The Connection Between Events in Scott Fitzgerald's Life with Situations in The Great Gatsby - Assignment Example

Matthew Flower  Mr.Kester Comp 2 11/22/11 Connect events in F. Scott Fitzgeralds life with situations and events in The Great Gatsby    Francis ScottKey Fitzgerald, the literary legend of America was a person who dreamt big and was facilitated by the progressive American society in climbing his ladder from rags to riches at a very early stage of his life. His life is also a clear portrait of the emotional upheavals and stress a person suffers in order to maintain the heights achieved so early in life. Born of an American father Mr. Edward Fitzgerald and an Irish mother Ms Mollie Fitzgerald in 1896, he led a comfortable childhood. Although his father lost his job when Fitzgerald was twelve years old but the inheritance of his mother was enough to maintain the family’s status and comforts. He was sent to the Newman School in New Jersey in 1911. Father Sigourney Fay in this school recognized his literary talents and encouraged him to work for distinctive achievements in life. The guidance provided by Father Fay proved to be the foundation of his scholarly accomplishments later in life. For receiving college education he was sent to the prestigious Princeton University. He was fascinated by the aristocracy and the royal charm of this place. Here, he took great pride in his literary pursuits but he was not attentive and serious towards his academic studies. He contributed regularly to the Princeton Tiger humor magazine and also composed lyrics for the Princeton Triangle Club. Fitzgerald joined the army in 1917 as he was convinced that he will not be able to graduate. He continued to nurture his intellectual interests. He wrote his first novel ‘The Romantic Egotist’ this year only. The novel was rejected by the Charles Scribner’s Sons but interestingly they praised the novel’s originality. The writer in him got the impetus to work harder on it. Meanwhile he was commissioned at Camp Sheridan which was located near Alabama. He was a young lad at this juncture of life who fell in love for Zelda Sayre who was a celebrated belle. He was discharged by the Army in 1919 and went to New York to try his luck in advertisement business as his love Zelda was not happy with his small earnings. He was also ambitious for achieving distinguished success in life and in his efforts to achieve this he re-wrote his novel but it was rejected for the second time by the Scribners. He was not successful in his advertising venture as well. Unwilling to continue with him Zelda broke her engagement with him. Disappointed he returned from New York in 1919 and decided to re-write his novel. He has titled it this time as ‘This side of the paradise’ and sent it once again to Scribners. The editor Maxwell Perkins selected it. The publication of this novel in 1920 proved to be a windfall for him. Its huge success gave celebrity status overnight to twenty four years old Fitzgerald. Interestingly critics trace his mesmerism of Princeton days as well as the broken heart of a young lover in this masterpiece. This early distinctive success in his life brought material fortunes for him as well. Soon after the publication of this novel he became one of the highly paid writers of America. He started living life king size. His infatuation with Zelda compelled him to forget her money minded attitude and he married her at this point as now he could lead an extravagant and lavish lifestyle with her and shifted to New York. For Fitzgerald couple, life blossomed into a bed of roses. They were also blessed by their only child Frances Scott Fitzgerald in October 1921. Fitzgerald was writing professionally short stories and plays as well to supplement his income. ‘Flappers and Philosophers’ and ‘Tales of the Jazz Age’ are his wonderful collection of short stories. He wrote his second novel ‘The Beautiful and Damned’ during this time. At this point he was living a life beyond his means expecting further successes as a writer. In this process, he came under heavy debts. Incidentally, his work of political satire ‘From President to Postman’ failed to get public response in 1923. With this his dreams of affluence abruptly ended. Unable to cope up with the unexpected downfall he drowned himself in regular heavy doses of liquor. “Fitzgerald generated his own legends. His life overshadows his work as he has become an archetypal figure…..prince charming, the drunken writer, the ruined novelist, the spoiled genius, the personification of the Jazz Age, the sacrificial victim of depression” (Bruccoli 81). In order to get calm and piece away from public life, Fitzgerald moved to France in 1924. Here he wrote another master piece ‘The Great Gatsby’. Under this stressful stretch of his life, he was trying to cope up and was working hard to regain his celebrity life style but sadly his wife Zelda was not on his side during this crisis. Their marriage could not sustain the rough weathers as Zelda involved herself in an affair with a French naval officer. Somehow Fitzgerald moved to Rome with Zelda. Here he revised his work. The Great Gatsby was published in April 1925. Although, he received praise by critics on his mature and advanced writing style but the sales figures of the novel were poor. His dreams were shattered. He remained there in France till 1926 and then moved back to America. He was writing his fourth novel titled ‘The