Introduction to The Great Gatsby

1
Introduction to The Great Gatsby

• Author F. Scott Fitzgerald

2
Early Years

• Born
• In St. Paul, Minnesota
• On September 24, 1896
• Full name Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald
• Named after second cousin (composer of the
  National Anthem)

3
Early Years

• Father Edward
• Maryland
• Allegiance to the Old South and its values
• Mother Mary (Mollie) McQuillan
• daughter of an Irish immigrant who became wealthy
  as a wholesale grocer
• Both parents Catholic

4
School

• Attended St. Paul Academy
• First published at age 13
• Detective story in school newspaper    
• Princeton University, Class of 1917
• More interested in writing than in his studies
• Wrote scripts and lyrics for musicals
• Wrote for the Princeton Tiger, a humor magazine
• On academic probation
• Unlikely to graduate
• Joined the army in 1917
• Second lieutenant in the infantry

5
In the Military

• Convinced he would die in World War I,
• Quickly wrote a novel
• The Romantic Egotist
• Initially rejected for publication
• In June 1918 assigned to Camp Sheridan, near
  Montgomery, Alabama

6
Love of His Life

• At Camp Sheridan he
• Fell in love with a celebrated belle,
  eighteen-year-old Zelda Sayre
• Youngest daughter of an Alabama Supreme Court
  judge
• Romance intensified Fitzgeralds hopes for the
  success of his novel
• After revision novel rejected a second time.
• End of war and discharge in 1919
• Went to New York City to seek his fortune
• Wanted to find a way to earn a living so he could
  support and marry Zelda
• Unwilling to wait while Fitzgerald succeeded in
  the advertisement business and unwilling to live
  on his small salary, Zelda Sayre dumped him

7
Early Works

• First published novel This Side of Paradise
• Interrupted his work on novels to make money by
  writing for magazines
• The Saturday Evening Post
• Fitzgeralds best story market
• Early stories about young love introduced a fresh
  character the independent, determined young
  American woman
• The Offshore Pirate
• Bernice Bobs Her Hair

8
Early Works

• Published This Side of Paradise on March 26, 1920
• Twenty-four-years-old
• Famous almost overnight
• A week later he married Zelda Sayre in New York
• The two enjoyed extravagant life as young
  celebrities
• He wanted a solid literary reputation
• Playboy image kept him from being taken seriously

9
Drama

•  Wrote his second novel, The Beautiful and Damned
• Inspired by a wild summer
• Zelda Fitzgerald became pregnant
• Had only one child
• Frances Scott (Scottie) Fitzgerald
• Born in October 1921

10
Drama

• Failed plays
• The Vegetable
• From President to Postman
• Wrote his way out of debt with short stories
• Alcohol abuse increased
• Was an alcoholic
• Wrote sober
• Zelda Fitzgerald regularly got drunk, but she was
  not an alcoholic
• Frequent domestic fights
• Set off by drinking bouts

11
The Critics

• Reputation as a drinker ruined his image with
  critics
• Myth that he was an irresponsible writer
• UNTRUE He was a painstaking reviser whose
  fiction went through layers of drafts
• Clear, lyrical, colorful, witty writing style
  evoked the emotions associated with time and place

12
The Critics

• Critics objected to Fitzgeralds writing about
  love and success
• His response was But, my God! it was my
  material, and it was all I had to deal with.
• He wrote what he knew!
• Main theme of Fitzgeralds work is ASPIRATION
  (wanting and dreaming to be greater than you are)

13
A Marriage in Trouble

• Moved to France Spring of 1924
• WroteThe Great Gatsby during the summer in France
• Zelda became involved with French naval aviator
• Was it consummated? Unknown

14
Gatsbys Success

• Published in April 1925
• Showed striking advance in Fitzgeralds technique
• Used a complex structure
• Controlled narrative point of view
• Received critical praise
• Sales were disappointing
• Stage and movie rights brought additional income

15
After Gatsby

• Met Ernest Hemingway
• Then unknown outside small, French literary
  circle
• Friendship based largely on admiration for
  Hemingways personality and genius
• Stayed in France until 1926
• Wrote little
• Zelda Fitzgeralds behavior became increasingly
  weird

16
Zeldas Breakdown

• Moved back to America in 1926
• Tried screen writing in Hollywood
• Moved Wilmington, Delaware, in the spring of 1927
• Unable to make progress on his novel
• Zelda Fitzgerald began ballet training
• Wanted to become a professional dancer
• Intense ballet work damaged her health
• The couples relationship became more strained
• In April 1930 Zelda suffered her first breakdown
• He wrote short stories to pay for her psychiatric
  treatment

17
Money

• Peak story fee of 4,000
• From The Saturday Evening Post
• Equaled 40,000 in present-day dollars
• Still not among the highest-paid writers of his
  time
• His novels earned comparatively little
• Most of his income came from 160 magazine stories
• During the 1920s his income averaged under
  25,000 a year
• Good money at a time (a schoolteachers average
  annual salary was 1,299)
• Not a fortune
• Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald spent money faster
  than he earned it
• Wrote about the effects of money on a character
  who was unable to manage his own finances

18
Zeldas Mental Health

• Tried again to write for Hollywood in 1931
• Zelda Fitzgerald relapsed in February 1932
• Entered Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore
• Spent the rest of her life as a resident or
  outpatient of sanitariums (insane asylums)

19
Fourth Novel

• Tender Is the Night
• Published in 1934
• Most ambitious novel
• Commercial failure
• Merits were matters of critical dispute
• Set in France during the 1920s
• Plot the deterioration of Dick Diver, a
  brilliant American psychiatrist, during the
  course of his marriage to a wealthy mental
  patient

20
The Crack-Up

• 1936-1937 known as the crack-up
• The title of an essay Fitzgerald wrote in 1936
• Ill, drunk, in debt, and unable to write
  commercial stories
• Lived in hotels near Zeldas hospital
• Scottie no longer had a home
• At fourteen she went to boarding school
• Became her surrogate family
• Fitzgerald functioned as a concerned father by
  mail, attempting to supervise Scotties education
  and shape her social values

21
Hollywood Again

• Went to Hollywood again in summer of 1937
• Six-month Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer screenwriting
  contract at 1,000 a week
• Only screen credit for adapting Three Comrades
  (1938),
• Contract was renewed for a year at 1,250 a week
• Earned 91,000 from MGM
• A great deal of money during the late Depression
  years
• A new Chevrolet cost 619
• Paid off most of his debts but was unable to save
  money
• Trips East to visit Zelda went badly
• In California fell in love with movie columnist
  Sheilah Graham

22
After Hollywood

• Relationship with Sheilah Graham continued
• After MGM dropped his option at the end of 1938,
  he
• Worked as a freelance script writer
• Wrote short-short stories for Esquire magazine
• Began his Hollywood novel, The Love of the Last
  Tycoon, in 1939
• Had written more than half of a working draft
  when he died of a heart attack in Grahams
  apartment on December 21, 1940
• Zelda Fitzgerald died in a fire in Highland
  Hospital in 1948

23
Depressing Death, BUT

• F. Scott Fitzgerald died believing himself a
  failure
• Obituaries were negative
• He seemed destined for being a literary unkown
• By 1960 he had achieved a secure place among
  Americas enduring writers
• The Great Gatsby, a work that seriously examines
  the theme of achieving the American dream is one
  of the classic American novels