Monday, January 31, 2011

Sources

Here are mine and Audrey's sources for this project:

Higgins, Lee, and Associated Press. "Matthew J. Bruccoli." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. 5 June 2008. Web. 31 Jan. 2011. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_J._Bruccoli.

"Browse Dates by Year." HistoryOrb.com - Articles, Birthdays & Today in History. Web. 31 Jan. 2011. <http://www.historyorb.com/dates-by-year.php>.

Crain, Caleb. "F. Scott Fitzgerald Was Different." The New York Times [New York City] 24 Dec. 2000. NY Times. Web. http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/12/24/reviews/001224.24craint.html.
"This Side of Paradise Summery & Study Guide."
ENotes. Web. Jan. 2011. <http://www.enotes.com/this-side>.

Fitzgerald, Francis Scott. Introduction.
This Side of Paradise. Ed. Maya Angelou. New York: Modern Library, 1996. V-Vii. Print.


Michael Adams. "F. Scott Fitzgerald." Dictionary of World Biography: The 20th Century. Salem Press, 1999. eNotes.com. 2006. 8 Jan, 2011

Michael Witkoski. "F. Scott Fitzgerald." Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition. Salem Press, 2007. eNotes.com. 2006. 8 Jan, 2011

Leon Lewis. "The Great Gatsby: Techniques/Literary Precedents." Beacham's Encylopedia of Popular Fiction. Ed. Kirk H. Beetz. Vol. 1. Beacham-Gale, 1996. eNotes.com. January 2005. 31 January 2011 .

Leon Lewis. "The Last Tycoon: Characters/Techniques." Beacham's Encylopedia of Popular Fiction. Ed. Kirk H. Beetz. Vol. 4. Beacham-Gale, 1996. eNotes.com. January 2005. 31 January 2011 .

Bruce D. Reeves. "The Beautiful and Damned." Masterplots II: American Fiction Series, Revised Edition. Salem Press, 2000. eNotes.com. 2006. 31 Jan, 2011

Steven G. Kellman. "The American Dream." Magill’s Literary Annual 2004. Salem Press, 2004. eNotes.com. 2006. 31 Jan, 2011

"Modernism: Introduction." Literary Movements for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 1998. eNotes.com. January 2006. 31 January 2011. .

"Modernism: Style." Literary Movements for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 1998. eNotes.com. January 2006. 31 January 2011. .

"The Love of the Last Tycoon." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. 2004. 31 January 2011. .

"Tender is the Night: Introduction." Novels for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski. Vol. 19. Detroit: Gale, 1998. eNotes.com. January 2006. 31 January 2011. .

"Tender is the Night: Style." Novels for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski. Vol. 19. Detroit: Gale, 1998. eNotes.com. January 2006. 31 January 2011. .

"Tender is the Night: Themes." Novels for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski. Vol. 19. Detroit: Gale, 1998. eNotes.com. January 2006. 31 January 2011. .

"Tender is the Night: Summary." Novels for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski. Vol. 19. Detroit: Gale, 1998. eNotes.com. January 2006. 31 January 2011. .

"This Side of Paradise: Style." Novels for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski. Vol. 20. Detroit: Gale, 1998. eNotes.com. January 2006. 31 January 2011. .

"This Side of Paradise: Themes." Novels for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski. Vol. 20. Detroit: Gale, 1998. eNotes.com. January 2006. 31 January 2011. .

"This Side of Paradise: Plot Summary." Novels for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski. Vol. 20. Detroit: Gale, 1998. eNotes.com. January 2006. 31 January 2011. .

"The Great Gatsby: Style." Novels for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale, 1998. eNotes.com. January 2006. 31 January 2011. .

Mary Dillard. "The Great Gatsby: Summary." Novels for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale, 1998. eNotes.com. January 2006. 31 January 2011. .

"The Great Gatsby: Themes." Novels for Students. Ed. Marie Rose Napierkowski. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale, 1998. eNotes.com. January 2006. 31 January 2011. .

