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How does fitzgerald see the american dream
How does fitzgerald see the american dream
How does fitzgerald see the american dream
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F. Scott Fitzgerald's life has been described as a “Tragic example of both sides of the American dream the joys of young love , wealth and success and the tragedies associated with excess and failure. ”(Willet, “The Sensible Things”). The Dominant influences on Fitzgerald and his work were aspiration,literature, Princeton, his wife and alcohol. With the constant fear of death and failure plaguing him his entire life, his literary works and his life accomplishments always seemed to be never good enough and through his life Fitzgerald constantly suffered a constant thought that he had failed to do anything with his life and that his literary works would never go on to be anything that people ever took the time to care about. Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald Was born in St Paul, Minnesota on September 24 1986 to Edward and Molly Fitzgerald. His Father failed as a manufacturer of wicker furniture and was then fired from working at Procter & Gamble. FItzgeralds mother was the daughter of an Irish immigrant who became wealthy as a wholesale grocer, when Edward Fitzgerald was fired from his job with Procter & Gamble it was his wife's inheritance he would then use to support his family. Fitzgerald attended A catholic prep school from 1911 to 1913 and while at he wrote detective stories for the school newspaper these articles are some of Fitzgerald's first published works. While at school, he met Father Sigourney Fay, who saw his talent for writing and his intelligence and encouraged him to achieve something with his life and soon there after he graduated high school and began attending Princeton University shortly thereafter to further pursue his artistic career. With his new found literary genius and skill Fitzgeralds first major influenc... ... middle of paper ... ...health issues and his ever present drinking problem. His final novel “Tender is the night” is directly parallel to the deteriating health of his wife and their estragment soon there after. Fitzgeralds life was that of a troubled alcoholic when things were good and easy his novels reflected that and when his life was hard and unsure he turned immediatly to the bottle and his life was slowly ruined from his drunkeness. Despite being one of the greatest authors of all time he died feeling that he had failed in life and that nothing he did was good enough partially due to the fact that no one in the literary world of his time had any respect for him due to his Alcoholism. The life of a brilliant man plagued by tragedy and drinking may have priduced some of the greates novels of all time but its also the sad story to a mans much darker problems underneath/
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.
Francis Scott Fitzgerald, also known under his writer’s name, F. Scott Fitzgerald, is revered as a famous American novelist for his writing masterpieces in the 1920’s and 1930’s. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about his extravagant lifestyle in America that his wife, Zelda, their friends, and him lived during that era. In fact, a lot of his novels and essays were based off of real-life situations with exaggerated plots and twists. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novels were the readers looking glass into his tragic life that resulted in sad endings in his books, and ultimately his own life. F. Scott Fitzgerald lived in a nice neighborhood, but growing up, he wasn’t privileged.
Mizener, Arthur, ed. F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963.
Fitzgerald, of course, was an author, so the reason behind the book being written was that he hoped to gain popularity and earn money, which he successfully accomplished. To Fitzgerald, the novel was a "consciously artistic achievement" and allowed him to achieve his goals of status and revenue, even though the fame came slightly after he might have hoped.
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896 in St. Paul, Minnesota. There, he attended Saint Paul Academy, where his passion for writing began. At thirteen, he completed his first story, which was published in the Academy’s newspaper. Later, Fitzgerald moved to New Jersey and attended the Newman school for two years from 1911 to 1913. Fitzgerald went on to attend Princeton University; there he wrote scripts and lyrics for the musicals performed at the University.
Certain authors, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, wanted to reflect the horrors that the world had experienced not a decade ago. In 1914, one of the most destructive and pointless wars in history plagued the world: World War I. This war destroyed a whole generation of young men, something one would refer to as the “Lost Generation”. Modernism was a time that allowed the barbarity of the war to simmer down and eventually, disappear altogether. One such author that thrived in this period was F. Scott Fitzgerald, a young poet and author who considered himself the best of his time. One could say that this self-absorption was what fueled his drive to be the most famous modernist the world had seen. As The New Yorker staff writer Susan Orlean mentions in her literary summary of Fitzgerald’s works, “I didn’t know till fifteen that there was anyone in the world except me, and it cost me plenty” (Orlean xi). One of the key factors that influenced and shaped Fitzgerald’s writing was World War I, with one of his most famous novels, This Side Of Paradise, being published directly after the war in 1920. Yet his most famous writing was the book, The Great Gatsby, a novel about striving to achieve the American dream, except finding out when succeeding that this dream was not a desire at all. Fitzgerald himself lived a life full of partying and traveling the world. According to the Norton Anthology of American Literature, “In the 1920’s and 1930’s F. Scott Fitzgerald was equally equally famous as a writer and as a celebrity author whose lifestyle seemed to symbolize the two decades; in the 1920’s he stood for all-night partying, drinking, and the pursuit of pleasure while in the 1930’s he stood for the gloomy aftermath of excess” (Baym 2124). A fur...
