Master works
Novels:
• This Side of Paradise 1920 • The Beautiful and Damned 1922 • • The Great Gatsby 1925 • Tender Is the Night 1934 • • The Last Tycoon 1941 Short story collections: • Flappers and Philosophers 1920 • • Tales of the Jazz Age 1922 • All the Sad Young Men 1926 • Taps at Reveille 1935
• Fitzgerald is reported to have said to his friend, the American writer Ernest Hemingway, "The very rich are different from you and me. " Hemingway is reported to have answered, “Yes, they have more money." • The exchange tells a great deal about each writer.
• Themes & styles
Fitzgerald’s style is unlike the other modern writers in that it uses more language to convey meaning. However, Fitzgerald’s themes are very modern. All of his books and short stories display the loneliness and misery of modern life. His books convey the idea that, “Money can’t buy happiness.”
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In 1920 appeared Fitzgerald’s first novel, THIS SIDE OF PARADISE 《人间天堂》. The book gained a success which Fitzgerald celebrated energetically in parties and married Zelda successfully. Zelda danced on people's dinner tables in endless parties to celebrate the immediate success. • But that was not to be the ending for the Fitzgerald. They lived in New York City. He drank too much. She spent too much money. He promised himself to live a less costly life. Always, however, he spent more than he earned from writing.
Fitzgerald entered Princeton University in 1913, where he spent most of his time doing social activities. He left his studies in 1917 because of his poor academic records, and took up a commission in the US Army. His experiences during World War I were more peaceful than Hemingway's - he never saw action and even did not go to France.
• W h ile liv in g in th e F re n c h R iv ie ra , Z e ld a ’s illn e s s b e c o m e se rio u s . S h e su d d e n ly b e g a n to p ra c tic e b a lle t , d a n c in g n ig h t a n d d a y . A fte r a se c o n d n e rv o u s b re a k d o w n , sh e w a s h o s p ita liz e d fo r m e n ta l illn e s s in C a ro lin a . D u rin g th e la s t ye a rs o f h is life , F itz g e ra ld liv e d in H o lly w o o d , e a rn in g h is liv in g a s a sc re e n w rite r . H e d ie d o f h e a rt a tta c k a t th e a g e o f 45. In 1948, th e h o s p ita l a t w h ic h Z e ld a w a s a p a tie n t ca u g h t
ቤተ መጻሕፍቲ ባይዱ
Jazz Age& The Roaring 1920’s
• The Jazz Age describes the period of the 1920s and 1930s.The 1920s began with high hopes. World War One was over. The twenties ended with a huge drop in stock market prices that began the Great Depression. Fitzgerald was a representative of the years of fast living in between. • The nation's values had changed in this period. Many Americans were concerned mainly with having a good time and doing what you will. American society enjoyed unprecedented levels of prosperity. People broke the law by drinking alcohol and lived in a corrupt society. They danced to jazz music, and women wore short skirts.
The turning point in his life was
when he met Zelda Sayre while he was at one of the bases where he trained in 1918, herself as the daughter of a justice from Alabama Supreme Court and an aspiring writer . He proposed to her but failed as she thought he was just a poor boy.
The Great Gatsby
• The setting of The Great Gatsby is New York City and Long Island during the 1920s. • Nick Carraway, the narrator, is a young Princeton man, who works as a bond broker in Manhattan. He becomes involved in the life of his neighbor at Long Island. • Jay Gatsby, shady and mysterious financier, who is entertaining hundreds of guests at lavish parties. Gatsby reveals to Nick, that he and Nick's cousin Daisy Fay Buchanan, had a brief affair before the war. However, Daisy married Tom Buchanan, a rich but boring man of social position. • Gatsby lost Daisy because he had no money, but he is still in love with her. He persuades Nick to bring him and Daisy together again. "You can't repeat the past," Nick says to him. Gatsby tries to convince Daisy to leave Tom, who, in turn, reveals that Gatsby has made his money from bootlegging. "They're a rotten bunch," Nick shouts to Gatsby. "You're worth the whole damn bunch put together." Daisy, driving Gatsby's car, hits and kills Tom's mistress, Myrtle Wilson, unaware of her identity. Gatsby remains silent to protect Daisy. Tom tells Myrtle's husband Wilson it was Gatsby who killed his wife. Wilson murders Gatsby and then commits suicide. Nick is left to arrange Gatsby's funeral, attended only Gatsby's father and one former guest.