F. Scott Fitzgerald

Analytical Essay # 3731

English > Analysis
Literature > American

F. Scott Fitzgerald

A discussion of F. Scott Fitzgerald's life and the typical female characters in his writings.

3,495 words () | 5 sources | 2001 United States

Paper Summary:

This paper examines famous American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. It discusses his marriage, his role in the early 20th century, and his works, including "The Great Gatsby", "The Beautiful and the Damned" and "This Side of Paradise". The author focuses on the typical female characters of his novels and the ways in which they represent and relate to his wife, Zelda.

From the Paper:

"F. Scott Fitzgerald was a brilliant, successful, but somehow unhappy writer. He wrote beautifully, but it taxed him, and between alcoholism, his much loved, though somewhat impractical wife, and his struggle with the materialistic upper class he was a part of, he was a man caught in troubles and often unhappy. Despite his many problems, he managed to turn out several novels and over one-hundred-sixty short stories, and though they shared many common themes, each possessed its own individual tone. Of these themes, one of the most interesting is the role of Fitzgerald's women--women as individuals, women and alcohol, women and material wealth, women and failure. Fitzgerald's main female characters were a new type of woman in the literary arena. They weren't made in the image of the traditional woman, but were a combination of such positive traits as attractiveness, charm, youth, capability and independence. Fitzgerald created this woman-girl character in response to his own personal experiences and particularly modeled it after his wife Zelda, whom he adored. He projected much of their relationship and her personality into creating a character who prefigured today's modern woman."