Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald 1B
Logan Moyer
1B
Ochoa
15 December 2014
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald: “The Great Gatsby”
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896 and raised in St. Paul,
Minnesota (Fitzgerald 1) Though an intelligent child, he did poorly in school and was sent to a
New Jersey boarding school in 1911. Despite being a mediocre student there, he managed to enroll at Princeton in 1913. Academic troubles and apathy plagued him throughout his time at college, and he never graduated, instead enlisting in the army in 1917, as World War I neared its end (Fitzgerald 4).
Fitzgerald became a second lieutenant, and in 1918 was stationed at Camp Sheridan, in
Montgomery, Alabama. (Fitzgerald 5)There he met and fell in love with a wild seventeen-year-old beauty named Zelda Sayre. Zelda finally agreed to marry him, but her overpowering desire for wealth, fun, and leisure led her to delay their wedding until he could prove a success. With the publication of This Side of Paradise in 1920, Fitzgerald became a literary sensation, earning enough money and fame to convince Zelda to marry him.(Fitzgerald 6)
Many of these events from Fitzgerald’s early life appear in his most famous novel, The
Great Gatsby, published in 1925. Like Fitzgerald, Nick Carraway is a thoughtful young man from
Minnesota, educated at an Ivy League school (in Nick’s case, Yale), who moves to New York after the war. Also similar to Fitzgerald is Jay Gatsby, a sensitive young man who idolizes wealth and luxury and who falls in love with a beautiful young woman while stationed at a military camp in the South (The Great Gatsby chapter 1).
Having become a celebrity, Fitzgerald fell into a wild, reckless life-style of parties and decadence, while desperately trying to please Zelda by writing to earn money (Fitzgerald 8).
Similarly, Gatsby amasses a great deal of wealth at a relatively young age, and devotes himself to acquiring possessions and throwing parties that he believes will enable him to win Daisy’s love
(The
1B
Ochoa
15 December 2014
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald: “The Great Gatsby”
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896 and raised in St. Paul,
Minnesota (Fitzgerald 1) Though an intelligent child, he did poorly in school and was sent to a
New Jersey boarding school in 1911. Despite being a mediocre student there, he managed to enroll at Princeton in 1913. Academic troubles and apathy plagued him throughout his time at college, and he never graduated, instead enlisting in the army in 1917, as World War I neared its end (Fitzgerald 4).
Fitzgerald became a second lieutenant, and in 1918 was stationed at Camp Sheridan, in
Montgomery, Alabama. (Fitzgerald 5)There he met and fell in love with a wild seventeen-year-old beauty named Zelda Sayre. Zelda finally agreed to marry him, but her overpowering desire for wealth, fun, and leisure led her to delay their wedding until he could prove a success. With the publication of This Side of Paradise in 1920, Fitzgerald became a literary sensation, earning enough money and fame to convince Zelda to marry him.(Fitzgerald 6)
Many of these events from Fitzgerald’s early life appear in his most famous novel, The
Great Gatsby, published in 1925. Like Fitzgerald, Nick Carraway is a thoughtful young man from
Minnesota, educated at an Ivy League school (in Nick’s case, Yale), who moves to New York after the war. Also similar to Fitzgerald is Jay Gatsby, a sensitive young man who idolizes wealth and luxury and who falls in love with a beautiful young woman while stationed at a military camp in the South (The Great Gatsby chapter 1).
Having become a celebrity, Fitzgerald fell into a wild, reckless life-style of parties and decadence, while desperately trying to please Zelda by writing to earn money (Fitzgerald 8).
Similarly, Gatsby amasses a great deal of wealth at a relatively young age, and devotes himself to acquiring possessions and throwing parties that he believes will enable him to win Daisy’s love
(The