The Disenchanted Analysis

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The Disenchanted is a thinly disguised portrait of the life and times of F. Scott Fitzgerald, during his rise of fame of his fictional works to the fall of his alcoholic demise, similar to Manley Halliday in the novel. It is also a depiction of Schulberg himself as a young writer assigned to work with his idol at Darthmouth College. The novel begins with Shep Sterns, a junior writer and an idealist at heart, awaits for his screenplay, “Love on Ice” to be considered by the studio head, Victor Milgrim. As Milgrim sees potential on the script, he hires Halliday to work on it alongside with Shep. Halliday, a legendary but washed out novelist from the Jazz Age, tries to keep it together as he travels to Shep’s alma mater, Webster College, as a request from Milgrim. Shep sees his idol go down into a dangerous path of alcohol abuse and mental breakdowns. As for Shep, he also starts to the follow the same footsteps as he becomes hungry for fame and fortune. The relationship between Fitzgerald and Zelda was turbulent and unhealthy. Alcohol, obsession, and mental instabilities plagued their marriage throughout. After Zelda was institutionalized for Schizophrenia in the 1930’s, he had an affair with Sheilah Graham, a newspaper columnist and an inspiration for Fitzgerald last novel, The Love of the Last Tycoon. Their relationship was also stormy but through tribulations, she stayed with him until his death by 1940. Both women were not that far from different. Both were writers and both were in an intense relationship with a distinguished writer whose main focus was on the drink, the fame, and the novels than himself. In the novel, Manley Halliday’s marriage to a flapper named Jere is similar to Zelda, who was dubbed, “The First American Fl...

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...risian life and the people that it influenced him to write Tulips and Chimneys. He was considered an avant-garde poet of the Jazz Age. By the 1930’s, it was in an economic collapse. After the Stock Market crashed in 1929, it left thousands homeless and financially crippled around the world resulting into The Great Depression. Film and radio were the main source for entertainment as it gave people an escape from the harsh realities of the era.

Charles Lindbergh was an escape. He was known for the being the first person to ever fly from one country to another in 2 days, non-stop. Halliday praises Lindbergh, as he was a symbol of heroism, an escape from the depression Halliday experienced in his youth. He also comments the political side of Lindbergh, labeling him as the “appeaser”, as he became politically involved in the anti-war movement by the end of the 1930’s

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