Boy who killed his mother’ but was not able to complete it as by this time. To sustain the family expenditures, Zelda started taking ballet training. Both of them returned to France in 1929 where Zelda’s hard work of ballet training damaged her health. She suffered from a mental breakdown and was sent for treatment to Switzerland in 1931. The sour marriage as well as the steep fall from high pedestal of affluent life left deep scars on the psyche of both of them. Mentally unstable Zelda spent most of her life in different mental asylums. Fitzgerald also shifted to Hollywood where he tried his luck in writing stories for films. The life of this finest writer ended abruptly when he died of a massive heart attack in 1940 at the residence of his lady friend Sheilah Graham. His last and incomplete literary piece was ‘The Last Tycoon’. ‘The Great Gatsby’ appears on the surface the story of disillusion in a marriage but the story presents a much bigger canvas of the jazz age of America where people are ambitious and in their pursuit to achieve more and more material success they relaxed their moral values. “The Great Gatsby does combine the lyrical sensitivity of Keats and the fictive model of Conrad, and makes of so odd a blending a uniquely American story, certainly a candidate for the American story of its time” (Bloom 2006). Critics say that it resembles Fitzgerald’s own life at many places. In his own life, he was enchanted with wealth and Gatsby, the protagonist of the novel resembles him in his extravagantly luxurious life style. “In their early married life, the Fitzgeralds seemed to embody the new Jazz age” (Kathleen 87). Fitzgerald was an obsessed lover. Under the influence of his infatuation with Zelda, he could not apply his brains. She broke their engagement only because she was not happy with his meager earnings. This was a dangerous trait which proved to be fatal for their marriage. But captivated by her physical charms he failed to notice it and married her right after his first success. In the novel ‘The Great Gatsby’, very much like Zelda, Daisy gives more importance to wealth over anything else in life. “Fitzgerald delineates her with by associations with wealth, excitement, mystery, romance. It is daisy’s voice that fills the novel, a thrilling voice of promise, possibility, unexpected joy; for Nick it is an indiscreet voice , but for Gatsby, as we later learn, ‘Her voice is full of money” (Prigozy 98). Gatsby with a meager salary in the capacity of a military officer is madly in love with Daisy and tries to impress her by even telling lies about his background. Like Zelda Fitzgerald, Daisy promises to wait for Gatsby but returning after the war he finds that she married Tom Buchanan who belonged to an aristocratic and rich background. Ignoring this deceitful behavior, Gatsby engaged him in amassing huge wealth even by criminal activities and tries to win her back by exhibiting his luxurious life style. Nick Caraway, the narrator of the novel also resembles Fitzgerald some times. In his school days under the guidance of Father Sigourney Fay, Fitzgerald learnt to make efforts to carve out a distinctive place in society with the help of his literary talents. Nick also is a character possessing good moral values. Nick was educated at Yale, one of the prestigious universities of America just like Fitzgerald was sent to Princeton. The whole novel is narrated by Nick’s perception. Nick rates the America of 1920s as an age of extreme ambitions and decayed moral values. Although later in life Fitzgerald aped this America but he himself christens this time as the Jazz Age when everybody is engaged in amassing more and more wealth by any means. Fitzgerald was a loyal heart for his love Zelda. The character of Gatsby matches him in his loyalty towards Daisy. Gatsby takes the blame for killing Myrtle Wilson despite the fact that Daisy was driving the car and was responsible for Wilson’s death. Although this novel was not Fitzgerald’s last work but it is a great coincidence that there were very few persons who were willing to attend his funeral, a situation very similar to the funeral of Gatsby. In his real life also his son, his editor and a few counted people attended Fitzgerald’s funeral. By a thin presence in Gatsby’s funeral, Fitzgerald only wanted to showcase the indifferent and selfish American attitude but is just a coincidence that later on his death he met with a similar approach by his acquaintances. Critics say that Nick, the narrator resembles very much in some personality traits with Fitzgerald. Like for example, he possessed an ambivalent personality. He was not decisive. He observes that writing good literature is his passion but in order to make good money he compromised for writing stories for best selling magazines. He was always in a dilemma over this choice of work for him. “In order to maintain their extravagant life style, Scott spent much time working on short stories that ran in widely distributed magazines” (Maurer 2000). In a similar manner Nick oscillates between admiration and distaste about Gatsby in the novel. His extravagant parties were not a subject of praise for him but even then Nick attends the get-together organized by Gatsby. He believes that the guests go out of control under the influence of freely flowing liquor in such parties but then awe struck by Gatsby’s swimming pool, buffet tents in the gardens and the live orchestra he does not