Similarities Between The Great Gatsby And Zelda

Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald never owned a house. Instead, they rented homes all over the world. They threw parties with hundreds of people almost nightly, to the point where guests would never leave. Once they had lost control of their house and who was living there, they would pack up and move away. The Fitzgeralds were icons of youth, spontaneity, and carelessness in the 1920s, and they were known for their extravagant parties. To anyone who has read Fitzgerald’s masterpiece, The Great Gatsby, this should sound familiar. Fitzgerald wrote his life into his stories, making characters like Gatsby and Nick representatives of himself. The characters and themes in The Great Gatsby greatly reflect the life of F. Scott Fitzgerald.

A continuous

theme throughout The Great Gatsby is the chase after an impossible dream.

When Fitzgerald originally proposed to Zelda, she declined his proposal because he wasn’t wealthy or famous enough for her. Scott then put copious amounts of work writing and publishing his novel, This Side of Paradise and when it was finally published, along with short stories in the paper, she agreed to marry him because he was beginning to gain the success she wanted. Gatsby did the same for Daisy Buchanan. He spent almost his whole adult life gaining wealth and possessions to impress her and show her that he was good enough. Even though Daisy married Tom instead of Gatsby because of his status and financial security, Gatsby never stopped chasing after her. Jordan reveals to Nick that, “Gatsby bought the house so that Daisy would just be across the bay,” and he realizes that Gatsby has centered his

life around simply being near Daisy, in hopes he’d run into her (Fitzgerald 78). Both Gatsby and Fitzgerald craved an impossible idea of success, fame, and wealth. Although Scott never felt like he achieved it to the level he wanted, he lived out this dream through his characters. Gatsby did achieve everything he wanted by choosing Daisy over the typical American Dream, but he never got to be back where he really wanted to be: the past, where he and Daisy were in love and there was nothing to complicate that. Even though Zelda and Scott’s relationship was never perfect, the struggles later in their marriage such as affairs, alcoholism, and mental illness lead Fitzgerald to want the, “young love,” part of their relationship back.
Although Fitzgerald wanted to have a stable and faultless relationship, it was impossible. One of the biggest struggles the Fitzgeralds faced in their marriage was infidelity. While Fitzgerald was writing The Great Gatsby, Zelda fell in love with a young French pilot named Edouard Jozan. She asked for a divorce, but Scott refused and they stayed together. This theme of marriages lasting after affairs is extremely prominent throughout The Great Gatsby. Tom cheats on Daisy and doesn’t even attempt to hide it, which, to most couples would result in a divorce, but neither Daisy or Tom ever left one another. Daisy also cheats on Tom, and although Gatsby thinks that he and Daisy might end up together, Wilson kills him before they do. Also, based on the context clues from when Gatsby is watching the Buchanan’s dinner in his pink suit, it can be assumed that even if he hadn’t died, Daisy and Tom still would have stayed together. Nick says, “[Tom and Daisy] weren’t happy...but they weren’t unhappy either... So I walked away and left [Gatsby] standing there in the moonlight---watching over nothing” (145). Nick knows that there is nothing to watch out for because they will stay married, despite the circumstances. Interestingly enough, Fitzgerald writes this motif into almost all the relationships in the book, except for the one between Daisy and Gatsby, which most emulates Scott’s ideals for his and Zelda’s life. Although their relationship was not free of infidelity, it was based on true love for each other, hopeless, or otherwise. This was Scott’s way of revealing that his relationship with Zelda was truly love, despite of its many flaws.
Zelda wasn’t the only one accused of infidelity in their relationship, though.

When Fitzgerald grew extremely close with Hemingway, Zelda accused the two authors of being in a homosexual relationship. Despite the fact that this happened after Fitzgerald wrote the novel, it discloses the idea that maybe Scott was bisexual. This idea could also be applied to narrator of The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway. Although Nick has a relationship with Jordan, a girl, he alludes to a homosexual encounter with Mr. McKee. Nick describes Mr. Mckee as, “feminine,” and then later in the night he appears in only his underwear on his bed with Nick at his side (30). Although it is never explicitly said, because of the taboos during this time period, it is safe to assume Nick is not straight and experiences attraction to both sexes. Further evidence for this theory could come from the way Nick lovingly describes Jay Gatsby, with the admiration of a lover. Gatsby fascinates Nick and Nick views him on somewhat of a pedestal, as we see when Nick tells him, “You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together” (154). Nick’s attraction to men could allude to the possibility of Fitzgerald being attracted to men as

well.
Despite the fact that when Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby, he was calling upon his past and current life, the novel includes some interesting foreshadowing into Fitzgerald’s future. Just as Gatsby died without fully achieving the American Dream (he gave it up for Daisy, as we see when Nick says, “He knew that when he kissed this girl and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God.”), Fitzgerald died without achieving the amount of success he desired (110). He was famous and (despite losing some of his wealth over the years) could still be considered rich, but he was never successful in his own eyes. This was partially due to the fact that he wasn’t considered as influential of a writer during his time period, and he is only now considered one of the greatest American novelists. Another intriguing parallel between Fitzgerald’s death and Gatsby’s were their funerals, specifically their lack of attendees. F. Scott Fitzgerald had alienated himself in final years and did not have many friends attend his funeral. Perhaps the most important missing guest was his own wife; Zelda Fitzgerald had become too ill to go to her own husband’s funeral.