the difficult pass at which Eva

and Adrian’s relationship (from Eva’s point of view, at least)
finds itself. In the text, the Smiths’ relationship is seen
worsening as the storm develops. Fittingly, perhaps, after it
has driven them apart, the storm is also the force which
‘bump[s]’ the couple together again on the night when Adrian
rescues his wife from it
Specific phases of the storm mirror specific stages of the couple’s
relationship.

At the start of the journey, Adrian and Eva keep to themselves, enjoying each other’s
company. On Tuesday afternoon, however, as the ship evinces ‘a little roll’, they go
into the packed smoking-room for champagne. Here, they fall in with a rowdy group
of younger people and Adrian accepts an invitation to participate in a deck-tennis
tournament the following day. This will be the beginning of his involvement with
another, younger woman, the frivolous Betsy D’Amido.
On the following day, after the tennis match, which leaves Eva feeling sick and
neglected, the ship goes into ‘a perceptible motion’ and soon ‘a steady pitch, toss,
roll had begun in earnest’. The ship’s ominous movements and the worsening of the
weather are reflected in Eva’s confused state of mind as she notices that her
husband is not only accepting Miss D’Amido’s advances but also encouraging them.
That afternoon, the storm is seen getting more violent. So is Betsy D’Amido’s
infatuation with Eva’s husband who asks him to ‘really kiss her’.
On Tuesday evening, the storm seems to have the effect of
distorting the relationship between Adrian and Eva further, as
they drift apart physically, Eva due to seasickness, and Adrian
because of his new adventure. As the gale rises ‘hour by hour’,
things and people on the ship start to be hurled around.

On Wednesday evening, Eva’s ‘feeling of unreality’ increases and,

with her mind already befuddled by seasickness and champagne,
her annoyance and grief start turning into anger and
despair.
Describing the storm:
There is a frequent use of verbs of movement, especially –ing verbs, to evoke
danger and urgency: ‘ran,’ ‘stumbling,’ ‘slipping,’ ‘making his way forward,’
‘pushing,’ ‘lunged,’ etc.
Verbs and word sequences are used to describe the violent actions of the
storm and the helplessness of the human beings to resist their destructive
might: ‘struck the boat a staggering blow,’ ‘he was thrown into a helpless roll,’ ‘to
bring up dizzy and bruised,’ ‘the wind blew him like a sail,’ ‘the wave broke with a
smashing roar,’ ‘sweeping with enormous force,’ ‘frantically he clutched it and was
swept with it back,’ etc.
Personification to depict the ship and the human beings on it as a species of toy
in the cruel and careless clutches of the capricious storm: ‘she keeled over,’ ‘a
gigantic, glittering white wave…it balanced there,’ ‘the ship rocked slowly back.’
The onomatopoeias used to describe the sounds made by the violent storm –
and the silent helplessness of the human beings trapped in it: ‘another shuddering
crash,’ ‘a smashing roar,’ ‘bump,’ ‘[h]is voice was soundless in the black storm.’
Eva finds solace in Butterworth’s companionship. He seems
intent on getting Eva drunk as he knows that drunk people lose
their inhibitions. Adrian, instead, pours his affections on Betsy.

Yet, as an ocean liner is made of robust material, able to

withstand the tumultuous Atlantic and the storms, so too
should be a marriage. If the union has a solid foundation, it will
come out intact.
The lifestyle enjoyed by the guests on an ocean liner squarely
rests on the hard work and preparation of the lower classes,
the ship’s crew. Stevedores, pursers, stewards, etc. and the rest of
the crew all operate unseen. It is only when something extraordinary
happens, such as finding a sick crew member in one’s cabin (Mr
Carton), that one becomes briefly aware of the crew’s existence.

The upper classes completely disregard the lower classes. Eva’s

distraught demeanour toward Mr Carton arises because of her
class. Prophetically, she says to her husband, ‘I wish he’d die’.
When Carson actually dies, she feels guilty.

Carton’s role may effectively be to highlight the class

discrepancies rampant in the 1920s.
Adrian Smith, a young writer, is portrayed as an extrovert, who
draws energy from being in company, and enjoys his
status. He loves his wife in his own way, but does not share her
depth of feeling, and is unlikely to remain faithful to her for long.
He continues to perceive and pursue a phantom of youth.

The husband’s selfishness and self-interest may be seen as typical

of the spouse who engages in extramarital affairs. He enjoys the
attention of ‘the pretty girl of the voyage’ and suddenly feels that
his youth has been rekindled: ‘he had discovered something
that he had thought was lost with his own youth forever’. He
refuses to think about his actions because he knows he is in
the wrong—in fact he ‘no longer dared think’. Soon he begins to
seek Betsy’s company and ignore his wife’s needs. In fact,
he becomes impatient with his wife and stays away from
the cabin even when she is unwell.
Eva also strikes the reader as rather selfish and impulsive in her own way. This is
especially evident when she rudely demands that Steward James Carton leave
her cabin when he appeared to be seasick. She also insults the medical
stewardess who tries to help her to bed the night she gets drunk. Yet her actions
are clearly a result of her keen sense of her husband’s diverted attention.
Quick to notice what is going on, Eva can be seen to turn to drink as a form of
escape. She finds some refuge in Butterworth’s flattering remarks and
enjoys his attention. She even blames herself for what has happened and
believes that she is being punished for ‘all the sins and omissions of her life’. It
is then that she flings her pearl necklace (significantly, her most prized possession)
into the ocean as a sign of atonement.

And yet the fact that she confronts her husband about the affair on more than one
occasion reveals that she stands her ground and refuses to accept his actions.
For Eva, her husband’s infidelity is ‘a breach of the contract’ that spells the end of
their 7-year marriage. She experiences a range of emotions in the process of
trying to come to terms with her husband’s behaviour: ‘annoyance changed
slowly to dark and brooding anger, grief to desperation’.
After she risks her life trying to get to the wireless room to contact a lawyer to file for
divorce, Eva decides to forget about the whole incident and start a fresh
Significantly, Adrian and Eva’s marriage is saved by a wave, a
wave which ‘wash[es]’ away their quarrel, ushering in a phase
of renewal for their relationship. This time of rebirth is reflected
in the good weather which, to everyone’s joy, reappears on
Thursday morning, enabling the voyagers to end their crossing on
a good note.