Bryant Mangum. "F. Scott Fitzgerald." Critical Survey of Long Fiction, Second Revised Edition. Salem Press, 2000. eNotes.com. 2006. 31 Jan, 2011

Callahan, John F. "
F. Scott Fitzgerald's evolving American Dream: the "pursuit of happiness" in Gatsby, Tender is the Night, and The Last Tycoon." BNET. Fall 1996 http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0403/is_n3_v42/ai_19416370/pg_15/?tag=content;col1 Web. 31 January, 2011.

Brucolli, Matthew J. "A Brief Life of Fitzgerald". The F. Scott Fitzgerald Society. 1994. http://www.fscottfitzgeraldsociety.org/biography/biography_p5.html Web. 7 January, 2011.

Images:

Dancing Like There's No Tomorrow. 1949. Paramount Pictures. 24 September 2008. http://www.nysun.com/opinion/reaganism-undone/86484/ Web. 31 January. 2011

World War One Trenches. http://www.dipity.com/timeline/World_War_1/ Web. 31 January, 2011

Cugat, Francis. Jacket for The Great Gatsby. 1925. SC.edu. 6 December, 2003. http://www.sc.edu/fitzgerald/essays/eyes/eyes.html Web. 31 January, 2011

Scott and Zelda. January 21, 1921. Bald Punk. 13 January, 2010. http://baldpunk.com/2010/01/13/f-scott-fitzgerald/ Web. 31 January, 2011

A Well-Cultured Individual

Fitzgerald moved quite a lot. He spent a lot of time traveling and living in Europe with his family, as well as at home in the United States. Here, I have a map that shows where Fitzgerald lived and when:





Credit-Cameron McAllister: map-maker extraordinaire (I found all the information on eNotes, he just made it look really pretty)


Irony

F. Scott Fitzgerald employs irony in much of his writing. What should have been the making of a character often ends up causing their demise. This irony helps to show the meaninglessness behind much of what the Jazz Age idolized.

Winning Daisy is the reason Jay Gatsby makes gaining money his sole objective. It's not the money that will bring him happiness, but having Daisy. Yet it is Daisy who murders a woman and allows Gatsby to be murdered by the woman's husband for the crime. In Tender is the Night parties and alcohol are elements of the rich and elite. When Dick Diver's relationship with his wife begin spiraling downward, Dick begins drinking more and more, until the effects of alcoholism on his life force him to stop practicing psychiatry, and he drifts into oblivion. The things that Gatsby and Dick viewed as giving them success, brought them far from it. The irony of their situations reveals the purposelessness of their ideals.

The Works of Fitzgerald

I actually wanted to present all of you with a complete list of everything, but as Fitzgerald's works are so numerous, complete lists are hard to come by. So, I found a list of all books including Fitzgerald's essays, plays, short stories, etc., as well as his novels. These are presented chonologically in the order they were published.
  • Fie! Fie! Fi-Fi! 1914. Musical Comedy; plot and seventeen song lyrics by Fitzgerald
  • The Evil Eye. 1915. Musical Comedy; seventeen song lyrics by Fitzgerald
  • Safety First. 1916. Musical Comedy; twenty-one song lyrics by Fitzgerald
  • This Side of Paradise. 1920. Novel
  • Flappers and Philosophers. 1920. Stories.
  • The Beautiful and the Damned. 1922. Serialized in the Metropolitan Magazine, September 1921-March 1922. Novel
  • Tales of the Jazz Age. 1922. Stories.
  • The Vegetable. 1923. Stories.
  • The Great Gatsby. 1925. Novel.
  • All the Sad Young Men. 1926. Stories.
  • Tender is the Night. 1934. Tender is the Night-"With the Author's Final Revisions", edited, with an introduction, by Malcolm Cowley. 1951. Novel.
  • Taps at Reveille. 1935. Stories.
  • The Last Tycoon, edited, with an introduction, by Edmund Wilson. 1941. Novel.
  • The Crack-Up, edited, with an introduction, by Wilson. 1945. Essays, selections from the notebooks, and letters.
  • Afternoon of an Author, edited, with an introduction, by Arthur Mizener. 1957. Stories and essays.
  • The Pat Hobby Stories, edited, with an introduction, by Arnold Gingrich
  • The Apprentice Fiction of F. Scott Fitzgerald, 1909-1917, edited, with an introduction by John Kuehl. 1965.
  • 
    Matthew J. Bruccoli was a professor of
    English at the University of South
    Carolina. He was the preeminent expert on
    F. Scott Fitzgerald.
    
