F. Scott Fitzgerald once said, “The beauty of literature” is that “you discover that your longings are universal longings, that you're not lonely and isolated from anyone. You belong.” Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, Minnesota on September 24, 1896. He was named after his second cousin three times removed and author of “The Star Spangled Banner". His mother, Mary McQuillan, was from an Irish Catholic family who made a small fortune from being wholesale grocers. Edward Fitzgerald, his father, had a job as a salesman, which moved his family all over New York. When Edward lost his job, they moved back to St. Paul to live off of Mary’s inheritance. When Fitzgerald was thirteen, he attended the St. Paul Academy, where his first …show more content…
For example, emotional hardship from wealth is often shown in Fitzgerald’s works. In The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway is reflecting on Gatsby’s life: “Gatsby turned out alright in the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men”(4). Nick saw Gatsby as a person who wanted to reach his “American Dream”. Gatsby was made to believe if he had fame and money, he could have Daisy. In reality, Gatsby became unhappy with his money because it couldn’t buy Daisy’s love. In The Last Tycoon Stahr is having a meeting with Brimmer, a communist party member, to discuss business affairs. When Stahr starts drinking that night, he does not stop until he vomits and passes out: “He was carrying on a losing battle with his instinct toward schizophrenia” (126). Stahr had lost Kathleen and, in a way, his career. When he turned to drinking, it had made him hostile and malicious towards others. Robert Bell describes Fitzgerald’s plans for Tender is the Night as though his: “initial plan … envisioned “the leisure class” at “their truly most brilliant and glamorous.” But Fitzgerald’s project gradually became far more ambitious and complex, focusing, he mused, on “a man who is a natural idealist, a spoiled priest, giving in for various causes to the ideas of the haute bourgeoisie, and in …show more content…
In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby has been wrongly accused of murdering Myrtle, Tom’s mistress. When Myrtle’s husband, Wilson, discovers this, he kills Gatsby and then himself: “It was after we started with Gatsby toward the house that the gardener saw Wilson's body a little way off in the grass, and the Holocaust was complete” (123). The last phrase in Nick’s description of the night suggests that, because Tom and Daisy have done all the damage they can to them, their “carelessness” will no longer affect Gatsby, Myrtle, and Wilson. In “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz” John T. Unger, the main character, learns that the Washingtons will murder anyone who comes to their
Francis Scott Fitzgerald, also known under his writer’s name, F. Scott Fitzgerald, is revered as a famous American novelist for his writing masterpieces in the 1920’s and 1930’s. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote about his extravagant lifestyle in America that his wife, Zelda, their friends, and him lived during that era. In fact, a lot of his novels and essays were based off of real-life situations with exaggerated plots and twists. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novels were the readers looking glass into his tragic life that resulted in sad endings in his books, and ultimately his own life. F. Scott Fitzgerald lived in a nice neighborhood, but growing up, he wasn’t privileged.
Andrew T. Crosland, an expert on the Jazz Age writings of author F.Scott Fitzgerald, wrote that Fitzgerald 's The Great Gatsby included over 200 references to cars (Crosland). This is not surprising as the automobile, like the flapper were enticing novelties at the time this book was written. The main characters in The Great Gatsby who, by the way, all drive cars are Nick Carraway, Jay Gatsby, Tom and Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker, and Myrtle and George Wilson. Attractive, yet enigmatic, Gatsby tries to win the love of an aristocratic woman, who rebuffs Gatsby for her upper class husband. This leads to Gatsby’s tragic murder after he is falsely accused of killing Myrtle with his Rolls Royce. The automobile, as
How does reading a story benefits an individual and improve his or her daily life? Extensive reading does not only serve as an entertainment purpose, but it is also beneficial to many readers because reading fiction can help enhance a person’s understanding of the type of society the reader lives in. For example, the famous novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is regarded as a brilliant work of literature, for it offers a detailed glimpse of the American life in the 1920s and comments on various social problems during that time period. The novel tells the story of a mysterious millionaire named Jay Gatsby who lives in the fictional town of West Egg, located on Long Island, during the summer of 1922. Gatsby wants to pursue his first
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul Minnesota on September 24, 1896. His parents were Mary McQuillan and Edward Fitzgerald. Francis was the lone son of the couple however they had a daughter named Annabel who was five years younger than Francis. The Fitzgerald’s, who were Catholics, lived an upper-middle class lifestyle (Merriman). Francis attended St. Paul Academy where his writing career began. He penned “The Mystery of the Raymond Mortgage” which was a short story that was printed in the school newspaper when he was thirteen. When he was fifteen, his parents sent him to a prestigious catholic school known as Newman School. Incidentally, he met Father Sigourney Fay, who encouraged Fitzgerald to pursue a writing career (Biography.com Staff).
In 1896, F. Scott Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, Minnesota on September twenty-fourth. Fitzgerald was named after the author of the “Star Spangled Banner” (LitFinder). He was the only child of Edward and Mollie McQuillan Fitzgerald, and he is Irish by ancestry(McMahon 89). According to Matthew Bruccoli, while Edward was a provincial aristocrat, his mother Mollie, was a “straight 1850 potato –famine Irish” (Bruccoli). Fitzgerald ended up moving to New Jersey in 1911 to obtain an education at Newman College Preparatory School. Two years later he transferred to Princeton University. After schooling, Fitzgerald became a Lieutenant in the U.S. Army, but he never saw war. Instead of entering line of duty in WWI, he was assigned to stay at camp Sheridan. It was at this camp where he met his wife Zelda (LitFinder). While she and Fitzgerald were engaged, he tried to succeed in the advertisement business; however, Zelda, unwilling to wait for him to succeed, broke off the engagement (Bruccoli). Then in 1919 he published, This side of Paradise. This novel allowed Fitzgerald to become a well known literary figure. One year later he married Z...
