American Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald Essay

American Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald Essay

American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) rose to prominence as a chronicler of the jazz age. Born in St. Paul, Minnesota, Fitzgerald had the good fortune–and the misfortune–to be a writer who summed up an era. The son of an alcoholic failure from Maryland and an adoring, intensely ambitious mother, he grew up acutely conscious of wealth and privilege–and of his family's exclusion from the social elite. After entering Princeton in 1913, he became a close friend of Edmund Wilson and John Peale Bishop and spent most of his time writing lyrics for Triangle Club theatrical productions and analyzing how to triumph over the school's intricate social rituals. He left Princeton without graduating and used it as the setting for his first novel, This Side of Paradise (1920). It was perfect literary timing. After flunking out of Princeton and joining the army, Fitzgerald began writing his first novel, 'This Side of Paradise', for fear that he would be killed in the Great War for which he was never deployed. He struggled to produce anything anybody was interested in publishing; however, while stationed outside of Montgomery, Alabama, Fitzgerald fell in love with Zelda Sayre, the daughter of a state supreme court judge. Fitzgerald 's financial situation was, to put it frankly, quite poor, and after a short engagement Sayre discontinued their relationship. Dismayed, yet newly motivated to win back his engagement to Zelda, Fitzgerald quit his job as an adman in New York City, moved

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