Francis Scott Fitzgerald: biography and work

In a Nutshell

F. Scott Fitzgerald é um dos nomes mais importantes da Literatura Americana, principalmente devido à sua maior obra, The Great Gatsby (1925).

Life

Francis Scott Fitzgerald (1896 - 1940) was born in Minnesota, USA. He studied in a Catholic boarding school in New Jersey and, in 1913, went to Princeton University.

When the United States entered World War I, he joined the army and began to work on his first novel, published in 1920: This Side of Paradise.

This novel gave a forceful picture of the lifestyle characteristic of the so-called Roaring Twenties, also capturing the sense of loss and emptiness hiding behind the cult of wealth and materialism - that would become one of F. Scott Fitzgerald's trademarks.

In 1921, Francis married Zelda Sayre and the couple settled in New York, living a glamourous life of parties, alcohol and drugs.

One year later, the Fitzgeralds went to Europe and spent some time in France, where Scott finished writing his magnum opus, The Great Gatsby (1925), even though it was not a commercial success.

Back in the US, Fitzgerald started writing film scripts to pay his debts. He was by now an alcoholic, suffering from catastrophic mental instability.

He died of a heart attack in 1940, before completing his last novel, The Last Tycoon.

The Great Gatsby (1925)

The main arc

Nick Carraway, a young stockbroker from the Midwest moves to New York in the summer of 1922. He rents a house in the wealthy West Egg district of Long Island. His next-door neighbour is Jay Gatsby, a mysterious man who gives extravagant parties every Saturday Night.

Later on in the story, we find out that Gatsby's extravagant lifestyle is an attempt to impress Daisy, who is now married to another man, but is still his love interest; the parties are simply a means to meet her. Gatsby asks Nick to help him get back together with Daisy.

Daisy's husband, Tom, confronts both of them and reveals that Gatsby is a criminal and that his fortune comes from bootlegging alcohol and other illegal activities.

However, while driving back to Gatsby's house, Daisy runs over Tom’s mistress, Myrtle. She does not stop, and Gatsby hides the car. Myrtle’s husband finds out that the car which killed his wife is Gatsby’s. Gatsby does not protest his innocence because he wants to defend Daisy, but she deserts him and reconciles with her husband. Gatsby is finally shot in his garden by Myrtle’s husband. Only Nick tries to defend Gatsby’s name and arranges his funeral, but in stark contrast to the parties, nobody comes. Nick ends his relationship with Jordan and moves back to the Midwest. He reflects that just as Gatsby’s dream of Daisy was corrupted by money and dishonesty, the American dream of happiness and individualism is over.

The dead American Dream

The Great Gatsby contains many enlightening descriptions and harsh criticisms of the American Roaring Twenties, the corrupted world of greed and money; the relationship between Gatsby's achievement and the myth of "rags to riches" represents this just perfectly: the way that the spiritual life in America is absolutely destroyed during its most hedonistic decade.

Blindness is a central theme: the characters in this novel do not wish to see - they seek out the blindness, the drunkenness, they live carelessly, remain blind to any form of real danger, so caught up with their own selfish pursuits of pleasure.

The only one that truly sees is Nick. He's Fitzgerald's spokesman in his representation of the decaying generation.

Symbolism

F. Scott Fitzgerald's style is notoriously characterised by frequent appeals to the senses, by suggestive use of colours, and poetic devices such as repetitions, similes and metaphors. The language used blends realism and symbolism.

The description of the Jazz Age society is extremely detailed and scattered with symbolism: the car stands for the destructive power of modern society and money and the infamous "valley of ashes" stands for the emotional and spiritual sterility which is a counterpart to the bright lights of the metropolis.

Gatsby's house is at the same time real and symbolic: carefully described in its various rooms and gardens, it celebrates Gatsby's luck and success during the parties, but it embodies his melancholy and loneliness when it's empty.

The use of retrospective narration

Nick Carraway ends up being the narrator from whose point of view all the events and characters of the story are presented and commented on. Nick is a retrospective narrator, who, after going to any experience, looks back on it to reflect.

Fitzgerald rejects chronological order and fragments time throughout the story to represent the inner world of his characters and the way knowledge is normally acquired in real life: Gatsby's personality, therefore, is not developed through explicit statements but rather through implication, according to Nick's own experience.