F. Scott Fitzgerald

832 Words2 Pages

F. Scott Fitzgerald was a very well-known and successful writer during the Jazz Age. His work influenced many Americans during this time period. In his novels, The Great Gatsby and This Side of Paradise, the characters represent the idea of how society is driven by only material success. Fitzgerald’s life is an example of both sides of the American dream, the joys of young love, wealth, success and the tragedies associated with success and failure.
F. Scott Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896 in Saint Paul, Minnesota. Fitzgerald’s given names indicates his parents pride in his father’s ancestry. His mother, Mary McQuillan, was an Irish immigrant whose family had made a small fortune in Minnesota as wholesale grocers. As for his father, Edward Fitzgerald, opened a wicker furniture business in Saint Paul. He was the only child who survived. Before Fitzgerald was born, he had two older sisters, Mary and Louise, who “suddenly died during an epidemic, at the ages of one and three,” while his mother was pregnant with him (Paul Ruben, PAL, October 31, 2011). As a child, Fitzgerald attended St. Paul Academy. When he was at the age of thirteen he saw his first piece of writing published into the school newspaper, and that was considered the beginning to Scott’s passion for writing. When he reached the age of fifteen, his parents sent him to a
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Newman School which was a Catholic Preparatory in New Jersey. Once he graduated in 1913, Fitzgerald decided to stay in New Jersey and attend Princeton University. His reasoning to attending
Princeton was not just the Triangle Club, but because “It was the great Stan White’s touchdown run against Harvard in 1911 that won him to the university” (Paul Ruben, PAL, October 31,2011). He was...

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Works Cited

Reuben, Paul P. "Chapter 7: F. Scott Fitzgerald." PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide. Web. 5 Mar. 2014.

Mangum, Bryant. “F. Scott Fitzgerald.” Critical Survey Of Long Fiction, Fourth Edition(2010): 1-11. Literary Reference Center. Web. 5 Mar. 2014.

“F. Scott Fitzgerald: Writer Of The Jazz Age.” F. Scott Fitzgerald: Writer Of The Jazz Age (2002): 8-36. Literary Reference Center. Web. 5 Mar. 2014

Simon, John. "F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Short Autobiography." New Criterion 30.7 (2012): 71-73. Literary Reference Center. Web. 5 Mar. 2014.

Hickey, Angela D. "The Great Gatsby." Masterplots, Fourth Edition (2010): 1-3. Literary Reference Center. Web. 5 Mar. 2014.

Mizener, Arthur. "Web sites: F. Scott Fitzgerald (American writer)."Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, 7 Feb. 2013. Web. 17 Apr. 2014.

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