Alyssa Jones
Mrs. Johnson
English 11
23 May 2014
Nonfiction Historical Essay: Zelda Fitzgerald
To begin with, Zelda Sayre-Fitzgerald was born in Montgomery, Alabama. Zelda came from a very prestigious, wealthy family. Growing up, Zelda was a wild and rebellious child; she was very flirtatious, spending most of the time with the boys. Zelda was well-known for being a free-spirit in her Southern society. Even though she was talked about by her peers, her father’s reputation provided her with a “free card” (“Zelda Fitzgerald n.p.).
Secondly, following the completion of high school, Zelda met a gentleman by the name of F. Scott Fitzgerald, at a country club dance, in 1918. Fitzgerald, at the time, was an Army officer stationed in Camp Sheridan (“Zelda Fitzgerald” n.p.). Fitzgerald was, instantly, drawn towards her (Shmoop Editorial Team n.p.). Fitzgerald, eventually, was discharged from the Army and moved back to New York (“The Legend of Zelda” n.p.). That was the moment he decided to propose to Zelda (Shmoop Editorial Team n.p.). Zelda and her family knew, though, that Fitzgerald lacked the finances needed to support Zelda or, potentially, a family so Zelda declined. Fitzgerald knew he was not the only one who wanted to pursue a romance with Zelda. Determined to reach his goals of accomplishing a relationship with Zelda and gaining financial stability, he decided to write his first book – This Side of Paradise (“Zelda Fitzgerald” n.p.).
Thirdly, the selling of Fitzgerald’s first book was said to spark the beginning of his and Zelda’s relationship (“The Legend of Zelda” n.p.). Fitzgerald, suddenly, gained financial and scholarly success (“F. Scott Fitzgerald” 10). A week after the release of This Side of Paradise, Fitzgerald and Zel...
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... of attention he gives his wife. Instead, though, he made his writings, books, etc. have a higher status over anything or anyone. The couple loved, but they did not deeply love. Fitzgerald’s portrayal of Zelda, as Daisy, was very accurate. Zelda was very flirtatious and beautiful, and that is how Fitzgerald portrayed Daisy in The Great Gatsby.
Works Cited
Shmoop Editorial Team. "F. Scott Fitzgerald Timeline of Important Dates." Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 28 May 2014.
Shmoop Editorial Team. "F. Scott Fitzgerald: Zelda Fitzgerald." Shmoop.com. Shmoop University, Inc., 11 Nov. 2008. Web. 29 May 2014.
The Great Gatsby Literature Guide. Secondary Solutions, 2009. Print.
"The Legend of Zelda (Sayre Fitzgerald)." PBS. PBS, n.d. Web. 29 May 2014.
"Zelda Fitzgerald." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 27 May 2014. Web. 29 May 2014.
Works Cited
F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda had only one child, a daughter named Scottie in 1921. Not much is known about Scottie and her relationship with her parents, besides that she traveled with them frequently. This is similar to Daisy’s emotional distance with her daughter. In The Great Gatsby Daisy talks about her experience after giving birth to her
Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of famous author F. Scott Fitzgerald, lived an extravagant life. Her life may not have been well known in the same way that her husbands was, but many people still knew of her nonetheless. Fitzgerald was born on July 24, 1900 in Montgomery, Alabama. Her family was rather well known throughout the government. Fitzgerald’s father, Anthony Dickinson Sayre, served on the Supreme Court of Alabama. Zelda’s great-uncle and grandfather served in the United States Senate. Her mother was Minnie Buckner Machen Sayre. Fitzgerald was the youngest among her five siblings. During her adolescence, she was a dancer. She also challenged the normal things a teenage girl her age would do by drinking, smoking, and socializing with boys. She
Mizener, Arthur, ed. F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963.
There was an air of assurance about him, a quality of natural leadership that Zelda respected and responded to. Leadership, athletic prowess, a smart military air were precisely those qualities Scott Fitzgerald lacked. It was as if Jozan and Fitzgerald were opposite sides of a coin, each admiring each other’s abilities, gifts, talents, but the difference in the equipment they brought to bear in life was clear.[1]
Her whole family moved up to Yonkers, New York along with thousands of other disadvantaged black families that moved north during the Great Migration. Hoping to move into better employment and housing, only to find that this wasn’t the case. Her father left Ella and her mother, Temperance Fitzgerald, during the first years of her life but Mrs. Fitzgerald quickly moved on and found herself a new man, Joseph Da Silva, a Portuguese immigrant. Her mother died early in 1932, leaving Ella with her stepfather who she seemed to have adjusted to. Later in life, Ella Fitzgerald never spoke about her stepfather and friends of her say this was because she was sexually abused as a child after her mother
Daisy’s line about her wishing her daughter was a “beautiful fool,” was actually first said by Zelda during Scottie’s birth years before the writing of The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald wrote it down at the time and never asked permission to use it. He even reframes the quote to make it seem like Daisy— or in this case, Zelda—is plagiarizing the thoughts of her husband. Zelda accused Fitzgerald of such plagiarism in his other novels as well. In her review of Fitzgerald’s second Novel, The Beautiful and Damned, Zelda had noticed that a good portion of the writing came directly from her diary and wrote: “In fact, Mr. Fitzgerald … seems to believe that plagiarism begins at home" (Keats). Fitzgerald’s incorporation of Zelda’s material was more than a common occurrence. But, Zelda never received any acknowledgment from Fitzgerald for co-writing. Zelda is the unsung hero held back by Fitzgerald’s jealousy and authority as a male in the unjust patriarchal society. Ring Lardner, Jr. said, “Scott is a novelist and Zelda is a novelty” (Keats). As the novelist, Fitzgerald depicts what he wants about Zelda because she has no power over him. In the same way, the men in The Great Gatsby can do what they want and Daisy has to face the consequences. As Person argues “Daisy, in fact, is more victim than victimizer: she is victim first of Tom Buchanan's ‘cruel’ power, but then of Gatsby's increasingly depersonalized vision of her. She becomes the unwitting ‘grail’ (p. I49) in Gatsby's adolescent quest” (Person,
