Short Summary of the Great Gatsby

This chapter opens with a reporter at Gatsby’s door asking him if he had anything to say and wants to interview at random. It is explained that rumors are constantly going around New York about Gatsby. Nick knows mostly all about Gatsby’s personal life so he does not believe many or all of the rumors he has heard. Nick then begins to explain Gatsby’s personal life. It is explained that his legal name is James Gatz. He changed his name when he was 17 when he saw Dan Cody drop the anchor of his yacht into Lake Superior. It is also explained that Gatsby’s parents were “shiftless and unsuccessful farm people”. He actually had attended a small Lutheran college called St. Olaf’s in Minnesota. He only ended up staying there for two weeks then left.

F Scott Fitzgerald incorporates his life in many of his works of literature. This includes his life struggles and the mental health of his wife Zelda. Both of his novels, Tender is the Night and The Great Gatsby, consists of different storylines and characters, but there are comparisons between these two books, especially in themes and the roles of the characters. Both stories are written about the same era, which shows the lifestyle people were living in.

In the states, Fitzgerald’s goal became becoming wealthy. The primary reason for this was to impress Zelda and take her hand in marriage. After some time, Zelda said she could not wait any longer so she decided to break their engagement (Bruccoli).

Thesis Statement: Perhaps Fitzgerald was not ‘‘the inevitable male companion,” she would choose out of the entire world, she writes in a long letter to Oppenheimer and Guinzburg, but he “was moderately sober and pretty d*** nice.” Besides she couldn’t help herself but to feel sorry for him with Zelda having been institutionalized since January.

At the age of 21, Fitzgerald submitted his first novel for publication. Charles Scribner’s Sons rejected the novel, but provided Fitzgerald with words of encouragement. Fitzgerald opted to rewrite the novel, then titled The Romantic Egoist, and resubmit it for publication. Schribners rejected the novel a second time, prompting Fitzgerald to turn to advertising as his source of income. Fitzgerald eventually rewrote the novel for a third time, now titled This Side of Paradise, and it was published in 1920. Fitzgerald married Zelda Sayre, an 18-year-old Southern belle from Alabama with whom he had one prior failed engagement, a week after the novel was published (Adams 11-12).

In The Great Gatsby, the author, F Scott Fitzgerald depicts the post - war roaring 20’s, a time of overwhelming prosperity and a new found sense of hope for the future. While this novel is often perceived as a romance, it is also a criticism on the devastating nature of the elusive american dream. The story of Jay Gatsby is a representation of what had become the values of the individual at the time. With the progression of the early 1920’s the vision of the perfect life, or the american dream, had been skewed. It was replaced with greed, and an abundance of reckless spending in which the wealthier individuals placed their misguided ideas of happiness. In the Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald chooses to expose the hidden truth behind the illustrious concept of the American dream. Through his use of literary devices such as, symbolism, metaphor, and, irony the central idea of the truly unattainable American dream is supported throughout the novel.

When writing this book, Fitzgerald uses his own surroundings and even attacks the idea of love throughout the novel. Fitzgerald is similar to Gatsby and it is evident, because of how they both are hopeless romantics. He was in a relationship with a woman named Zelda and deeply loves her. They both live normal lives and even, “led wild lives filled with parties and intrigue. [However] The drama in their lives ended badly: Fitzgerald became an alcoholic and suffered mental collapses, while Zelda

Scott Fitzgerald born September 24, 1896 in St. Paul, Minnesota. It’s safe to say writing runs in Fitzgerald’s family because his cousin Francis Scott Key wrote the “Star-Spangled banner”. Fitzgerald spent most of his young childhood moving around New York due to his father’s work, in 1908, the family moved back to St. Paul and lived off his mother’s inheritance. When Fitzgerald was fifteen years old his parents sent him to a respected catholic school, this is where he met Father Sigourney Fay, who quickly noted that he had a great talent for writing and encouraged him to continue writing. Upon graduating Catholic School Fitzgerald continued to write at The University of Princeton. He wrote musicals for the school and even had a section in the Princeton Tiger humor magazine and stories for the Nassau Literary Magazine, this kept him away from his school work which led to academic probation. In 1917 Fitzgerald decided to join the U.S. Army this was around the time of World War 1, before being sent off to the camp he wrote a novel “The Romantic Egotist” his novel was rejected by Charles Scribner’s Sons, the critic noted its originality and heartened Fitzgerald to continue writing. Fitzgerald was sent to Alabama and quickly promoted to second lieutenant. It was at Camp Sheridan where Fitzgerald fell in love with Zelda Sayre Daughter of a respected Supreme Court judge. The war concluded in 1918 before Fitzgerald was ever deployed. After being discharged he moved to New York

This girl was rich with old money. Old money comes with a certain social class lining. This social class is very pristine and extraordinarily exclusive, so exclusive that if you do not have the same type of money as them you are poor and therefore you cannot be associated with them. Since, Fitzgerald did not have this money he experienced the demoralization people in this class put on people like him when it came to love. "As Ginevra's visiting beau, he escorted her to parties, dinners, and dances. But he also spent a "bad day at the McCormicks," endured a "Disappointment," and heard someone declare, "Poor boys shouldn't think of marrying rich girls" (Ledger, unpaginated). A few months later he and Ginevra broke up conclusively, but Fitzgerald did not soon stop caring about her." (Chawkins 16). With this Fitzgerald moved on too Zelda, but he never forgot about how he was spoken too at that party because he did not have the money that everyone else did. He wrote about it in other works too including one short story "But if you don't have anything for the collection box, the girl will notice. And if you don't have enough to spend, the

