F. Scott Fitzgerald Overview

Beaver coats, hooch, Roadsters, flappers, the Charleston, and hot jazz -- all these ingredients blended in the punch bowl that was the Roaring Twenties, the era in which F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda were the crown prince and princess... [more]

Beaver coats, hooch, Roadsters, flappers, the Charleston, and hot jazz -- all these ingredients blended in the punch bowl that was the Roaring Twenties, the era in which F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda were the crown prince and princess of the fast set. The author had gained wealth, excitement, however: Zelda, the aristocratic and flamboyant Southern belle whom he would pursue with an almost chivalric fervor. The popular success of "This Side of Paradise" made the couple a centerpiece of '20s social life. They embarked on an endless round of drinking parties and high living, helped along financially by a second novel, "The Beautiful and the Damned" (1922). Following the trail of other wealthy Americans, they landed on the coast of the Riviera, where their close friends Gerald and Sara Murphy played host to the likes of Hemingway, Picasso, Cole Porter, and Stravinsky. In this elite milieu, Fitzgerald reflected on the materialism and the caste system that undercut the ideals of the American Dream. "The Great Gatsby" (1925), his exposé of Jazz Age decadence and contender for the title of The Great American Novel, is a love story, a tragedy, and a morality play all in one. Nick Carraway, a sympathetic Midwestern lost soul, serves as narrator and guide through New York society: the Long Island enclave of East Egg where old money and privilege reside; West Egg, where newly minted millionaires like Jay Gatsby build their flashy mansions and throw fabulous parties; and the Valley of Ashes (otherwise known as Queens), where the rest of the world lives. Gatsby is the epitome of the self-made man, the poster boy for the American Way. Everything he has grasped for and accumulated, every effort to raise himself from obscurity, has been for the sake of winning Daisy -- his boyhood love, his ideal of glowing innocence, his paradise lost. She belongs to the to social circle of East Egg. As this impossible love plays out, glossy appearances are stripped away: Daisy's husband is a brute, conducting an affair with a desperate lower-class woman; Daisy is the original material girl, trapped in her own elitist prison; and Gatsby has sold his soul to the mob in order to recreate himself. The clash of desires -- for money, for status, for purity -- leads to a violent conclusion, and onlookers, from the disillusioned Nick to the now-defunct god whose eyes stare impassively out of a billboard advertisement, are helpless to intervene. As Scott and Zelda careened into the '30s, their own glamorous life would crash and crumble. Alcohol became his downfall, while her madcap eccentricity turned into full-blown mental illness. After a series of breakdowns, she was put away in a sanatorium, the marriage effectively ended. Fitzgerald published only one more novel, "Tender Is the Night" (1934), which was not well received. It tells the story of a brilliant but alcoholic psychoanalyst who falls in love with his patient, a lovely schizophrenic girl who destroys him. In 1937 Scott resurfaced in Hollywood, where he worked as a hack screenwriter and lived with gossip columnist Sheilah Graham. He died of a heart attack in 1940 while working on "The Last Tycoon," a novel about a movie mogul. At his death, Fitzgerald was a forgotten figure of the '20s. His literary status was restored by later generations, who rediscovered his acute analysis of the tragic contradictions inherent in American values. [show less]