restrain himself from attending them. He sometimes takes Gatsby as a soldier pure in his heart. He believes that Gatsby was forced to love Daisy from afar and is sympathetic towards him. He even organizes Daisy’s meeting with Gatsby. But at times, he believes on the rumors that Gatsby had amassed his wealth by corrupt practices. Gatsby, the main character also reminds of Fitzgerald’s own circumstances of loosing Zelda only because he was poor. “Fitzgerald gets his feelings of lost youth and beauty into The Great Gatsby. He also gets into the novel his sense of social inadequacy and his emotion of hurt when the dream is betrayed by lack of money” (Bruccoli 2002). Daisy was the driving force behind Gatsby’s aims of life. This was very similar to Fitzgerald’s own life. He was madly in love with Zelda. He took his early success as a means to satisfy Zelda’s passion for a luxurious life. With the result, he never could concentrate on his own literary work. He changed his place from America to France to get tranquility and piece to give attention to his main job of writing. But there also in order to earn hefty sums to satisfy Zelda’s lust for luxurious life style, he turned his attention many times to writing short stories. He was always in a dilemma between making money and creating quality literary work. Due to this internal conflict he was not able to concentrate on writing literary master pieces. Divided focus, infatuation and an unworthy lady as a driving force was the case with Gatsby as well. The sole aim of throwing lavish parties was to attract Daisy. He was spending on these parties driven by his desire to see Daisy at his place. Later parts of the novel reveal that Gatsby was a small town boy with no high connections and glamorous background. Under the influence of his obsessed love for Daisy he decides to amass wealth without worrying for its means. The later chapters of the novel also reveal that basically he possessed a simple, innocent, pure and loyal heart. In order to win his lady love, he had to undergo a severe emotional turbulence in his life. The narrator tells in the chapter 5 of the novel ‘"Gatsby, pale as death, with his hands plunged like weights in his coat pockets, was standing in a puddle of water glaring tragically into my eyes." Gatsby is loyal to his love to the extent that he readily offered to take the responsibility of the accidental death of Myrtle. There is a stark similarity between Gatsby and Fitzgerald’s loyal character. Fitzgerald was also loyal for Zelda to the core of his heart. He many times preferred earning money for Zelda over giving time to his literary writing. In fact, he married Zelda within a week after the publication of his first novel ‘This side of the Paradise’. He was so innocent that he could observe that may be Zelda was glamorous and different from other girls by her looks but she was an ordinary girl in choosing material wealth over the loyalty of her lover. Gatsby is a master piece that touches the matters of class and wealth, marital disloyalty and materialism prevalent in the 1920s of America. Fitzgeralds personal tryst with material success is mirrored in many characters of this novel. Myrtle and Tom’s flirtation with each other symbolizes materialism and resultant hollow character of the post war neo rich culture of American dreams. Tom feels comfortable in his lustful advances towards Myrtle. He does not take it as a deceitful behavior towards his wife Daisy. His is possessive about his elegant and smart wife but just for the sake of fun, flirts with Myrtle. Tom is clever enough to guess that Myrtle is not happy with her husband and taking advantage of the situation he lies to Myrtle that he is not happy with Daisy but at the same time he cannot divorce her because she is a catholic. Myrtle believes on his untrue story easily. In her eye view, her husband is not worthy of her love because he does not belong to the aristocratic class of society. She is the embodiment of shattered dreams of American society in post world war first period. She speaks up “He borrowed somebodys best suit to get married in, and never told me about it, and the man came after it one day when he was out....I gave it to him and then I lay down and cried...all afternoon” (Chapter 2, Page 35). She gets swayed away towards Tom under the false belief that he loves her but the poor guy is unable to divorce Daisy. This illicit relationship in the novel is very much similar to Fitzgerald’s own life where at one point of time Zelda involved herself in an illicit relationship. It is a coincidence that the tragic end of Gatsby is astonishingly similar to the abrupt and tragic death of Fitzgerald in 1940. Bibliography Bloom H. F. Scott Fitzgerald. New York: Infobase Publishing, 2006. Bruccoli Matthew J. F. Scott Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby: A Literary Reference. New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers,2002. Bruccoli Matthew J. Some Sort of Epic Grangeur The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald. United Sates of America: University of South Carolina Press, 1981. Maurer Kate. On Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. New York: Willy Publishing Inc, 2000. Parkinson Kathleen. F. Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby. England: Penguin Books, 1987. Prigozy Ruth. F Scott Fitzgerald The Great Gatsby. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998. Read More