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Francis Scott Fitzgerald

Decent Essays

Born in 1896 to a fairly well to-do family, F(rancis). Scott (Key) Fitzgerald is known as one of the most iconic American authors. He started gathering his fame with publications in Saturday Evening Post, which was at the time, the most widely read magazine in the United States with 2,750,000 copies sent out per week (Bruccoli 15), and Fitzgerald published the majority of his short stories in the magazine. He had many major themes throughout his works, be it novel, novella, essay, or short story, each had at least one of his common themes. These are: the allure of wealth, aspiration, mutability and loss, the rich are different from the average person, love, death, the American myth of success, war, selfishness, and loneliness. Fitzgerald also has a style of writing that readers will immediately know to be his if they have read another of his works. His style is cheery, witty, lyrical, and colorful all in one package. Not only does Fitzgerald have a unique style, but he puts himself into his stories. His most well-known short stories are “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz,” “Babylon Revisited,” and “Bernice Bobs Her Hair.” In all of these, he puts a semblance of his own life. Be it with his wife, himself, or just the way the world is around him. “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz,” features Fitzgerald’s themes of wealth as well as selfishness are proposed. Not only are there the typical Fitzgerald themes, but this story also parallels his life in a smaller sense. Both

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