Winter Dreams: F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Oh, the secret life of man and woman...dreaming how much better we would be than we are if we were somebody else or even ourselves, and feeling that our estate has been unexploited to its fullest.” - Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald

The Curious Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) was born on 24 September 1896 to a salesman father and an Irish-Catholic mother who was the heir to a successful Minnesota grocery store. The F. Scott of F. Scott Fitzgerald stands for Francis Scott; he was named for his distant cousin, the writer of the poem that became the lyrics to American national anthem. Until 1908 the family moved throughout upstate New York, but when his father lost his job the Fitzgerald family moved to St. Paul, Minnesota.

Scott, as family and friends knew him, had his first story published when he was 13 - a detective story printed in the school newspaper. After his expulsion for lack of academic effort, he boarded at Newman School, a Catholic school in New Jersey. After graduation in 1913, he attended Princeton University, where he wrote articles for the college humour magazine, stories for the literary magazine, and scripts for the musicals of the Triangle Club. However, again he neglected his studies; in 1917 he was placed on academic probation, and he dropped out of Princeton to join the army. Shortly before reporting for duty Fitzgerald wrote his first novel, The Romantic Egoist, and although the publisher rejected it, Fitzgerald was encouraged to submit later works.

Zelda

While posted to Camp Sheridan in Alabama, then Second Lieutenant Fitzgerald met Zelda Sayre, daughter of an Alabama Supreme Court judge and society darling. The Great War ended in 1918, so Scott never was deployed to Europe. Zelda would not marry Scott until he could support her financially, and although he moved to New York to work in advertising and write short stories, she broke off the engagement. Fitzgerald moved home to his parents to work on The Romantic Egoist. Recast as This Side of Paradise, it was accepted for publication in 1919. Zelda and Scott resumed their engagement, and the couple were married in New York a week after publication in 1920. Their only child, Frances Scott Fitzgerald, was born a year later.

Writing & Celebrity

This Side of Paradise became an immediate hit. With literary success came wealth, and with wealth came the Fitzgeralds' new penchant for high living. Scott became known as a playboy and drank heavily, supporting himself largely through short stories published in popular magazines and papers like The Saturday Evening Post and Esquire. In 1922 Fitzgerald published his second novel, The Beautiful and the Damned. It was this novel's satire of the Jazz Age that secured his position as a member of the Lost Generation.

However, Zelda and Scott lived beyond their means, embracing the decadent lifestyle of the New York celebrity, and Fitzgerald had to take out frequent loans from his literary agent and editor to avoid financial troubles. Like so many American writers after World War I, Fitzgerald moved to France, where he befriended fellow writer Ernest Hemingway. In France he wrote the now classic (then underrated) novel The Great Gatsby.

Decline & Death

In the 1920s Fitzgerald fell into severe alcoholism and suffered from writer's block, and Zelda's mental health deteriorated (in 1930 she was diagnosed with schizophrenia). The couple moved between Delaware and France, and Zelda was hospitalized in Switzerland and Baltimore. In 1932 Zelda published her semi-autobiographical novel Save me the Waltz. Scott was furious that she had drawn heavily on their life together, but would go on to do the same himself in his novel Tender is the Night (1934), the story of an American psychiatrist married to a schizophrenic. The novel was a commercial disaster.

Fitzgerald's alcoholism, depression, and financial problems worsened, and after Zelda was placed in a North Carolina hospital in 1937, Scott left his wife behind and moved to Hollywood to try his hand as a screenwriter. In 1939 he began work on his final novel, The Love of the Last Tycoon, but died of a heart attack the following year without completing the work. He was forty-four, and considered himself a failure at the time of his death. It is only posthumously that he has been acknowledged as one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century. The Great Gatsby is a perpetual set text, and Fitzgerald's shrewd depiction of his degrading society is lauded.

Source: The Curious Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald by Kate O'Connor at http://writersinspire.org/content/curious-life-f-scott-fitzgerald. Accessed on Tuesday, May 05, 2020.

Discussion Posting: Pick three questions from the following to answer for your prompt today. Be specific, detailed, and thorough in your answers. Use evidence from the text to prove that your ideas are sound. And don’t forget to use complete sentences, and employ proper capitalization, punctuation, and grammar.

1. In the beginning of Part II, we are told that the story deals with “the mysterious denials and prohibitions in which life indulges”, and with one of Dexter’s denials in particular. In what way is Judy a “mysterious denial” in Dexter’s life?

2. To what extent is he denied Judy by circumstances, and to what extent does he himself deny Judy?

3. At the end of Part II, Dexter and Judy meet on the lake at sunset. In what way is the entire setting--the sunset, the gentle lapping of water (“silver molasses under the harvest moon”), the piano music--appropriate for this meeting between Dexter and Judy?

4. In Judy’s “direct and unprincipled personality” her charm, and her loveliness, Dexter finds an ideal of beauty. The narrator suggests that almost nothing could “cure his illusion as to her desirability”, and in fact Dexter cherishes his ideal long after he realizes he will never possess it. How do Dexter’s actions show his single-minded devotion to his ideal?

5. Even after he has lost Judy forever, why does he not resent her or regret his experience?

6. At the end of the story, Dexter’s illusion is finally and irreparably broken. How does he try to recall the dream?

7. What are Dexter’s winter dreams? Why are they winter dreams?

EXTRA CREDIT: (20 Points Possible) Create one more posting in response to the following. I will determine credit based on originality of ideas, use of textual support, overall quality and depth of the response.

With so much focus on the literary life of F. Scott Fitzgerald, few students ever know that Zelda Sayre was also a writer. She published an autobiographical novel, Save me the Waltz, after her marriage to F. Scott, which many of her day attributed to his influence. But a recent discovery has unearthed a story Zelda published in the "Sidney Lanier High School Literary Journal" before F. Scott was even in the picture.

Take a look: The Iceberg (1918), https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-iceberg-a-story-by-zelda-fitzgerald.

Consider the quote at the beginning of this posting. Think about how females are portrayed in F. Scott Fitzgerald's stories, then consider what Zelda's voice adds to the picture we have of a 1920's society woman. Your thoughts are your thoughts - there are no wrong answers, only unsupported ones. Curious to see what you think.