  • F. Scott Fiztgerald in His Own Time: A Miscellany, edited with an introduction, by Matthew J. Bruccoli and Jackson R. Bryer. 1971.
  • The Basil and Josephine Stories, edited, with introduction, by Bryer and Kuehl. 1973.
  • Bits of Paradise, selected by Scottie Fitzgerald Smith and Bruccoli, foward by Smith, preface by Bruccoli. 1974.
  • The Cruise of the Rolling Junk, introduction by Bruccoli. 1976. Three travel articles.
  • F. Scott Fitzgerald's Screenplay for Three Comrades by Erich Maria Remarque, edited, with an introduction, by Bruccoli. 1978.
  • F. Scott Fitzgerald's St. Paul Plays, 1911-1914, edited, with an introduction, by Alan Margolies. 1978.
  • The Price Was High: The Last Uncollected Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald, edited, with an introduction, by Bruccoli. 1979.
  • Poems 1911-1940, edited by Bruccoli, introduction by James Dickey. 1981.
  • Babylon Revisited: The Screenplay, introduction by Budd Schulberg, afterword by Bruccoli. 1993.  

Works cited:

"Fitzgerald, F. Scott - Fitzgerald’s Works." Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli and Richard Layman. Vol. lm1. Gale Cengage, 2000. eNotes.com. 2006. 31 Jan, 2011 <http://www.enotes.com/contemporary-literary-criticism/
f-scott-fitzgerald/fitzgeralds-works>



Higgins, Lee, and Associated Press. "Matthew J. Bruccoli." Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. 5 June 2008. Web. 31 Jan. 2011. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_J._Bruccoli>.

In Perspective

One of the things I loved about F. Scott Fitzgerald was the point of view he uses. As I researched it, I found that his point of view and narrative techniques were some of the most defining parts of his style. The Great Gatsby is viewed as his best literary work in part because the point of view was so effective. Fitzgerald used different points of view to help show his themes. The points of view convey the emotion of the times, but also show the reality of the times.

His first novel, This Side of Paradise, is told by a third-person narrator, who is very much aware of what he is doing, and as much of an egotist as the main character Amory Blaine. "She had been born and brought up in France.... I see I am starting wrong. Let me begin again." The narrator appears very self-conscious of what he is doing. Throughout the novel, the choice to include all of Amory's poems is as much the narrator showing off as it is Amory.

F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, "the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability to function." And that is exactly the way he wrote the point of view in The Great Gatsby - with this kind of double vision. The story is told from the first-person point of view of Nick Carraway, who both participates in the Jazz Age lifestyle, and observes and judges it. "Do you want to hear about the butler's nose?" Daisy asks him, to which he responds; "That's why I came over to-night." Nick is involved in the lavish, meaningless lifestyles of so many, but he can also evaluate it critically. "I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart." The double vision he possesses allows us, the readers, to feel the emotion and excitement of living at that time, but to also see the truth.

In his writing, and especially in This Side of Paradise and The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses point of view techniques to their fullest potential. Through the different points of view - even in the same novel- Fitzgerald portrays his characters and the world he lived in.

