F Scott Fitzgerald Chapter Summary

F. Scott Fitzgerald Name ________________________ Fitzgerald Notes

1. Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on September 24, _______, in St. __________, Minnesota.
2. Fitzgerald developed “a two-cylinder inferiority _______________________” that made him aware of his modest beginnings.
3. Fitzgerald’s father made a living by selling __________________.
4. When Fitzgerald was in school, he gained a reputation as a __________- ____. He never lost this need for attention. He turned to ________________ as a way of courting popularity.
5. In 19___, he went to Princeton, the Ivy League school he paid homage to in This Side of Paradise. He called Princeton The “pleasantest __________________ ________
in America.” Princeton’s intimidating social hierarchies and _________________ of protocol strengthened Fitzgerald’s destiny. He said, “If I couldn’t be perfect I wouldn’t be _____________________.”
6. When the time came to leave Princeton (he didn’t graduate), Fitzgerald told Edmund Wilson, a poet and editor, “I want to be one of the greatest writers who ever __________________.”
7. His immediate future was decided by the United States’ entry into WWI. He joined the army as a second lieutenant in October 1917 and was stationed near Montgomery, Alabama, where he met Zelda ____________.
8. The couple seemed perfectly matched. Zelda, beautiful and willful, sought the same things in life as Fitzgerald: success, _________________, and above all, _______________.
9. After being discharged from the army, Fitzgerald went to _________________ to establish himself as a writer, but soon the walls of his room could have been wall papered with ______________________ slips. Zelda called off their proposed marriage, and Scott sought comfort in __________________. Increasingly, ____________________ would become a refuge from failure.
10. He went home to ______________ to work on a new novel in the hopes that the literary success would bring Zelda back.
11. In September ________ This Side of Paradise was accepted by Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins.
12. Back in New York, Fitzgerald began selling his short stories to the ___________________________________. The popular magazine market ended up being his steadiest source of income. He set about enjoying the fruits of success, spending extravagantly and giving recklessly big tips.
His attitude toward money was colored by his modest beginnings. As if to prove a point, he squandered the high fees he earned and lived much of his live relying on advances of his salary.

13. T his Side of Paradise was published in March ___________ and was a great success. In April, Fitzgerald and Zelda were married in ___________________________.
14. At _____ years of age, Fitzgerald was rich and famous. He rode on the roofs of taxi cabs and jumped into fountains, gave endless newspaper interviews and got drunk at countless parties. At that time, he said, “I had everything I ever _______________ and knew I would never be ________________ again.”
15. His drinking started getting out of hand. Furthermore, Zelda began to resent his _____________ and the attention it brought him.
16. The Fitzgeralds’ daughter Scottie was born in October of _______. In 1922, the Fitzgeralds rented a house at Great Neck on Long Island and became friendly with the writer Ring Lardner, who described the Fitzgeralds this way: “Mr. Fitzgerald is a novelist and Mrs. Fitzgerald a ______________.” The rounds of parties and glittering social
functions on Long Island are reflected in his third novel, The Great Gatsby. It was, however, an expensive way of life. In ______ Fitzgerald earned almost $_______________ , yet had practically nothing to show for it by the end of the year.

17. Zelda had a brief affair with a French __________________ that threatened their marriage. Although they patched things up, Fitzgerald had been badly shaken and said, “I knew something had happened that could never be ___________________.”

18. By 1926, Fitzgerald’s drinking was so bad that he would introduce himself by declaring, “I’m an alcoholic,” and his craving for attention made him behave really outrageously when drunk. At one dinner party, he threw fruit at a guest, attacked a friend, and smashed glasses.
Zelda’s behavior was also becoming erratic and ________________. She and Fitzgerald goaded each other into acts of drunken bravado. Returning to America from the French Riviera, Fitzgerald summed up the year frankly: “Futile, shameful useless . . . Self _________________________. Health gone.”
19. Their marriage was not in serious trouble. In 1927, Fitzgerald went to Hollywood to write a flapper comedy that was never made and had an affair with Lois Moran. Outraged, Zelda started a ________ in their hotel bathroom and on their trip back to New York threw her _______________, an expensive gift from Scott, from the train window. In an effort to reform his out-of-control lifestyle, he rented a secluded mansion on the Delaware River, but the bright lights of New York proved too much of a temptation. He and Zelda made regular trips there, about which Zelda wrote, “We come up for a ______________________, then wake up and it’s Thursday.”
20. The Wall Street crash of 1929 signaled and end of a boom era for both the nation and the Fitzgeralds. Zelda’s mental health was deteriorating rapidly In 1930, she was admitted to a Swiss clinic where she was
_______________________ as a schizophrenic.
22. Fitzgerald visited her often, and they exchanged many soul-searching letters. In one of them, he blamed her breakdown on “your almost megalomaniacal selfishness and my insane indulgence to drink.” He came to the sad conclusion that “We ___________________ ourselves.”
23. In 1937 he went to work for MGM to write movie screens. They paid him $________________ per week.
24. In _____ he died , providing his own cruelly fitting epitaph – “Then I was drunk for many years, and then I _________.”

Turn to page 742 in your textbooks to fill in these blanks.
25. F. Scott Fitzgerald was the historian of the greatest, gaudiest spree in history.
26. Many Americans lived with reckless abandon, attending wild parties, wearing glamorous clothing, and striving for fulfillment through ________________ wealth. Yet this quest for pleasure was often accompanied by a sense of inner despair. Fitzgerald was able to successfully capture the paradox of this glittering, materialistic, and often self-destructive lifestyle because he lived it. Like many of his characters, he led a fast-paced life and longed to attain the _________ and __________ ____________ of the upper class. He also experienced the _______________________ conveyed in his stories.
27. The novel The Great Gatsby displayed Fitzgerald’s fascination with – and growing ____________________ of – the wealthy society he embraced.
28. Fitzgerald recognized that the quest for pleasure was often accompanied by a sense of inner despair. In his short stories and novels, he captured both the gaiety and the emptiness of the times.
29. Tender is the Night reflects Fitzgerald’s awareness that tragedy can result from an obsession with money and social prestige.
30 In all his best works, the American dream turns out to be a nightmare.