F. Scott Fitzgerald

Bio:
 Fitzgerald was born in Minnesota, and moved to New Jersey when he turned 13 to go to a prestigious prep school. From there Fitzgerald attended Princeton University enhancing his writing craft and career. Unfortunately Fitzgerald's writing got in the way of his school work, and he was placed on academic probation, and he decided to drop out and join the Army to fight in WWI. He was stationed in Alabama, and it was there he fell in love with 18 year old Zelda Sayre, the daughter to an Alabama Supreme Court Justice. WWI ended before Fitzgerald ever got deployed and from there Fitzgerald went on to marry Zelda and began his writing career. During (and after) the success of his writing career, Fitzgerald moved back and forth from the U.S. and Europe, more specifically spending a great time in Paris, like many "Lost Generation" authors and artists. Fitzgerald lost his attachment to America and saw it as a dangerous society that didn't appreciate art, and even said, "The American in Paris is the best American."



Famous Works:
-The Great Gatsby
-Tender is the Night
-This Side of Paradise
-The Beautiful and Damned 
-The Curious Case of Benjamin Button 



Analysis:
I decided to analyze The Great Gatsby, a book about the decline in the "American Dream" during the late 1920's. As glamorous as we believe the Roaring Twenties to be, Fitzgerald portrays the true, less romantic time period of 1920 with greed, inequalities, and repercussions the war had on the society.
The general American attitude after WWI was that of prosperity and material excess, and Fitzgerald describes this attitude as a loss of moral values, increased greed, and deviant behavior. With a setting on Northern Long Island, the book is geographically close to where I live, and major aspects taking place in New York City, was a sensible setting to decript wealth and status of those in the "East Egg" and "West Egg", but also poor and abused in slums of Brooklyn and Queens. Throughout the book Jay Gatsby is trying to achieve something, that green light at the end of the harbor, which symbolizes the unachievable dream of him and Daisy being together, no matter how much wealth and how many parties he throws. At the end of the day, Jay Gatsby and his riches are all a facade and never really true happiness, just like the so called "American Dream".



Miscellaneous:




-Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway were friends and influenced each others writing. This is a picture of both them together in Paris.








- This is a picture of Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda, and their daughter Scottie in an apartment in Paris.






-Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was named after Francis Scott Key, his second cousin who wrote the lyrics to the "Star Spangled Banner".