Illusion & Disillusion

One of the themes often present in Fitzgerald's work is a sense of living in illusion or becoming disillusioned. Pleasure was the goal of the Jazz Age, pursuing fame, wealth, and love through selfish means. F. Scott Fitzgerald writes of characters who are often under an illusion about the reality of what they are pursuing and the effects of their subsequent disillusionment.

Anthony Patch in The Beautiful and Damned desires to live "the good life". Anthony and his wife live lavishly, with the expectation of an inheritance from his grandfather. In the course of the novel, Anthony is disinherited, and they realize their potential to make something of themselves is dwindling. In Tender is the Night, Dick Diver seeks happiness in spite of his troubled marriage. He pursues an affair, but even the love of another women cannot bring him happiness, and Dick descends into alcoholism. F. Scott Fitzgerald's Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby wants to turn back time, to be the only man Daisy loves. "'Can't repeat the past?' he cried incredulously. 'Why of course you can!'" But Gatsby finds what he never saw before; that there was no reality behind his vision. When confronted with reality, what Fitzgerald's characters believe about themselves becomes an illusion.

Sunday, January 30, 2011

F. Scott Fitzgerald and the World He Lived In (A Timeline)

Here, I will show you some important events in Fitzgerald's life as they coincided with events in history. Hopefully it will be as interesting to you all as it is to me.
  • September 1896: Fitzgerald born; Queen Victoria surpasses her grandfather King George III as the longest reigning monarch in British history.
  • September 1908: Fitzgerald begins school at St. Paul Academy; the first production of the Ford Model T automobile was built.
  • October 1909: "The Mystery of the Raymond Mortgage" is Fitzgerald's first ever published work; Comte de Lambert of France sets airplane altitude record of 300 m
  • August 1911: Fitzgerald's first play, "The Girl from Lazy J" is produced by the Elizabethan Dramatic Club; Vincenzo Perugia steals Mona Lisa from Louvre, Paris (recovered in 1913)
  • September 1913: Fitzgerald enters Princeton University as a member of the class of 1917; 1st aerobatic maneuver, sustained inverted flight, performed in France
  • December 1914: Fitzgerald's first Princeton Triangle Club show "Fie! Fie! Fi-Fi!", for which he wrote book and lyrics, produced; legendary/unofficial "Christmas Truce" takes place (Brits & Germans)
  • January 1915: Fitzgerald meets Ginerva King, a debutante, with whom he becomes romantically involved; earthquake in Avezzano, Italy kills 29,800; Japan claims economic control of China; Alexander Graham Bell in NY calls Thomas Watson in SF
  • June 1915: "The Ordeal" (re-named "Benediction") is Fitzgerald's first short story published in the "Nassau Literary Magazine"; the Turks invade Armenia; 78,000 ANZAC troops land at Gallipoli; Italy secretly signes Pact of London with Britain, France & Russia
  • November 1915: Fitzgerald drops out of Princeton for the remainder of his junior year; Theodore W. Richards is 1st American to win Nobel Prize in chemistry
  • September 1916: Fitzgerald returns to Princeton as a member of the class of 1918; Manfred von Richthofen ("The Red Baron"), a flying ace of the German Luftstreitkräfte, wins his first aerial combat near Cambrai, France; John D. Rockefeller becomes the first billionaire
