Zelda Fitzgerald Biography Essay

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

graduated from Sidney Lanier High School in 1918. Not too long after her graduation, she met F. Scott Fitzgerald in a club in Montgomery. Zelda was the younger of the two and decided to decline F. Scott’s first marriage proposal. When she accepted the second proposal, they got married April 3, 1920 in New York City. This was just a week after his first book was published, This Side of Paradise. The publishing of this book was one of the terms that had to be met before Zelda would accept the proposal.
October 26, 1921, Zelda gave birth to their first child and moved to Long Island not long after. Several years passed and the small family learned that their spending habits simply did not mix well with their financial standing. They moved to France in 1924 where F. Scott wrote The Great Gatsby and Zelda learned to paint. This was her way of expressing herself since she was not an exclusive writer like her husband. Though writing was not her first activity of choice, she did turn down a ballet gig because of the short stories she was writing.
While F. Scott Fitzgerald made quite a bit of money from his various successful novels, when the Great Depression hit, the family lost mostly everything. F. Scott took excerpts of Zelda’s diaries and included them in his novels. This was something that led to the downfall of Zelda and their marriage. This was not the only problem with their marriage, seeing as how alcoholism, violence, and mental health concerns played a role. Zelda was diagnosed with Schizophrenia in 1930. She spent the next, and final, 18 years of her life in and out of mental health facilities trying to get some help for her disorder. F. Scott died eight years before Zelda, on December 21, 1940.
Zelda Fitzgerald was a very creative soul. It is one of the things she is best known for. She painted a lot and wrote several short stories. Later in her life, she created two novels. The first was semi-autobiographical, called Save Me the Waltz. This novel was written while she was in Johns Hopkins hospital. It was based on her marriage and all of the struggles faced in it. The last novel she started was never finished. It was called Caesar’s Things. Fitzgerald also wrote a play, Scandalabra, among several other magazine articles and short stories.
She was rather well known for her paintings. She created several oil paintings, most of which are located in the F. Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald Museum. This museum is located in Montgomery, Alabama. Zelda was inducted into the Alabama Women’s Hall of Fame in 1992. This year, 2017, brought a television series that focuses on Zelda’s life as well. It is called Z: The Beginning of Everything.
The couple obviously had many struggles throughout their married life, but one of the bigger, better known issue was that both F. Scott and Zelda accused the other of plagiarism. Zelda joked around about her husband taking things straight out of their home for use in his books. The line between reality and fiction was blurred multiple times because of this. In response to her claims, F. Scott tried to talk badly about her literary desires. He dissed her only published work. He claimed she used some of the things from their home life he was planning to use in one of his upcoming novels, Tender is the Night. He also accused her of stealing a name from a character from one of his earlier works. These were the instances where he accused Zelda of plagiarism. Another big test for their marriage was the infidelity scandals. Zelda accused. Scott of having a gay relationship with famous author and family friend Ernest Hemingway. Zelda also allegedly had an affair with a naval aviator at some point in the marriage. These events shook the marriage to the core and caused great issues in the long haul. This also impacted the way that Scott was able to write for the last of his years.
Zelda Fitzgerald struggled daily with some type of mental illness for years. She was diagnosed with Schizophrenia and spent many years in and out of mental hospitals. Although this was her definite diagnosis, it is believed she could have also been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. She spent many days fluctuating between depression and a state of mania. These mental health facilities are where Zelda created many of her paintings. Among the creations were scenes from Alice in Wonderland, the Bible, and several sights in New York such as Times Square, Brooklyn Bridge, and Washington State Park. Some of her other inspirations were children’s books and series such as ‘Mary Had a Little Lamb” and “The Lobster Quadrile.”
Several things have been named to commemorate Zelda Fitzgerald since her death in the late 1940s.

One common household name of a game is The Legend of Zelda which was named after Mrs. Fitzgerald. The Japanese designer, Miyamoto, said he admired her name and the way she was a beautiful woman. Thus, The Legend of Zelda was born. Something else that was based around some point of the woman’s life was a song by The Beatles. The band, specifically Don Henley, wrote “Witchy Woman” after reading the biography of Zelda’s life. One last less expected item created after Fitzgerald was a line of artisanal ice creams. This was a collection of four flavors and the line was called the Zelda Collection. The four flavors were dark chocolate rye, cognac and marmalade, blackberries and sweet cream, and Loveless biscuits and peach jam. This collection was created because Zelda was a lover of sweet delicacies such as ice cream.
As a young girl, Zelda took dance classes. As she grew older, she was a dancer of several forms. At one point not long after the pair wed, Zelda became a flapper. In 1928, once they had moved to Paris, Zelda decided to take professional ballet classes. During the period of time she was training, she was in the studio eight hours a day. This was certainly a factor in her declining health. Her first major health issue occurred at the age of 27. This was the first mental breakdown she had. The diagnosis was nervous

exhaustion.
The end of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s life impacted Zelda in ways no one really saw coming. Though the end was not that bad for him, seeing as how he got a contract to write for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and ended up falling in love with Sheila Graham, it took a toll on the rest of his family. He became an alcoholic and was a perfect example of the not so good side of the Jazz Age. This affected his wife and daughter in many ways. One of the ways is because his many works that were full of raw talent did not become popular in the same way that they are now until many years after the man died.
Zelda Fitzgerald was a woman of many talents and is remembered for several things such as her creativity. Fitzgerald died a tragic death in a fire in Highland Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina. Only nine patients died in this fire, despite the rapid spread of the flames. The firefighters and staff tried to save everyone, but unfortunately, Zelda Fitzgerald was identified after the blaze only by her slipper. She was under the care of Dr. Robert S. Carroll for four years before her death. This man had a rather unconventional way of treating mental illness. It consisted of diet and exercise alongside other treatments, which was different than many at the time. Fitzgerald had a major impact on the Jazz Age, and will not be forgotten.