He became an iconic figure of the Interbellum (from the Latin inter – “between” and bellum – “war”), the twenty-year period between the two World Wars. For history, it was a fleeting moment, but for a child of the 20th century, it was a lifetime: vibrant and hurried, like the pursuit of the American Dream, which comes at the cost of hard work, talent, luck, shattered illusions, and a premature finish after two heart attacks. The ambitious desire to be first brought the author of “The Great Gatsby” literary success, along with an unexpected revelation: ambition brings one closer to goals, fame, and… death.
“Suppressed Hatred”
The biography of Francis Scott Fitzgerald was limited to 44 years. It began in St. Paul, Minnesota, on September 24, 1896. The longed-for child, who arrived after his Irish immigrant parents lost their first two children, was named after the author of the U.S. national anthem: the creator of the lyrics to The Star-Spangled Banner in 1814 was a distant relative of the newborn, Francis Scott Key. However, the first American in this lineage was his maternal grandfather, Philip McQuillan – a successful Irish immigrant who owned a large business by the age of 30.
Marrying the wealthy Molly McQuillan turned out to be a “lucky ticket” for the impoverished army officer Edward Fitzgerald: this fortunate union provided the father of the future writer with wealth, and for son Francis Scott, it served as a model to emulate.
His mother’s money allowed the younger Fitzgerald to receive a prestigious education. At Princeton University, a successful student, star of the local football team, and winner of literary contests made an important discovery: while some people need to exert effort to achieve in life, others benefit from their high social standing. According to Fitzgerald, during his years of study, he developed a distrust of the “idle class.” The disdain for a parasitic lifestyle and outrage at social injustice that formed during that time he compared to a “suppressed hatred of the poor.” Yet, an innate fear of poverty directed his mindset and lifestyle toward a “world for the chosen,” where ostentatious luxury was a natural attribute of success.
Student Years
A Creative Stimulus
While serving in the army, the general’s aide-de-camp met the socialite Zelda Sayre, who was a typical representative of the “idle class” that Fitzgerald despised. The wealthy daughter of a judge from Alabama lived for her own pleasure, luring Fitzgerald with the allure of “unearned leisure.” Following in his father’s footsteps, Francis Scott proposed to his unattainable beloved. Just like his father before him, he was initially rejected by her family due to his insufficient income.
After the engagement was broken off, Fitzgerald focused on achieving literary success. Only creativity could bring him both popularity and money to elevate his status for the dream marriage. The imperfections of his early works led to rejections from publishers. But Fitzgerald didn’t give up, revising his manuscripts as many times as necessary to meet the demands for publication. This persistence soon bore sweet fruit: his very first published novel made the debut author famous.
Just a week after the release of the bestseller “This Side of Paradise” (originally titled “The Romantic Egoist”), on April 3, 1920, the writer married Zelda, the real-life inspiration for the character Rosalind. This couple was dubbed the “king and queen of their generation,” and Fitzgerald himself wrote that he didn’t even know if they were real people or literary characters.
Francis and Zelda
“The Beautiful and Damned”
This was the title of his second novel, published two years later. The book depicted the painful marriage of vibrant representatives of the creative bohemia. Fitzgerald’s own family life is unimaginable without loud parties alongside the woman who became both his dream and his curse. His drinking and adventure partner plunged him into a whirlwind of exalted antics, which she initiated.
With Zelda, Fitzgerald became a hero of the contemporary “glamour” scene. The main characters of the social chronicle were on everyone’s lips, thanks to their wild parties and eccentric antics: “under the influence,” they would ride around town on the roofs of taxis, swim in fountains, and show up at the theater naked. Drinking, jealousy, and scandals were integral parts of their “rich” life. However, this dubious “publicity” worked in Fitzgerald’s favor, making him the highest-paid author in the tabloids of the time.
“It’s so nice to be young and successful!” Fitzgerald reveled in his personal “paradise.” His life included respectable resorts, a mansion in Manhattan, and expensive travels.
The atmosphere of this “life carnival” found its way into the plot of his “Tales of the Jazz Age” (a term he coined to describe the brief period of carefree joy and emotional uplift between World War I and the Great Depression). The symbol of the “Jazz Age” became Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel “The Great Gatsby,” which was completed and published in the romantic capital of the world, Paris. There, Francis Scott Fitzgerald met American colleague and literary rival Ernest Hemingway, with whom he managed to befriend and later quarrel over similar fates and shared flaws. Hemingway described his time with Fitzgerald in his memoir “A Moveable Feast.”
Fitzgerald and Hemingway
A Shattered Plate
The youthful illusion of an endless celebration of life soon gave way to the foreboding that the “American Dream” would turn into an “American Tragedy.” Becoming the voice of the 1920s generation, Fitzgerald also received another metaphorical label: critics called him “the trumpet of post-war neurasthenics.” Just as the path to success for his character Gatsby ended in catastrophe, Fitzgerald’s fate led him toward personal tragedy.
As his professional successes grew, they brought less joy to his ambitious wife, who began to realize her own insignificance. While she immersed herself in the search for the meaning of life, Zelda was losing it instead. People laughed at her clumsy attempts to find herself, as she flitted between painting and writing, and unexpectedly took up ballet at the age of 27. The final note of the “carnival” for the party girl was the diagnosis of “schizophrenia.”
The Fitzgerald Family with Their Daughter
Fitzgerald described his struggles in the novel “Tender Is the Night,” where he referred to his personal drama as “shattered.” His wife had to be regularly sent for treatment at a psychiatric hospital, and their daughter was placed in a closed boarding school. In one of his letters to his daughter, the father confessed his disdain for “women raised for idleness.”
As he contemplated ending his life, Fitzgerald compared himself to a shattered plate. However, his days were already numbered: on December 21, 1940, the “singer of the Jazz Age” died in the prime of life after his second heart attack. An unfinished manuscript titled “The Last Tycoon” remained on his desk. This incomplete novel also became his last. It was about Hollywood. In the final years of his life, the writer attempted to collaborate with film studios. Death caught Fitzgerald in the “capital of dreams.”