Scott Fitzgerald: Biography and Creativity

How did Francis Scott Fitzgerald live and work? The writer's books largely resonate with his biography, and the brilliant flowering and tragic finale really makes him look like the hero of one of the novels of "The Jazz Age."

Childhood and youth

Francis Scott Fitzgerald was born in 1896 in the city of St. Paul, Minnesota. His parents were an unfortunate businessman from Maryland and the daughter of a rich emigrant. There was a family in many respects at the expense of the funds coming from the well-off parents of the mother. The future writer studied at the academy of his native city, then at a private Catholic school in New Jersey and at Princeton University.

In academic success, Francis Scott Fitzgerald was not interested. At the university, his attention was primarily attracted by a good football team and the club "Triangle", where students met with enthusiasm for the theater.

Due to poor performance, the future writer did not study for a semester. He left the school, affected the patient, and later volunteered for the army. Being the adjutant of General JA Ryan, Francis made a good military career, but in 1919 he was demobilized.

First success

What kind of person was Scott Fitzgerald? The biography of the writer becomes especially interesting when he meets his future wife Zelda Seir. The girl came from an influential and rich family and was an enviable bride. However, her parents opposed marriage to her daughter with a former military man. In order for the wedding to take place, the young man needed to get on his feet and get a stable source of income.

After being fired from the army, Scott Fitzgerald went to New York and began working in an advertising agency. He does not abandon the dream of earning a living by writing and actively sends manuscripts to various publishing houses, but receives refusal for refusal. Deeply experiencing a succession of failures, the writer returns to his parents' home and begins to rework the novel, which was written during military service.

This novel, "Romantic egoist," was rejected by the publisher not with a final refusal, but with a proposal to make edits. In 1920, Fitzgerald's first book, entitled "On This Side of Paradise", was released, which was a revised "Romantic Egoist." The novel is very popular and the doors of all publishers open before the young writer. Financial success allows to make a marriage with Zelda.

The heyday of glory

Scott Fitzgerald broke into the literary world as a hurricane. "Lovely and damned," his second novel, released in 1922, produced a sensation and became a bestseller. The collections of short stories The Libertines and Philosophers (1920) and The Tales of the Jazz Age (1922) helped to stay on top. He earned the writer articles for fashion magazines and newspapers and was one of the highest paid authors of that time.

Francis and Zelda

"Century of Jazz" - this is the name that the twenties received with the light hand of the writer. And Francis and Zelda became king and queen of this era. Money and fame just collapsed on them at one point, and young people quickly became permanent heroes of the secular chronicle.

The couple constantly shocked the public with their eccentric behavior. In their biography, there are enough actions that have not gone off pages of newspapers for a long time and were vigorously discussed. Once in a restaurant Zelda drew peonies on napkins and made more than three hundred drawings. This event became a topic for secular conversations for a long time. But there were more important reasons. For example, a couple swept through Manhattan on the roof of a taxi.

The mysterious disappearance of the spouses for 4 days was widely discussed. They were found drunk in a cheap motel, and none could remember how they ended up there. At the premiere of the performance "Scandals" Francis stripped naked. Zelda bathed in the fountain in public.

Drunk Scott Fitzgerald threatened to throw himself out of the window, since the greatest book has already been written - "Ulysses" by James Joyce. Zelda publicly rushed to the stairwell in the restaurant, jealous wife to Isadora Duncan. Because of such tricks the family was in the center of attention, they were reproached, admired by them.

Europe

With this way of life, Fitzgerald could not fully work. The couple sells their mansion and moved to France in 1924, where they will live until the 1930s. In the Riviera in 1925, Francis ends his most perfect novel, "The Great Gatsby," which today is considered one of the masterpieces of American classics. In 1926 a collection of short stories "All these sad young people" also appears.

Since 1925, the collapse of the writer's life begins. He is increasingly abusing alcohol, scandals and falls into depression. Zelda's behavior is becoming more and more strange, with her clouding of reason. Since 1930, she has been treated for schizophrenia in various clinics, but this does not bring results.

Hollywood

In 1934 Scott Fitzgerald publishes the novel "The Night is Tender," but he does not bring success. Then the writer goes to Hollywood. He is confused and unhappy with himself, by the fact that he has squandered his youth and talent. The writer is working as an ordinary scriptwriter and is trying to earn enough money for his daughter's maintenance and his wife's treatment. In 1939, he begins writing his last novel about the life of Hollywood, which can not be finished.

In 1940, at the age of 44, Francis dies of a heart attack. His savings are barely enough for repatriation and funerals. Zelda dies in a psychiatric hospital nine years later as a result of a fire.

After the death of the writer, his last unfinished novel was published, and earlier work was rethought. Fitzgerald was recognized as a classics of literature, which perfectly described his time, "Century of Jazz".

Novels

"On this side of paradise" is a book about finding yourself. The main character goes the way that repeats the life of Fitzgerald himself, briefly studying in Princeton, serving in the army, meeting with a girl on whom he can not marry because of poverty.

The book "Beautiful and Damned" already tells about the life of a married couple, and again the writer turns to his life experience. "The lost generation" - about children from rich families who can not find themselves and any purpose and lead an idle way of life.

"Great Gatsby" did not become popular during the life of the writer, this novel was evaluated only in the fifties. The book tells about the son of a poor farmer, in love with a girl from the high world. To win the heart of a beauty, Gatsby earns a lot of money and settles in the neighborhood with her lover and her husband, and to enter into their circle, arranges chic parties. The book describes in detail the life of the rich in the "roaring twenties" and the fall of morality. It was in this society that Francis Scott Fitzgerald revolved. Criticisms put the book in second place among the best English-language novels of the twentieth century.

Like the rest of the novels, "The Night is Tender", although it does not repeat, but it closely resembles the life of the writer. The protagonist, a psychiatrist, marries his patient from a wealthy family. They live on the Riviera, where the man has to combine the role of husband with the role of the attending physician.

"The Last Tycoon" tells about the world of American cinema. The book was not finished.