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The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald Reflected in The Great Gatsby
It is a trend throughout history of famous authors to incorporate qualities of themselves and their surroundings into novels. The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, displays a prime example of this amalgamation. This novel, written in the 1920’s, is Fitzgerald’s greatest work. Fitzgerald’s creations, such as Daisy Buchanan and Nick Carraway, contribute to the experiences and judgments of Gatsby, the main character. ... Fitzgerald illustrates numerous aspects of his life into this novel.
The schooling experiences that Fitzgerald underwent relates to those of Gatsby. Fitzgerald was “educated in the East” and loved his surroundings of New York and Long Island (Magill, Masterpiece 205). ... In 1913, Fitzgerald enrolled at Princeton. ... “Academic troubles and apathy continued to plague him,” causing Fitzgerald to once again depart from the institution, this time for good (“Context” 1). ... Clearly, education was not a priority in Fitzgerald’s life.
Gatsby’s schooling experience mirrors those of Fitzgerald. ... Gatsby attended Oxford University for only a period of a few months, because “it was an opportunity they gave to some of the officers after the armistice” (Fitzgerald 163). The officers “could go to any of the universities in England or France” (Fitzgerald 163). In contrast to Fitzgerald, Gatsby attended the war previous to his days at Oxford. Like Fitzgerald, he participated in the same unit, the “seventh infantry until June nineteen-eighteen” (Fitzgerald 52). The events relating to both Fitzgerald’s and Gatsby’s schooling are parallel in these ways.
Fitzgerald displays his desire to be successful in life through many characters in The Great Gatsby. ... Magill, author of Masterpiece of American Literature, “Fitzgerald once said, ‘America’s great promise is that something’s going to happen, but it never does,’” describing America as “the moon that never rose” (Magill, Masterpiece 205). Fitzgerald also fantasized about being popular, writing about this dream frequently in his journal (Verde 48). It was in 1911 at Newman School in Hackensack, New Jersey that Fitzgerald met Father Sigourney Fay, a priest who strongly encouraged and influenced Fitzgerald in his writings and development (Magill, Survey 679). Father Fay, sharing the same last name as maiden Daisy in The Great Gatsby, “strengthened the young Fitzgerald’s sense of a noble character as an essential element in achieving high goals—and of the accompanying dangers of anything that would weaken that character, disrupt its resolve, or corrupt its nature: the lure of unearned wealth, sins of the flesh, moral weakness” (Magill, Survey 679).
Approximate Word count = 1868
Approximate Pages = 7.5
(250 words per page double spaced)
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