F. Scott Fitzgerald
“Genius is the ability to put into
effect what is on your mind.”
Biographical Information
Born: September 24, 1896 in St. Paul,
Minnesota
Namesake and second cousin three times
removed of Francis Scott Key
Father - from Maryland, allegiance to the
Old South
Mother - daughter of Irish immigrant who
became wealthy as a wholesale grocer
Education
St. Paul Academy (paid for by mom’s
inheritance)
Detective story in school newspaper (13 yrs old)
The Newman School (Catholic Prep School in
NJ!)
Princeton University (left without a degree)
Wrote scripts for school musicals
Contributor to Princeton Tiger humor magazine
and Nassau Literary Magazine
Writing
Joined Army in 1917
Convinced he’d die in the war; rapidly
wrote a novel (The Romantic Egotist)
Was rejected, but publisher encouraged
him to revise and resubmit
Rejected a second time, but was finally
published as This Side of Paradise
The Lost Generation
Young people coming of age during and
shortly after World War I
Many expatriates settled in France
Younger literary modernists
Feeling a sense of dissatisfaction and
ennui with America after the War
The Lost Generation
After World War I
Young men and women began to realize that old
ideas and beliefs had not saved man from the
catastrophe of war
Began to look for a new system of values
New values would replace old system, which they
found useless
Believed that “the only reality was that life
was harsh”
Love Life
June, 1918, Camp Sheridan, Montgomery,
Alabama
Met and fell in love with celebrated belle Zelda
Sayre (18-years old)
Zelda broke engagement
Unwilling to wait until Fitzgerald succeeded in
advertisement business
Unwilling to live on his small salary
Publication of This Side of Paradise made him famous
overnight, and a week later he married Zelda
F. Scott and Zelda’s Life
Extravagant, young celebrities
He tried to earn a literary reputation, but his
reputation impeded the proper assessment
of his work
Settled in St. Paul when Zelda had their first
and only child (1921)
Moved to Great Neck, Long Island in order to
be near Broadway (he wrote plays, too!)
Life in New York
Distractions of Great Neck and NYC
prevented Fitzgerald from writing his
third novel
Drinking increased
Alcoholic, but wrote sober
Frequent fights with Zelda, usually
triggered by drinking bouts
Writing Process
Painstaking reviser - many, many drafts
Clear, lyrical, colorful, witty style - evoked
emotions associated with the time and place
Jazz Age
“It was an age of miracles, it was an age of art,
it was an age of excess, and it was an age of
satire”
Wrote Gatsby while in France
Around this time, the marriage was damaged
because of Zelda’s involvement with a French
naval aviator
Writing
Process
More in Europe
Revised Gatsby in 1924-25 while in
Rome
Gatsby - first published in April of 1925
Marked striking advance in Fitzgerald’s
technique
Complex structure
Controlled narrative point of view
Received critical praise, but sales were
disappointing
More About Zelda
Behavior became more and more eccentric
around 1926
Trained for ballet, hoping to become a
professional dancer
Intense training damaged her health
Contributed to the couple’s estrangement
Suffered first breakdown - 1930
Suffered relapse in 1932 - spent rest of her
life as a resident or outpatient of
sanitariums
More About Zelda
While a patient at Johns Hopkins, she
rapidly wrote Save Me the Waltz
(autobiographical novel)
Created bitterness between Zelda and F.
Scott (he accused her of using material he
was using for his novel in progress)
The “Crack Up”
1936-37
Ill
Drunk
In debt
Unable to write commercial stories
Could not provide a balanced home for
daughter
The End
Got out of debt with a screenwriting
contract (which was impressive considering
it was the Depression)
Worked as freelance writer
Began The Love of the Last Tycoon in 1939
Had more than half of a working draft when he
died of a heart attack in December, 1940
Zelda died in a fire at Highland Hospital 1948
Beyond the End
Fitzgerald died considering himself a
failure
Obituaries were condescending
Seemed destined for literary obscurity
Interest in his work was revived in the
late 1940s and early 1950s - by 1960,
he was established as part of the
American literary canon
Some Quotes
"I am too much a moralist at heart, and really
want to preach at people in some acceptable
form, rather than entertain them.”
"What people are ashamed of usually makes
a good story.”
“You don’t write because you want to say
something; you write because you have
something to say.”