Carrie Grachowski
Many times character development comes from an author’s personal life and this can clearly be seen in the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald and, more specifically, in his novel The Great Gatsby.
Scott Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896 in St. Paul, Minnesota. His father, Edward Fitzgerald, was a failure as a furniture manufacturer and as a salesman. The family lived on an inheritance his mother, Mary, received from her father. Fitzgerald began writing at boarding school and, later enrolled at Princeton University. On academic probation, he quit Princeton and enlisted in the army in 1917. While in the army he met Zelda Sayre and fell in love. Zelda was from a wealthy southern family who broke off an engagement to Fitzgerald when he was unable to support her in the lifestyle to which she was accustomed. This prompted Fitzgerald to work feverishly to become a success. He became famous with the publication of This Side of Paradise in 1920 and married Zelda immediately (Bruccoli 4).
It was 1925 when Fitzgerald finished The Great Gatsby, a time of great change in America. The Industrial Age had brought progress and prosperity. The automobile and the airplane were becoming a part of everyday life, providing access to worlds and lifestyles unheard of before. Fitzgerald was swept up in the frenzy of this fast life.
F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda lived the extravagant lifestyle of celebrities traveling from America to Europe. Credited with the creation of the term “The Jazz Age”, with all of its excesses, during the 1920’s Fitzgerald’s lifestyle would eventually be his and Zelda’s downfall. Zelda gave birth to a daughter, Scottie, but was unsuitable as a mother. She became obsessed with becoming a ballerina. Her intense training ruined her health and strained their relationship. She later slips into madness and spends the rest of her life institutionalized where she eventually died in a fire in Highland Hospital in 1948 (Bruccoli 4). Fitzgerald became an alcoholic and E. L. Doctorow writes in The Jazz Age:
He lived rashly, susceptible to the worst influences of his time, and lacking any defense against stronger and more selfish personalities than his own, and when he died, at 44, he was generally recognized to have abused his genius as badly as he had his constitution. (36)
Fitzgerald seemed to be searching for his own identity while writing about current events of his day. He was not recognized as the great writer he was during his own time and many of his stories were failures. Doctorow goes on to say in The Jazz Age that Fitzgerald is “disarmingly confessional…about his pathetic need always to prove something to somebody” and “he was haunted by his inauthenticity” (36).
Similarities between F. Scott Fitzgerald and his character Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby are numerous. Jay Gatsby comes from humble beginnings and considers his father a failure, much like Fitzgerald’s father. Gatsby strives to change his identity so much that he even changes his name from James Gatz to Jay Gatsby (Fitzgerald104). Gatsby joins the service, as did Fitzgerald, and meets a girl named Daisy who is from a rich family, similar to Zelda. Gatsby falls madly in love with Daisy, but feels unworthy of her love. He is determined to become a success by any means possible and resorts to bootlegging to amass wealth. He spends a short time at Oxford University and assumes the persona of a well educated man to impress those around him, like Fitzgerald at Princeton. Gatsby finds out where Daisy is living, in the wealthy area of East Egg on Long Island, and purchases a house in the neighboring West Egg to be close to her. He spares no expense, as Fitzgerald doesn’t when he has money, in throwing lavish parties hoping she will notice him.
Daisy Buchanan is a shallow woman married to a brute of a man named Tom. They are very wealthy but they have no depth of character. They live for the moment, for immediate gratification. Daisy has a daughter she cares little for, much like Zelda with her own daughter. When describing her daughter, Daisy states “I hope she’ll be…a beautiful little fool” (Fitzgerald 21). This sentiment was spoken by Zelda about her own daughter (Smith 118-20).
Jay Gatsby’s unrealistic perception of Daisy only brings him grief and despair in the end. Indirectly, it results in his death when Daisy accidentally murders a woman while driving and Gatsby takes the blame for it. The husband of the woman kills Gatsby and then himself. Daisy never defends Gatsby or admits her own guilt. No one attends Gatsby’s funeral except for his father and his friend Nick Carraway. His quest for identity leaves him with nothing.
The Great Gatsby defines the era of the “Jazz Age” in its description of the characters, their social life, and their aspirations. Fitzgerald is described by E. L. Doctorow in The Jazz Age:
He was intellectually ambitious-but thought fashion was important, gossip, good looks, the company of celebrities. He wrote as a rebel, a sophisticate, an escapee from American provincialism-but was blown away by society, like a countrybumpkin. He went everywhere he was invited.
This description of Fitzgerald exactly describes that of Jay Gatsby. Gatsby was obsessed with his image and with being popular in society. Like Fitzgerald, Gatsby is questing for an identity that will prove him worthy of love and admiration.
Ironically, when published The Great Gatsby sold poorly and contributed to Fitzgerald’s alcoholism and the disintegration of his personal life (Fitzgerald 2). Critics called his work at the time superficial and Fitzgerald, himself, blamed this on consumer’s preference for bulky books. He was poor at financial management and in order to maintain the lifestyle he and Zelda were accustomed to he would write numerous pulp short stories for magazines. At the end of his life, in debt, Fitzgerald went to Hollywood to write screen adaptations. He lost his contract with MGM Studios and worked as a freelance script writer and wrote short stories for Esquire magazine. He died of a heart attack believing himself a failure on December 21,1940 (Bruccoli 4).
Why did F. Scott Fitzgerald use so much of his personal life in the development of his characters? In The Modern Library’s 1934 edition of The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald comes to his own defense with: “Critics… felt that my material was such as to preclude all dealing with mature persons in a mature world. But, my God! It was my material, and it was all I had to deal with.”
Works Cited
Bruccoli, Matthew J. A Brief Life of Fitzgerald. New York: Scribners, 1994.
University of South Carolina. Updated 26 August 1999: Doctorow, E.L. The Jazz Age. The Nation, 30 September 1996 v263 n9 p36
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. Encarta, 3. Microsoft Encyclopedia, 1993-1995. Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Simon & Schuster, Inc., 1995.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. Letter to the editor. The Great Gatsby, “Discontinued Title.” Modern Library, 1934.
Smith, Scottie Fitzgerald. Notes About My Now-Famous Father. Family Circle May 1974: 118-20.