F. Scott FitzgeraldF. Scott Fitzgerald is in many ways one of the most important American writers of the twentieth century. In his first novel, This Side of Paradise, Fitzgerald epitomized the mindset of an era with the statement that his generation had, grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, and all faiths in man shaken(Fitzgerald 307). Aside from being a major literary voice of the twenties and thirties, Fitzgerald was also among The Lost Generations harshest and most insightful social critics. In his classic novel The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald blatantly criticized the immorality, materialism, and hedonism which characterized the lifestyles of Americas bourgeois during the nineteen-twenties. Collectively, Fitzgeralds novels and short stories provide some of the best insight into the lifestyles of the rich during Americas most prosperous era, while simultaneously examining major literary themes such as disillusionment, coming of age, and the corruption of the American Dream. The life of F. Scott Fitzgerald is marked by as much, if not more, romanticism and tragedy than his novels. Throughout Fitzgeralds life, he unsuccessfully battled alcoholism, depression, and himself, in a quest for both personal and literary identity. At the age of twenty-three, Fitzgerald published his first novel, This Side of Paradise, to critical raves and unimaginable economic success. Shortly after the publishing of this novel, Fitzgerald was able to coerce Zelda Sayre into marriage. This

F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Fitzgerald’s names are synonymous with the Jazz Ag. To simply hear their names is to invoke words such as carefree, recklessness, fashion, wealth and glamour; the couple did everything in excess. However living an extravagant lifestyle is not the only thing the couple are known for. F. Scott Fitzgerald is perhaps one of the most beloved writers of the 20th century. Although Zelda was mostly known as F. Scott’s mentally ill wife, she too was a talented writer; her literary works have become more than just a curiosity and she is becoming known as a great writer in her own right. Both writers incorporated their personal lives into their writing, so much so that it is sometimes hard to tease out fact from fiction.

When youthful, and fresh out from serving, Fitzgerald met Zelda, and he oh so desperately wanted to wed her and have her as his own, yet,  Zelda’s parents did not desire nor permit that. Zelda’s parents found that Fitzgerald was not stable enough to take care of their daughter, or that their daughter was not stable enough to have a husband, and to prove himself worthy of, Fitzgerald would buy Zelda anything that she desired without any hesitations.  Everything Fitzgerald did or bought was constructed so that he could win over not only Zelda, but her parents. It may have appeared that he was living however he wanted, but he was stuck on her and consumed whole by her being. He would do anything for her, and he did, until finally he got what he wanted. However,  having something in the present is never quite as satisfying as your past self imagined it would be: “He passed visibly through two states and was entering upon a third. After his embarrassment and his unreasoning joy he was consumed with wonder at her presence. He had been full of the idea so long, at an inconceivable pitch of intensity.  Now, in the reaction, he was running down like an overwound clock” (Fitzgerald). Fitzgerald claimed Zelda after all of his hard work and efforts, yet it is doubted that she is anything of which he wanted or was expected her to be. Unforeseeable and wild, yes, yet unstable, paranoid, depressed, and suicidal? No. Fitzgerald did not know what he was getting into when he won over Zelda, and it most definitely was not as his past self hoped for.  However, he still obsessed over her and loved her. The memory of the woman he fell in love with never left, even as the image was corrupted by the real Zelda, which could be metaphorically represented in the text by this quote: “He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: ‘I never loved you.’ After she had

Fitzgerald is a member of the Lost Generation and his life is portrayed through the character Gatsby. Both of these individuals experienced the pain of lost love and crushed expectations because “both Fitzgerald and Gatsby seem to ‘preserve a romantic state of mind’ in order to escape the painful reality that they had lost the women they love” (Sanders 109). Psychological and spiritual

Scott Fitzgerald was a significant writer due to his first hand, honest experiences of the “American dream” incorporated into his writings. According to Witkoski, Fitzgerald dropped out of Princeton and joined the army during World War I. He became a second lieutenant and was close to being sent to Europe, but the war ended before he was to do so. He soon started writing about his experiences in his books and became a sensational writer during this time. He did well during the twenties and soon overdosed on the party life, becoming an alcoholic. He was trying his best to move on from his past and moved more into the party life because of it. In many of his books he had special connections between the characters he portrayed, most of them all in a negative light. His writings were raw and really showed his audience what the American dream was really all

In 1926, All the Sad Young Men was published, and in 1927 he went to Hollywood to work for United Artists, where he met an attractive actress named Lois Moran (Stern xi). This Hollywood experience fueled the sixth revision of his fourth novel, about a movie director named Lew Kelly, his wife Nicole and a young actress named Rosemary. Fitzgerald in the summer of 1929 informed Scribner’s about this new idea and by the fall said that he only had another month to devote to the novel before he would be finished (Bruccoli 60 “The Comp…). He scrapped the sixth version fairly quickly, but Rosemary grew out of this short-lived version (Bruccoli xxiii “The Comp…”). Over the latter half of the Twenties, Zelda illustrated signs of psychotic behavior, such as her ballet obsession. In 1930, while the Fitzgeralds lived in Paris after the Great Depression, Zelda broke down completely