  • October 1917: Fitzgerald commissioned as a second lieutenant in US infantry; 1st British bombing of Germany; 1st Americans to see action on front lines of WWI; in Russia, Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin, seize power
  • November 1917: Fitzgerald reports to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and begins work on "The Romantic Egotist, a novel; 1st US soldiers are killed in combat; NY allows women to vote; October Revolution in Russia, Lenin seizes power
  • February 1918: While on leave, Fitzgerald visits Princeton, finishes "The Romantic Egotist", and submits it to Shane Leslie who later submitted it to Charles Scribner's Sons; Britain grants women (30 & over) vote; first victory of Red Army over the Kaiser's German troops near Narva and Pskov
  • June 1918: Fitzgerald arrives at Camp Sheridan, near Montgomery; Battle of Belleau Wood, 1st US victory of WW I
  • July 1918: Fitzgerald meets Zelda at a country-club dance; Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic forms
  • August 1918: "Romantic Egotist" rejected by Scibner's (they also decline the revised version in October); Bolshevik revolutionary leader, Moisei Uritsky, is assassinated
  • October 1918: Fitzgerald's regiment reports to Camp Mills, Long Island; Arab forces, under T. E. Lawrence (aka "Lawrence of Arabia"), capture Damascus; forest fire in Minnesota & Northern Wisconsin kills about 800; Spanish flu-virus kills 21,000 in US in 1 week
  • November 1918: War is over before Fitzgerald's regiment is ever sent overseas. Regiment returns to Camp Sheridan; Germany surrenders ending WWI, Allies & Germany sign armistice
  • February 1919: Fitzgerald is informally engaged to Zelda. Goes to New York, works for Barron Collier advertising agency, and tries unsuccessfully to break into the magazine market; League of Nations 1st meeting; Fascist Party forms in Italy by Benito Mussolini
  • June 1919: Zelda breaks engagement; 1st nonstop Atlantic flight (Alcock & Brown) lands in Ireland; Germany ends incorporation of Austria
  • July 1919: Fitzgerald returns to St. Paul and finishes "The Romantic Egotist" while living with his parents
  • September 1919: "Babes in Woods" is Fitzgerald's first story to be sold to a magazine ("The Smart Set"); Scribner's accepts his rewritten novel, now titled "This Side of Paradise"; Communist Party of America organizes in Chicago; President Woodrow Wilson is paralyzed by a stroke
  • November 1919: Fitzgerald becomes a client of Harold Ober at the Reynold's literary agency; US Senate rejects (55-39) Treaty of Versailles & League of Nations
  • January 1920: Fitzgerald visits Zelda in Montgomery and their engagement resumes; 18th Amendment, prohibition, goes into effect (repealed in 1933); Walt Disney starts 1st job as an artist
  • March 1920: "This Side of Paradise" is published
  • April 1920: Fitzgerald and Zelda marry; American Professional Football Association (NFL) forms
  • May 1920: The Fitzgerald's live in Westport, Connecticut, where he begins work on "The Beautiful and the Damned"; President Wilson makes Communist Labor Party illegal
  • September 1920: "Flappers and Philosophers", Fitzgerald's first collection of short stories is published; US Air Mail service begins
  • October 1921: Fitzgerald's daughter Scottie is born; Green Bay Packers play 1st NFL game, 7-6 win over Minneapolis
  • March 1922: "The Beautiful and the Damned" is published; "Nosferatu" premieres in Berlin; British court sentences Mahatma Gandhi to 6 years in prison
  • September 1922: "Tales of the Jazz Age", Fitzgerald's second set of short stories, is published; Mussolini ask Vatican for support of fascist party program