Unbeknownst to the literary world, a future great American novelist, Francis Scott Fitzgerald was born in 1896. As an intellectual young man with great ambition, F. Scott Fitzgerald attended Princeton in the fall of 1913 with great hopes of fulfilling his dream to become a writer (“F. Scott Fitzgerald – Bio”, 2015). Unfortunately, Fitzgerald did not find much success at Princeton, was put on academic probation, and in 1917 left the school and enlisted himself into the U.S Army. During his time spent on base in Alabama, Fitzgerald met a woman, Zelda Sayre, and fell in love. Following his discharge at the end of the war, Fitzgerald and Zelda moved to Great Neck, New York on Long Island to pursue his literary aspirations
In 1898 at Saint Paul, Minnesota, born into a middle-upper class family, Fitzgerald was named after his famous second cousin Francis Scott Key but he finally went by the familiar name Scott Fitzgerald. Also he was named after his late sister, Louise Scott, one of two sisters who died shortly before his birth. "Well, three months before I was born my mother lost her other two children ... I think I started then to be a writer." His parents were Mollie (McQuillan) and Edward Fitzgerald. His mother was of Irish ancestry, and his father had Irish and English descent.
Materialism has a negative influence on the characters in the novel, The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. “The most terrible thing about materialism even more terrible than its proneness to violence, is its boredom, from which sex, alcohol, drugs, all devices for putting out the accusing light of reason and suppressing the unrealizable aspirations of love, offers a prospect of deliverance.” This quote, stated by Malcolm Muggeridge, says that people get bored with the things that they have when they get new things all of the time. When they get bored with these things, they turn to stuff like sex, alcohol, and drugs. In The Great Gatsby, Myrtle, Daisy, and Gatsby are greatly influenced by money, and material things. The negative influence that materialism has on these characters is shown throughout the entire novel.
Materialism may be defined as attention to or emphasis on material objects, needs or considerations, with a disinterest in or rejection of spiritual values.
Gatsby's death at the hands of George Wilson, who doesn't know Daisy killed his wife because
On Wednesday February 12 of 1890 F. Scott Fitzgerald's parents were married in Washington D.C. Six years later on September 24, 1896 Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born at his home 481 Laurel Ave. in St. Paul, Minnesota. His two infant older sisters had died from a violent influenza so that by the time Fitzgerald came along Mollie Fitzgerald had become the proverbial nightmare that known as an overprotective mother. Fitzgerald's mother was no traditional mother though, for she was known for her eccentricities. These eccentricities disturbed young Scott's life, "Fitzgerald later described his mother as 'half insane with pathological nervous worry'" (Bruccoli 15), but nothing worried anyone in the family so much as his father's failure to hold down a job. It was because his father lost his job as a wicker furniture manufacturer and salesman the family was forced to move from St. Paul to Buffalo in April of 1898, where his father began work for Proctor and Gamble. In January of 1901 the family moved from Buffalo to Syracuse where Edward had been transferred by his employer and where, on Sunday July 21, 1901 Scott's younger sister Annabel was born. Just two years later the family was back in Buffalo and just five years after that the family had returned to St. Paul and Grandma McQuillan's money.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is a tragedy filled with love, loss, and betrayal. Fitzgerald paints us a beautiful picture of the events in this tale through complex wording. While his story and word usage may be complex, his character are not as complex as they appear. Their outward appearance may fool a reader because deep down they fit many popular archetypes. From the narcissistic jock type to the outsider, each one of Fitzgerald’s main characters can fit a certain archetype.
“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”
The world is filled with cheapskates, phonies, and two-faced people. Many use others for their own benefits. In The Great Gatsby, through the motif of superficiality, Fitzgerald critiques the theme that displaying materialism and superficiality can ruin true love and a chance at true love. Objects cannot define a relationship; it should be the feelings developed that defines the relationship of two people. The characteristic of materialism is a barrier for true love between two people. Nick Carraway has just moved to a West Egg, and his mysterious neighbor is Jay Gatsby. Gatsby’s long living dream is to rekindle his love and relationship with Daisy Buchanan, who is currently married to Tom Buchanan. He attempts to pursue his relationship with Daisy through his unexplained wealth. However, their love couldn’t be true because of their focus on “things” rather than each other.
Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, Minnesota to Mollie McQuillan, the daughter of an Irish immigrant (Fitzgerald, Bruccoli and Baughman, 1994) and charming businessman, Edward Fitzgerald (Martin, 1985). Fitzgerald was christened ‘Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald’, in honour of his second cousin, Francis Scott Key, (Ibid, 2004). Francis Scott Key was an American lawyer, author, and amateur poet, from Georgetown. Key famously wrote the lyrics to the United States ' national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner" (Weybright, 2007). Fitzgerald 's mother, Mollie McQuillan, made her fortune in the wholesale grocery business (Pelzer, 2000). Fitzgerald’s father, Edward, although a businessman, Edward experienced only borderline financial success (Magill, 1999). The Fitzgerald family lived contentedly on the outskirts of the city 's most fashionable residential neighborhood, Summit Avenue, in a modest house, which was described by F. Scott Fitzgerald as “a house below the average on a street above the average” (Kane, 1976). The house has now been listed a National Historic Landmark for its association with the author of The Great Gatsby (National Historic Landmarks Program, 2007). The Fitzgeralds were supported largely and owed a lot to the liberality of the McQuillan family (Ibid,