Since the beginning of time, man has written himself into history. Whether it was on cave walls, or in scripts, men have wanted to leave behind a legacy. One of the most well known men is author F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald had always wanted to write the greatest American novel- and so he created the Great Gatsby. Although it is not the greatest American novel, it is studied by high schools and has several movie adaptions. However, he had to take a great journey to create this story about Jay Gatsby and his endless hope. Despite his creative mind, the characters and conflicts in this story did not come from his imagination. In the novel, The Great Gatsby, author F. Scott Fitzgerald reflects the dramatic life he shared with his wife though he characters Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan.
Ever since he was a young child, F. Scott Fitzgerald wanted to be a writer. He wanted to leave behind a great legacy, and found that one way to do this was through writing. While he was writing his first novel, Fitzgerald met a woman named Zelda Sayre, and he fell in love with her. Because she had high standards, she wasn't too impressed with Scott. From there, he became determined to publish his book. Before he did this, he proposed to Zelda, but she refused. Since Fitzgerald was so madly in love, he rewrote the novel and called it This Side of Paradise. Once the book was published, then she accepted his proposal. The funny thing was that he had written the two of them straight into the story. The two main characters, who fall in love, were obviously based on them. In the documentary, Sincerely, F. Scott Fitzgerald by Jay McInerney, a man who was interested in creating a movie adaption of the book asked Scott and Zelda to star in it (McInerney).Thi...
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...e this book, the only description of Gatsby is his smile. “It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it that you may come across four or five times in life” (Fitzgerald 52). In McInerney's documentary, he said that whenever Fitzgerald looked into the mirror, he saw Gatsby. He was certainly not kidding. Gatsby is Fitzgerald, and Daisy is Zelda. The similarities between these people and characters are hardly a coincidence.
Works Cited
Bruccoli, Matthew J. "A Brief Life of Fitzgerald." A Brief Life of Fitzgerald. University of South Carolina, 4 Dec. 2003. Web. 14 Mar. 2014.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Collier, 1992. Print.
McInerney, Jay. "Sincerely, F Scott Fitzgerald." The Culture Show. BBC Two. London, Web. 20 Feb. 2014.
Willett, Erika. "F. Scott Fitzgerald and the American Dream." PBS. PBS. Web. 20 Feb. 2014.
Scott Fitzgerald implemented his life into his short stories and novels. In The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald includes three main ideas that relate to his own life. In The Great Gatsby many of the characters drink quite frequently. Fitzgerald was also a known alcoholic and would frequently attend parties. Another relation between The Great Gatsby and Fitzgerald's personal life is Nick Carraway living among many rich. Nick is an outsider looking in on the ridiculousness of the wealthy. Fitzgerald was just like Nick in this way, he was not very wealthy but he lived among them and saw how they lived. The most significant example of of Fitzgerald's life in The Great Gatsby is Daisy and Gatsby's relationship. When Gatsby meets Daisy and he asks her to marry him she says no and later explains that “rich girls don't marry poor boys”. When Fitzgerald asks Zelda to marry him she doesn't because he doesn't have enough money yet. This is the most blatant example of Fitzgerald injecting his own personal experiences into The Great Gatsby. (Shmoop Editorial
Trilling, Lionel. "F. Scott Fitzgerald." Critical Essays on Scott Fitzgerald's "Great Gatsby." Ed. Scott Donaldson. Boston: Hall, 1984. 13-20.
Fitzgerald, F S, and Matthew J. Bruccoli. The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald: A New
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book The Great Gatsby was a remarkable book. Fitzgerald Made the characters of the book as real and as personal as possible. Three characteristics stood out in the novel to me. Tom’s Jealousy of Gatsby relationship with his wife, Gatsby’s lies about who he is and his life, and Daisy’s ways to tempt Gatsby to fall in love with her. The novel was inspired by the way he fell in love with his wife Zelda.
Stern, Milton R. The Golden Moment: The Novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1971.
F. Scott Fitzgerald third book, “The Great Gatsby”, stands as the supreme achievement in his career. According to The New York Times, “The Great Gatsby” is an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s. In the novel, the author described Daisy Buchanan as childish, materialistic, and charming. These characteristics describing Daisy is also description for the way women were seen during the 1920s.
Mizener, Arthur, ed. F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963.
Chambers, John B. The Novels of F. Scott Fitzgerald. London: Macmillan/New York: St Martin's P, 1989.
James Gatz, better known as Jay Gatsby is the main character in The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. This novel is a story about Gatsby, and his relentless pursuit of his one and only dream and goal: Daisy Buchannon. Gatsby and Daisy met in 1917, five years prior to the setting of the novel. The fell in love immediately and spent countless hours together. After a month, Gatsby, at the time a lieutenant, was summoned to go off and fight in World War One. That moment marked Gatsby's loss of Daisy. Ever since that day Gatsby has constantly been trying to re-catch Daisy. Gatsby's pursuit of Daisy somewhat resembles the pursuit a knight has in a holy grail. Knights pursue the holy grail with endless fervor and devotion. Often a knights quest of a holy grail becomes religious and spiritual, due to the qualifications the knight must maintain in order to obtain the grail. Gatsby even compares his quest for Daisy to the quest of a grail:
“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.
The concept of one’s journey to reach the so called "American Dream" has served as the central theme for many novels. However, in the novel The Great Gatsby, the author, F. Scott Fitzgerald, portrays the American Dream as so opulent it is unrealistic and unreachable. The American Dream is originally about obtaining happiness, but by the 1920's, this dream has become twisted into a desire for fame and fortune by whatever means; mistaken that wealth will bring happiness. Fitzgerald illustrates that the more people reach toward the idealistic American dream, the more they lose sight of what makes them happy, which sends the message that the American dream is unattainable. The continuos yearning for extravagance and wealthy lifestyles has become detrimental to Gatsby and many other characters in the novel as they continue to remain incorrigible in an era of decayed social and moral values, pursuing an empty life of pleasure instead of seeking happiness.
“He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it; he did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in the vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.” (Fitzgerald, 180). This novel, The Great Gatsby, was written by an insightfully amorous man names F. Scott Fitzgerald. The story was, loosely, based off of his life of love, trouble, parties, and death. The Great Gatsby is a story about an observant unbiased man named Nick Carraway who helps out young proscribed love. But he fails to perceive the foreshadowed future of the two estranged couple that is Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby. Throughout the entire novel, all the way till the end, Gatsby never gives up on his hope to win Daisy over from Tom. Whenever Gatsby feels that he has won, something happens that brings everyone, including him, disappointment.
At the heart of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby, there is a theme of desire, an unshakable quest by Jay Gatsby set in motion by the beauty of Daisy Buchanan. Yet, when Jay and Daisy are together, considerable awkwardness is displayed between these two characters, and this awkward atmosphere is primarily the result of the actions of Jay Gatsby.
Piper, Henry Dan. F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Critical Portrait. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965.
In The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald analyzes three main characters, Jay Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan, and Nick Carraway. The Great Gatsby is a story about finding out who people really are and how far they will go to protect their secrets from spilling to everyone. The Great Gatsby is like a story of our time, we have the rich and the poor towns, we have people who cheat on their spouses, and lastly, we have racism towards different cultures and races (Schreier). Many ironic events take place throughout the book. For example, Gatsby and Nick become friends, Tom and Myrtle being secret lovers, also, Daisy and Gatsby carrying on an affair, and lastly Daisy running over Myrtle in Gatsby’s car (Coleman). Fitzgerald purposely wrote the book to tell about lovers that were not supposed to be together and how they overcame that and fell in love with one another (Shain). He also wrote the book to relate to American society (Tolmatchoff).