  • June 1924: The Fitzgerald's take residence at Villa Marie in St. Raphael, France; 1st political convention broadcast on radio (Republicans at Cleveland); Ziegfeld Follies opens on Broadway
  • Summer-Fall 1924: Fitzgerald completes and revises first draft of "The Great Gatsby"
  • April 1925: "The Great Gatsby" is published
  • May 1925: Fitzgerald meets Hemingway at the Dingo bar in Montparnasse
  • February 1926: Owen Davis's play version of "The Great Gatsby" opens on Broadway. The play had a successful run of 113 performances and was the basis for the 1926 silent film; "All the Sad Young Men", Fitzgerald's third collection of short stories, is published; 3 men dance Charleston for 22 hours; Walt Disney Studios forms
  • April 1930: Zelda suffers first emotional breakdown. She is hospitalized at Malmaison Clinic outside Paris; The Chrysler Building in New York City officially opens
  • June 1930: Zelda becomes patient at Pragins Clinic at Nyon, Switzerland; Chicago Tribune reporter Jake Lingle is killed during rush hour at the Illinois Central train station by the Leo Vincent Brothers, allegedly over a $100,000 USD gambling debt owed to Al Capone
  • September 1931: Zelda is released from Pragins. The Fitzgeralds return permanently to the US and take up residence in Montgomery; 1st LP record demonstrated (RCA Victor, NYC), venture failed
  • January 1932: The Fitzgerald's travel to St. Petersburg, Florida where Zelda suffers a second emotional collapse; Hattie W. Caraway elected 1st woman senator
  • February 1932: Zelda becomes a patient of Phipps Psychiatric Clinic at John Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore; Al Capone sent to prison; immigrant Adolf Hitler gets German citizenship
  • February 1934: Zelda suffers third breakdown
  • April 1934: "Tender is the Night" is published; Bonnie & Clyde kill 2 police officers; 418 Lutheran ministers arrested in Germany; Shirley Temple appears in her 1st movie, "Stand Up & Cheer"
  • March 1935: "Taps at Reveille", Fitzgerald's fourth and final short story collection, is published; Adolf Hitler announces the creation of a new air force; Hitler orders German rearmament, violating Versailles Treaty
  • March 1937: "Trouble", Fitzgerald's last story in the "Saturday Evening Post" is published; 1st permanent automobile license plates issued; 1st blood bank forms
  • July 1937: Fitzgerald receives six-month contract with MGM and meets Sheilah Graham, with whom he becomes romantically involved; Amelia Earhart & Fred Noonan disappear over Pacific Ocean; Japanese & Chinese troops clash, (Marco Polo Bridge), becomes WWII
  • December 1937: Fitzgerald's MGM contract renewed for one year; 1st feature-length color & sound cartoon premieres (Snow White); Lincoln Tunnel (NYC) opens to traffic
  • December 1938: Fitzgerald's MGM contract is not renewed; French/German non-attack treaty drawn (Ribbentrop-Bonnet Pact)
  • July 1939: Fitzgerald breaks with long-time agent Harold Ober; German Nazi's close last Jewish enterprises; Frank Sinatra made his recording debut
  • December 1940: Fitzgerald has heart attack and dies at Sheilah Graham's apartment in Hollywood; Germany begins dropping incendiary bombs on London
  • October 1941: "The Last Tycoon, Fitzgerald's unfinished last novel, is published by Scribners; Germans launch attack on Moscow; 16,000 Jews massacred in Odessa, Ukraine; Mount Rushmore is completed
  • March 1948: Zelda Fitzgerald dies in a fire at Highland Hospital; US rocket flies record 4800 KPH to 126k height
  • November 1950: Scottie Fitzgerald Lanahan donates the Fitzgerald papers to Princeton University


