LITERATURE & HUMANITIES

F. SCOTT FITZGERALD AND THE GREAT GATSBY

Elisabeth Suchar, Member, on 20 March 2001

This talk addressed the influences of Fitzgerald's life relating to The Great Gatsby, the historical context of the 1920s, which served as the background for the novel, as well as some of the major themes the book contained.

Fitzgerald always claimed that "his material was his life" and certainly it is true that his great talent lay in turning events in which he was involved into stories. As a consequence of his father's inability to earn a living for the family, the Fitzgeralds moved to St. Paul, Minnesota where his grandfather had been a successful `self-made man'. The positive attributes associated with the `self-made man' in American culture became an important force in Fitzgerald's life.

Fitzgerald also embraced the code of 18th century manners passed on to him by his father. The sense of honour, reverence for womanhood and the code of chivalry formed a kind of genteel tradition he increasingly saw as a barrier to becoming a modern writer.

Fitzgerald achieved his dream of attending Princeton University where he met Edmund Wilson and John Peale Bishop, both of whom raised his aspirations and desire to become a serious writer. During World War I, he left Princeton to enlist in the Army and while posted in Alabama met his future wife, Zelda Sayre. She became his muse and his inspiration and he was able to draw on her diaries, letters and behaviour in his work, but her desire for a flamboyant lifestyle often diverted him from serious writing.

Success came to Fitzgerald early on in his career. His first book, This Side of Paradise, published in 1920, made him a symbol of the jazz age and a celebrity. By the age of 28, he felt compelled to attempt a great novel. As he wrote to Max Perkins he wanted to write "something extraordinary, and beautiful and simple and intricately patterned." The Great Gatsby appeared in 1925.

The most important historical influence on social attitudes and habits in the United States was the passage of Prohibition. As a result of this legislation, breaking the law became a game along with daring clothes, modern dances and party-crashing. In the 1920s bootlegging and speculation became the easiest ways to riches for a new generation with superficial values and fluid morality.

A brief outline of the plot and comments on the novel's style were given before turning to four prominent themes of the book. The first labelled `East and West' dealt with the effect of the lost western frontier, the symbol of adventure and possibility. The characters in this novel come from the west but choose to go east to find opportunity. The corruption, hedonism, and complexity they found in the east was too overwhelming and by the end of the summer they were ready to leave.

The second theme dealt with `illusion and reality.' The hero of the story, Gatsby, has a dream which he pursues with compulsive optimism and energy. Fitzgerald asks the reader to consider if having a dream is in itself good or does the dream need to be worthy and realistic?

Thirdly, Fitzgerald deals with the issue of the rich and how they are different. Fitzgerald had long been fascinated by wealth. At first, he thought the rich were luckier because they were better able to pursue their objectives. Increasingly, he came to believe that the rich often failed to have much purpose in their lives. While Gatsby had a dream, he could not use his newly acquired wealth to full advantage because he could not actually become one of the rich.. He could not acquire their ways of speaking, dressing and behaving, and this inability to become the `right kind of rich' hinders him from achieving his dream.

The final theme covered was `pessimism'. Fitzgerald worried about the moral anarchy that existed in contemporary society. He saw people desiring to become `self-made men' of the American dream but without the conscience of an earlier age. By employing fraud, violence and corruption, these men were destroying the ideal of the `self-made man'. Big business also prevented the individual from realising his aspirations. The American culture was changing in ways that bothered Fitzgerald.

After Fitzgerald's death, his reputation grew, restored by Princeton men such as Arthur Mizener, Andrew Turnball and Edmund Wilson. Now more than 75 years after The Great Gatsby was published, I think it still offers the reader much to think about.

Betty Suchar

Discussion

Some time was spent discussing Scott Fitzgerald's inability to reconcile his catholic upbringing with the atmosphere of corruption, crime and dissipation, predominant at the time. It was recognised that even these `qualities' were a legacy of the Frontiersman and The American Dream. At the same time, he was in awe and fascinated by the daring of those who felt free to use any means to justify their aims; in Gatsby's case, bootlegging and consorting with criminals, to make money, in order to win back Daisy. It was shown, that through the narration of Nick Carraway, with his ambivalent feelings about Gatsby, this conflict of Fitzgerald's became apparent.

Betty Suchar pointed out that although `Gatsby' was less obviously autobiographical than Tender Is The Night, or, The Beautiful and the Damned, it was, nevertheless, taken from his own experience. She cited his relationship with Zelda as a reflection of his own ambivalent attitude towards pleasure seeking, for which she seemed to have no inhibitions. The fact that Zelda became increasingly psychotic, and spent considerable time in psychiatric care was not mentioned. Fitzgerald's device of contrasting Gatsby's ideal view of Daisy, and the lengths he was prepared to go to win this shallow and materialistic woman, who saw even her own child as a possession, served to enlarge the mistaken `greatness' of Gatsby's created illusion. A member suggested that, were The Great Gatsby, written today, it would not wield the same power, due to a profound change in social climate.

Peter Valentine