An American Dream

F. Scott Fitzgerald and the American Dream

In this essay I plan to discuss F. Scott Fitzgerald and how his life influenced his writings.

I am going to show how his life was connected to his fiction. Also I am going to talk

about Fitzgerald’s main thematic issue in my favorite novel he wrote “The Great

Gatsby”.

Fitzgerald was a writer during the roaring 20’s. This period was also known as the

Jazz Age. The 1920’s marked the high point of F. Scott Fitzgerald career he published

most all of his novels during this time. His novels and short stories “chronicled changing

social attitudes” during the 1920’s (Fitzgerald 1).

F. Scott Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896 in St. Paul Minnesota. He was a

product of two “divergent traditions”. His father was a southern gentlemen and his

mother’s family in Fitzgerald’s words “straight 1850 potato famine Irish”(Biography2).

His father was a salesman for Procter and Gamble. His mother also inherited money

from her father who was a successful wholesale grocer. Fitzgerald was raised in a

moderately wealthy family. The way Fitzgerald spoke about his childhood and early life

you would have thought differently. For instance at the beginning of one of Fitzgerald’s

stories he wrote the rich “are different form you and me”(F. Scott1). He depicts this

world of the rich in novels such as “The Beautiful and Damned” and also “The Great

Gatsby”. Fitzgerald in his early life was probably compared to Nick Carraway in wealth.

Fitzgerald family certainly not as rich as Gatsby or Tom Buchanan, but he did have more

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money than the average person. One of the reasons is the everyday person certainly does

not have the funding for Princeton University which Fitzgerald entered in 1913.

Fitzgerald attended the University o f Princeton for several years. He left the school

because he neglected his studies. After leaving school he took up commission in the

army. This was during WWI. Fitzgerald was lucky he never saw any action and did

not have to leave the U.S. and go to France. He was assigned to Camp Sheridan in

Alabama, were he fell in love with Zelda Sayre, who was also an aspiring writer (F.

Scott2). He fell deeply in love with Zelda but her feeling proved to be not quite as

strong. The two were engaged. Fitzgerald wanted to improve his financial circumstances

before married Zelda. He went to New York to make his fortune in the “great city”(F.

Scott3). When he got there he had to take an advertising job at $90 a month. Zelda not

happy with the financial situation and unwilling to live on a small salary broke off the

engagement. This is were Fitzgerald created the character Daisy Buchanan, Zelda was a

model for many of the female character in his fiction (Fitzgerald2). In “The Great

Gatsby” Daisy and Jay Gatsby were in love but she was unwilling to marry him and live

on his small salary.