Works cited:
"Fitzgerald, F. Scott - Introduction." Contemporary Literary Criticism. Ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli and Richard Layman. Vol. lm1. Gale Cengage, 2000.eNotes.com. 2006. 31 Jan, 2011 <http://www.enotes.com/contemporary-literary-criticism/
f-scott-fitzgerald/introduction>



"Browse Dates by Year." HistoryOrb.com - Articles, Birthdays & Today in History. Web. 30 Jan. 2011 <http://www.historyorb.com/dates-by-year.php>.

The American Dream and Pursuit of Happiness




World War I - the war to end all wars - had ended, taking with it a large part of a generation. The massive destruction of the War helped to fuel the Modernist movement - a movement that viewed everything as essentially meaningless. So now, after all this, was the American Dream worthwhile or even possible? Was happiness possible, or was it always to be the "pursuit of happiness"? F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote in This Side of Paradise, "Here was a new generation, a new generation dedicated more than the last one to the fear of poverty and the worship of success, grown up to find all gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths to man shaken." Fitzgerald's writings explore the themes of wealth and social status and their roles in the pursuit of happiness.

In The Great Gatsby, the characters pursue the American Dream with fervor. The Buchanans, Tom and Daisy, seem to hold riches as the epitome of success. Daisy refused Gatsby's offer of marriage for Tom's, for the first was poor and the other prosperous. Tom and Daisy are driven by money. "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy - they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or what ever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they made." They even went so far as murder to achieve their ends. Gatsby seeks success and happiness elsewhere - in Daisy. He spends his life gaining wealth - sometimes legally and sometimes otherwise - in order to gain her love, only to be rejected by her once more. Both the Buchanans and Gatsby were willing to pay any price for the American Dream, but neither were successful. He wrote of the American Dream gone horribly, horribly wrong.

Through his writings on the American Dream, Fitzgerald showed the emptiness behind wealth and success. He would later write "
that life is essentially a cheat and its conditions are those of defeat, and that the redeeming things are not `happiness and pleasure' but the deeper satisfactions that come out of struggle." It was not just fortune Fitzgerald was writing on, but the essence of a country.

Saturday, January 22, 2011

The Romantic Egotist

So here I was with all these plans to blog every day this month about something to do with Mr. Fitzgerald. But as you can see, I've failed miserably at that. I have been doing research and I have been reading lots and lots in This Side of Paradise. But I guess I've been looking for something more exciting. I mean, everyone knows that F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby and he was part of a movement called the "Jazz Age". I wanted to find something more exciting to talk about. And then Thursday, I discovered this:

That's actually Fitzgerald, reading Keats' "Ode to A Nightingale"

And then I started thinking, about Keats (another of my favorites) and Fitzgerald and This Side of Paradise. You see, This Side of Paradise is full of allusions to the romantic poets. Amory Blaine has a poem for almost every occasion in his life. So I went searching, and as it turns out Keats was a major influence on F. Scott Fitzgerald's writing. And then I started thinking more and more about this whole thing. Of course, the title of book one of This Side of Paradise is called "The Romantic Egotist", so this whole underlying theme of romanticism was present in my mind, but I never thought about it that much. And when you get to thinking about it, it really makes sense. Here we read these books about horrible, disgustingly selfish people and somehow, we love them and find something endearing in them. There is nothing redeeming about Daisy Buchanan or Jay Gatsby, and yet we love their story and even pity their end. Amory Blaine is the epitome of narcissism, and yet, I find myself charmed and intrigued while reading about him.

I remember telling my mom when I decided to do my author project on Fitzgerald, "He writes about depravity. The stories are awful. But his language is what makes the books so great." And that's really the truth. If we take away the poetic language, we find something utterly disgusting. But these stories have been romanticized so that even the nastiest, most snobbish human being can seem lovable.
In a wonderful article I found on the New York Times website (you should read the whole thing if you get the chance: http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/12/24/reviews/001224.24craint.html) it said, "what flowers were to Keats, the leisure of the upper classes was to Fitzgerald -- lush, sensuous and real, a symbol of the ideal that was also a fragile thing, as ephemeral as pleasure." It also says, "It wasn't necessarily fair that the rich had more leisure -- or more flowers -- than other people, but since they did, Fitzgerald wrote about them."

  • Crain, Caleb. "F. Scott Fitzgerald Was Different." The New York Times. 24 Dec. 2000. Web.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

"I know I'll wake up some morning and find that the debutantes have made me famous overnight."

This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald's first novel, tells the story of the youth of Fitzgerald's day like no other novel ever written. Released in 1920, this novel was an immediate success. It was received well by the older generation, and was also well-loved by the young. The release of this novel marked the beginning of the Jazz Age, an era that began with the end of World War I and continued until the1930s brought the start of the Great Depression. This Side of Paradise challenged tradition and is a landmark in modernist fiction. It has been widely criticized as simply being a bundle of short-stories and indeed does show the young author's naivety, but its unique structure is also a vital part of what makes it innovative. Although this novel is considered to be a part of the modernist movement, Fitzgerald developed a distinctly American literary identity with this novel, setting himself apart from his European contemporaries who headed the modernist movement.

