Scott Fitzgerald: biography and creativity

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

How did Francis Scott Fitzgerald live and work? The writer's books have much in common with his biography, and the brilliant heyday and tragic ending really make him look like the hero of one of the Jazz Age novels.

Childhood and youth

Francis Scott Fitzgerald was born in 1896 in Saint Paul, Minnesota. His parents were an unsuccessful businessman from Maryland and the daughter of a we althy immigrant. The family existed largely at the expense of funds coming from the mother's we althy parents. The future writer studied at the academy of his native city, then at a private Catholic school in New Jersey and at Princeton University.

Francis Scott Fitzgerald was not interested in academic success. At the university, his attention was primarily attracted by a good football team and the Triangle club, where students who were passionate about the theater met.

Due to poor academic performance, the future writer did not study even a semester. He left the educational institution, saying he was sick, and later volunteered for the army. As an aide-de-camp to General J. A. Ryan, Francis made a good military career,but in 1919 he was demobilized.

First success

What kind of person was Scott Fitzgerald? The biography of the writer becomes especially interesting when he meets his future wife Zelda Sayre. The girl came from an influential and we althy family and was an enviable bride. However, her parents opposed her daughter's marriage to a former military man. In order for the wedding to take place, the young man needed to get on his feet and get a stable source of income.

After leaving the army, Scott Fitzgerald went to New York and started working in an advertising agency. He does not give up the dream of earning a living by writing and actively sends out manuscripts to various publishing houses, but is rejected after rejection. Deeply experiencing a series of failures, the writer returns to his parents' house and begins to remake the novel, which was written while serving in the army.

This novel, "Romantic Egoist", was rejected by the publisher not with a final rejection, but with a proposal to make changes. In 1920, Fitzgerald's first book, This Side of Paradise, was published, which was a revised version of The Romantic Egoist. The novel gains immense popularity and the doors of all publishing houses open to the young writer. Financial success allows you to marry Zelda.

Rise of fame

Scott Fitzgerald hit the literary world like a hurricane. The Beautiful and the Damned, his second novel, published in 1922, producedsensation and became a bestseller. The short story collections Libertines and Philosophers (1920) and Tales of the Jazz Age (1922) helped keep him on top. He earned money writing articles for fashion magazines and newspapers and was one of the highest paid authors of the time.

Francis and Zelda

"Age of Jazz" - this is the name given to the twenties with the light hand of the writer. And Francis and Zelda became the king and queen of this era. Money and fame just hit them in one moment, and young people quickly became regular heroes of the gossip column.

The couple constantly shocked the public with their eccentric behavior. There are enough actions in their biography that did not leave the pages of newspapers for a long time and were vigorously discussed. Once in a restaurant, Zelda drew peonies on napkins and made over three hundred drawings. This event became the topic of small talk for a long time. But there were more important reasons. For example, the couple rode through Manhattan on the roof of a taxi.

The mysterious disappearance of spouses for 4 days was also widely discussed. They were found drunk in a cheap motel, and neither of them remembered how they got there. At the premiere of Scandals, Francis stripped naked. Zelda publicly bathed in a fountain.

Drunken Scott Fitzgerald threatened to jump out of the window as the greatest book has already been written - "Ulysses" by James Joyce. Zelda publicly rushed down the flight of stairs in a restaurant, jealous of her husband for Isadora Duncan. Because of such antics, the family was in the spotlight, they were condemned,they were admired.

Europe

With this lifestyle, Fitzgerald could not work fully. The couple sold their mansion and moved to France in 1924, where they lived until 1930. In the Riviera in 1925, Francis completes his most accomplished novel, The Great Gatsby, which today is considered one of the masterpieces of American classics. In 1926, a collection of short stories "All these sad young people" was published.

From 1925 begins the collapse in the life of the writer. He is increasingly abusing alcohol, scandals and becomes depressed. Zelda's behavior becomes more and more strange, she experiences clouding of her mind. Since 1930, she has been treated for schizophrenia in various clinics, but this does not bring results.

Hollywood

In 1934 Scott Fitzgerald publishes the novel "Tender is the Night", but it does not bring success. Then the writer goes to Hollywood. He is confused and dissatisfied with himself, with the fact that he wasted his youth and talent. The writer works as an ordinary screenwriter and tries to earn enough money to support his daughter and treat his wife. In 1939, he begins to write his last novel about the life of Hollywood, which he will no longer be able to finish.

In 1940, at the age of 44, Francis dies of a heart attack. His savings are barely enough for repatriation and funerals. Zelda dies in a mental hospital nine years later in a fire.

After the death of the writer, his last unfinished novel was published, and earlier work was rethought. Fitzgerald was recognized as a classic of literature, whoperfectly described his time, "Age of Jazz".

Novels

This Side of Paradise is a book about finding yourself. The protagonist goes through a path that repeats the life of Fitzgerald himself, a short study at Princeton, military service, meeting a girl whom he cannot marry because of poverty.

The book "The Beautiful and the Damned" tells about the life of a married couple, and again the writer turns to his life experience. "The Lost Generation" is about children from we althy families who cannot find themselves and some kind of goal and lead an idle lifestyle.

The Great Gatsby did not become popular during the life of the writer, this novel was appreciated only in the fifties. The book tells about the son of a poor farmer who is in love with a girl from high society. To win the heart of the beauty, Gatsby earns a lot of money and settles in the neighborhood with her lover and her husband, and to enter their circle, he arranges chic parties. The book details the life of the rich in the "Roaring Twenties" and the decline of morality. It was in such a society that Francis Scott Fitzgerald moved. Reviews from critics ranked the book as the second best English-language novel of the twentieth century.

Like other novels, Tender is the Night, although it does not repeat, it strongly echoes the life of the writer. The main character, a psychiatrist, marries his patient from a we althy family. They live on the banks of the Riviera, where a man has to combine the role of a husband with the role of an attending physician.

The Last Tycoon explores the world of American cinema. The book was notfinished.