The Great GatsbyBackground Notes

for the quintessential

American Novel

F. Scott Fitzgerald

• Born 1896• Catholic ‘respectable’ family from St. Paul Minnesota

• ‘Shabby Genteel’ family:

-upper middle class traditions

-no real financial security

F. Scott Fitzgerald

• Private prep school education St. Paul Academy

• Princeton University in 19131. Romance with flighty, wealthy Ginerva

King from Chicago (unattainable)2. Dropped out sophomore year (‘illness’)3. Returned for his junior year4. Dropped out (for good) his senior year and took Army commission of 2nd Lieutenant November 1917 note: WWI had begun in 1914, US entered 1917

F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda

• F. Scott stationed in Alabama (not Europe)• Met 2nd love: Zelda Sayre

1. Courted in Alabama

2. Wealthy debutante, courted by many men3. F. Scott wanted to marry immediately4. Zelda refused until he could demonstrate financial solvency to maintain her accustomed lifestyle5. WWI ended in 1918, so Fitzgerald heads to NYC

Fitzgerald on a Mission in NYC

• Decorates his apartment with rejection slips for eight months

• Zelda claims love in her letters to him

• Moves home with parents in St. Paul to write full-time

• Began to publish and get rave

commercial and academic reviews

• Returns to NYC

Fitzgerald Making Progress

• Published This Side of Paradise 1921

• Married Zelda one week after publication

• Became ‘golden boy’ of the Roaring 20s

Being the Fitzgeralds

• Luxury apartment in NYC• Alcoholism . . . both parties

suffered• Party lifestyle non-stop• Famous friends, outrageous

parties, unlimited funds• Spent all $ as they made it• Trips to Europe (Paris regularly) with friends

The Fitzgerald Marriage

• Daughter, ‘Scottie’

• Published The Beautiful and the Damned

• Moved to Long Island

The Fitzgerald Marriage

• Zelda writes a novel and paints

• Family moves to Europe in 1924-Zelda has affair with French aviator

-Drinking escalates

• Fitzgerald writes The Great Gatsby

• Publishes garbage to support lifestyle

• Status surpassed by Hemingway & TS Eliot

The Saga Continues . .

• F. Scott publishes Tender is the Night in 1934

• Zelda has three psychotic breaks-obsesses over becoming a ballerina

-institutionalized (bipolar? schizophrenic?)

-Expensive need: permanent placement in institution

• Writes for Hollywood• Has affair with Sheila Graham (London)

What Would Freud Say?

The Downward Spiral

• Writes The Last Tycoon

• No publications;

literary death

• November & December

1940: two heart attacks

and death

And What of Zelda????

• Outlived Fitzgerald at institution• Burned to death in a 1947 fire

while committed

• In a cruel twist, Fitzgerald’s works were ‘rediscovered’ in the 1960s

A Historical Context for Gatsby

• World War I ended in 1918

1. Isolationism starts

2. Shift from idealism to hedonism-Trench warfare

-Dread of death

-Dead husbands, fathers, sons

Living for Today

3. Speakeasy parties (Prohibition)

4. Flappers

5. Jazz music

6. Mood of rebellion

7. Outrageous dancing

Women in the 1920s . . . more essential context

• 1882 Married Woman’s Property Act

• 1920 19th Amendment passes

• Coco Chanel eliminates the corset

More historical context . . .

• Amelia Earhart became famous aviator and made pants fashionable for women

• Birth control was considered illegal and profane. Margaret Sanger fought for this right for all US women

And more context . . .

• Over 40% of US women worked,

contrary to popular misconceptions

Most worked in dangerous working

conditions for little pay

More ceiling shattering

• Babe Didrickson Zaharius won many gold medals in the olympics

• Madame CJ Walker began

the first African American

beauty supply company

and became a mogul

But still . . .

• Women, overall, had little social, financial, or political power. Marrying for romantic love was a luxury most women did not have. Often, marriages were arranged by parents based on finance and status.