"The glorious spirit of abounding youth glows throughout this fascinating tale," said an article entitled "With College Men" which appeared in The New York Book Review on May 9th 1920. And indeed, "the youth" were the biggest readers of this book. It was very popular with the younger generation and in colleges. But this novel was only part of what identified him as an icon of the "jazz age"--his short stories and intriguing personal life were mainly responsible for that.

Fitzgerald's second novel, The Beautiful and the Damned, was not nearly has successful as This Side of Paradise and his popularity declined after its release. The Great Gatsby was more well received than The Beautiful and the Damned, but was still not as popular as the novelist's first book. However, This Side of Paradise remained in vogue with readers until Fitzgerald's decline into alcoholism.

Attention wasn't turned back to Fitzgerald until many years after his death, with the release of Arthur Mizener's analytical biography of the author (c.1951). After that, Fitzgerald's books were incorporated into the literary canon and by the early 2000s he was considered to be one of the most important novelists of the twentieth century. Although This Side of Paradise has been less esteemed than The Great Gatsby or Tender is the Night, it is nevertheless viewed as a landmark achievement of the Jazz Age. Critics continue to write about this novel from nearly all analytical perspectives.

Saturday, January 8, 2011

"Once Again to Zelda" - The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald


Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896, to Edward and Mollie Fitzgerald. He is considered one of the most American writers, meaning that he explored the themes most associated with the "American Dream". Fitzgerald is also an iconic author of the 1920s - the Jazz Age - an age when flamboyance, extravagance, romance and rebellion were idolized. In some ways, F. Scott Fitzgerald's work helped create this time, and in others, Fitzgerald was created by it.

Fitzgerald spent his childhood in St. Paul, Minnesota, New York, and then again in St. Paul. When F. Scott Fitzgerald was 15, his parents sent him to a Catholic preparatory school, Newman School, in New Jersey. It was at Newman that he met Father Fay, who introduced him to the works of many literary figures, and whose moral instruction Fitzgerald never seemed able to completely forget. After Newman, he attended Princeton University, where he poured his effort into writing for the school's Triangle Club and literary magazines, rather than his school work. After taking a semester off from school, Fitzgerald returned to Princeton, only to leave before graduating to join the Army during World War I. The War ended before he saw any combat.

It was during Fitzgerald's training in the south that he met Zelda Sayre, the daughter of a prominent Alabama family. Their engagement and the rest of their relationship was tumultuous, as the couple, like Fitzgerald's characters, sought after fame and fortune. They would both begin drinking, Zelda especially.

F. Scott Fitzgerald published many short stories in The Saturday Evening Post. In 1920, his first novel, This Side of Paradise - in which the first flapper appeared - was published. Its success made Scott and Zelda celebrities in New York society, fueling their excessive lifestyle. This couple was popular, good-looking, and led an over-the-top lifestyle. It was the kind of lifestyle the Fitzgerald wrote about, and was the ideal of the Jazz Age. Soon, however, Fitzgerald was using his literary talent to make quick money to try to support his flamboyance.

The Fitzgeralds spent much of 1924 in Europe. F. Scott Fitzgerald was writing The Great Gatsby. While in Europe, he became a part of Gertrude Stein's "Lost Generation", a group of American expatriate artists, and began a friendship with Ernest Hemingway.

Zelda Fitzgerald had several mental breakdowns, and would spend the end of her life in sanitariums. F. Scott Fitzgerald decided to begin writing for movies. Many of his screenplays were changed so that they hardly resembled his original writing. He wrote, or rather began writing, his last novel, The Last Tycoon, which was focused on the movie industry. He died of a heart attack before it was finished, in 1940. Zelda was buried beside him eight years later.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's writing is heavily identified with the America of the 1920s. Although he did not create the flapper, or gangster, or romantic hero, Fitzgerald's work turned them into symbols of the era. The life he observed so acutely in his writing is the life Scott and Zelda participated in. It is almost as though the expectation he created was what his ambition and pursuit of fame forced him to live up to.