“Riding in a taxi one afternoon between very tall buildings under a mauve and rosy sky; I began to bawl because I had everything I wanted and knew I would never be so happy again.”(Fitzgerald). F. Scott Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896 in St. Paul, Minnesota, into a very prestigious, catholic family. Edward, his father, was from Maryland, and had a strong allegiance to the Old South and its values. Fitzgerald’s mother, Mary, was the daughter of an Irish immigrant who became wealthy as a wholesale grocer in St. Paul. His upbringing, affected much of his writing career. Half the time F. Scott Fitzgerald thought of himself as the “heir of his father's tradition, which included the author of The Star-Spangled Banner, Francis Scott Key, after whom he was named” (F. Scott Fitzgerald Biography). The other half the time he acted as “straight 1850 potato-famine Irish” (F. Scott Fitzgerald Biography). Consequently, he had typically indecisive feelings about American life, which seemed to him at once “vulgar and dazzlingly promising” (F. Scott Fitzgerald Biography). This idea is expressed in much of Fitzgerald’s writing. From an early age he had an “intensely romantic imagination” (F. Scott Fitzgerald Biography); he longed for a life of passion, fame and luxury.
...m that was based more on wealth and possessions and less on hard work and achievement. The fact that he later rebelled against the material 1920s culture shows that he was in fact cautioning against this lifestyle rather than encouraging it.” This more than anything proves Fitzgerald is making a commentary on the corruption of the American Dream rather than simply the tale of wealthy lovers.
F. Scott Fitzgerald lived a short life of only forty-four years. He underwent many struggles during his lifetime, including alcoholism and the marital psychological issues with his ill wife. Although he experienced many rough patches throughout his lifetime, Fitzgerald was able to become one of the most well known American Authors of the 20th century. Fitzgerald was also able to be known as one of the most prominent novelists and short story writers of the 20th century. During his life time, Fitzgerald would have never dreamt of the importance his posthumous life has on the world today. He truly is the Spokesperson of the Jazz Age.
F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “I am not a great man, but sometimes I think the impersonal and objective quality of my talent, and the sacrifices of it, in pieces, to preserve its essential value has some sort of epic grandeur” (“F. Scott Fitzgerald” St. James). Fitzgerald had heavy drinking problems and faced many financial failures throughout his life of writing but has proved to be gifted in many ways of writing. Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was a short story writer, an essayist, and a novelist that was most famous during the Jazz Age of the 1920s and the Great Depression of the 1930s.
"F. Scott Fitzgerald." Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, 6Th Edition (2013): 1. MasterFILE Premier. Web. 19 Nov. 2013.
In writing this book, commonly refered to as the “Great American Novel”, F. Scott Fitzgerald achieved in showing future generations what the early twenties were like, and the kinds of people that lived then. He did this in a beautifully written novel with in-depth characters, a captivating plot, and a wonderful sense of the time period.
F. Scott Fitzgerald was one of the most compelling twentieth century writers, (Curnutt, 2004). The year 1925 marks the year of the publication of Fitzgerald’s most credited novel, The Great Gatsby (Bruccoli, 1985). With its critiques of materialism, love and the American Dream (Berman, 1996), this dramatic idyllic novel, (Harvey, 1957), although poorly received at first, is now highly regarded as Fitzgerald’s finest work (Rohrkemper, 1985) and is his publisher, Scribner 's most popular title, (Donahue, 2013). The novel achieved it’s status as one of the most influential novels in American history around the nineteen fifties and sixties, over ten years after Fitzgerald 's passing, (Ibid, 1985)
The success of the novel depended on Fitzgerald’s ability to transfer the vision he had himself to the reader. This idea dealt with the ability to believe in the possibilities of several opposite ideas at different levels of abstract...
With high hopes for himself, Fitzgerald also seems to be unable to accept failures; for instance, even after more than a decade, he still has regrets for not being able to play football in college or to participate in the war and still fantasizes about them: “…my two juvenile regrets—at not being big or good enough to play football in college, and at not getting overseas during the war—resolved themselves into childish waking dreams of imaginary heroism that were good enough to go to sleep in restless nights” (520). Combined with this inability to move on after failures is his unwavering sense of pessimism. This is first evident at the start of the first essay where he implies how even a decade ago he didn’t have much hope for himself and a collapse was unavoidable: “I must hold in balance the sense of futility of effort and the sense of necessity to struggle; the conviction of the inevitability of failure and still the determination to ‘succeed’—and more than these, the contradiction between the dead hand of the past and high intention of the future” (520). Here, even though Fitzgerald talks about the “high intention” he claims he had for the future, he also seems to have a strong conviction that a slump was looming. Fitzgerald pessimism also