Let’s only think of today, and not worry about tomorrow.” (Milford, 2011, p. 42) This quote is one of many reasons why she was thought of as a free spirit. Zelda lived in the present and only worried about consequences as they presented themselves. In addition, she was popular in Montgomery social circles, having starred in ballet recitals and dancing in much more elite country club dances than was thought to be proper for a young lady. She eventually met her future husband Scott Fitzgerald at a Montgomery Country Club Dance in
In 1930 F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway were both working on novels; Fitzgerald was writing Tender is the Night and Hemingway Death in the Afternoon. They were both living in vastly different places and dealing with different types of situations in their lives. Zelda Fitzgerald, F. Scott's wife, was hospitalized in Switzerland for the better part of 1930-31 after suffering a mental breakdown. Unfortunately for Scott this meant that he had to put aside his novel writing and write several short stories which would be sold to cover the cost of Zelda's medical treatment. Hemingway was residing in the United States during this time but also traveled to Spain during this period. There was no correspondence between the two about Zelda's illness until April, 1931, almost a year after her hospitalization.
Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald was born on Tuesday, 24 July 1900, to Minerva Bucker Machen Sayre and Anthony Dickson Sayre in Montgomery, Alabama. Her mother named herself “for a myth, was known locally as an avid reader” (Cline 1). Her father on the other hand was an “Alabama Supreme Court Justice” (Curnutt). Zelda was the youngest child to be born from her parents.
There are significant people in Amory’s life that have impacted his actions, and there are influential people in Fitzgerald’s life that have impacted his life. Fitzgerald’s desire to be with Zelda Sayer is significant in his writing, so it makes sense that the character that represents Zelda, Rosalind, has control over Amory’s character. Fitzgerald’s desire to live the American dream is illustrated through Amory, and it is this social pursuit that molds Amory’s character at the beginning of the novel. Amory and Fitzgerald are products of their social environment and they change with the different social environments at times in their life.... ...
Daisy is merely a selfish, shallow, and in fact, hurtful, woman. Gatsby loves her (or at least the idea of her) with such vitality and. determination that readers would like, in many senses, to see her be. worthy of his devotion to the Lord. Although Fitzgerald carefully builds Daisy’s.
Magill, Frank N. "F. Scott Fitzgerald." Critical Survey of Long Fiction. Vol. 3. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Salem, 1983. 953-67. Print.
Characters in The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald are often described differently than they actually act throughout the novel. In the beginning of the novel, Daisy is told to be “by far the most popular of all the young girls in Louisville”. She was said to have great beauty, and its even said that she holds her popularity spot because of it. She is also described as a “fool” which means she is beautiful, just like an angel. As we read on, we come to see that Daisy is actually very careless, selfish, and only focuses herself on wealth and power. She never looked at the consequences of her actions; and she let others clean up the messes she made. She wanted her daughter to grow up just like her, even though it’s a life nobody wanted to live. She even gave up her true love to be with somebody who had money and a good repetition. As perceived in the novel, Daisy is the most despicable character in the novel of The Great Gatsby.
On Wednesday February 12 of 1890 F. Scott Fitzgerald's parents were married in Washington D.C. Six years later on September 24, 1896 Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born at his home 481 Laurel Ave. in St. Paul, Minnesota. His two infant older sisters had died from a violent influenza so that by the time Fitzgerald came along Mollie Fitzgerald had become the proverbial nightmare that known as an overprotective mother. Fitzgerald's mother was no traditional mother though, for she was known for her eccentricities. These eccentricities disturbed young Scott's life, "Fitzgerald later described his mother as 'half insane with pathological nervous worry'" (Bruccoli 15), but nothing worried anyone in the family so much as his father's failure to hold down a job. It was because his father lost his job as a wicker furniture manufacturer and salesman the family was forced to move from St. Paul to Buffalo in April of 1898, where his father began work for Proctor and Gamble. In January of 1901 the family moved from Buffalo to Syracuse where Edward had been transferred by his employer and where, on Sunday July 21, 1901 Scott's younger sister Annabel was born. Just two years later the family was back in Buffalo and just five years after that the family had returned to St. Paul and Grandma McQuillan's money.
The only writer who was a significant influence on Fitzgerald’s writing career was Ernest Hemingway. Hemingway’s opinion was highly respected for Fitzgerald’s work and preferred Hemingway’s opinion often more than any other person’s opinion. Fitzgerald was known to be disliked by Hemingway but they both learned a lot from each other and they were both known to own all of each others’ books. Fitzgerald is known as an accomplished author but I felt that he would have been better if he did not become an alcoholic. As F. Scott Fitzgerald himself, I wrote a journal discussing the problems with Zelda Fitzgerald and the battle with alcoholism. Fitzgerald will be remembered as an icon of the “Roaring Twenties”.