How Is Fitzgerald's Life Reflected In The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald and the Resemblance of his life in The Great Gatsby Written in 1925, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald was a novel that reflected the negative aspect of the American Dream. Fitzgerald uses his novel The Great Gatsby as a medium through which he can convey his ambitions and his life experiences. Throughout the novel Fitzgerald shows how important his Irish descents are, as well as reflecting his romantic but tragic life in a world full of people that care only about their social status as well as the power of the wealthy. During the novel, Fitzgerald is personified in his work as two of the main characters (Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway) and his never attained ambitions fulfilled. F. Scott Fitzgerald reflects his roots as well as the struggle that the Irish people had in order to survive in a competitive society that reflected the end of this 19th century. Long Island, described as “Old Island” by Nick Carraway in the novel (Fitzgerald 180), was one of the first places where adventurers and immigrants settle to start a new life (Monteiro). Even if Fitzgerald was a proud American he was a man with Irish descent (Yardley); he reflects his roots by inserting in the novel the issue of the illegal selling of alcohol in time of prohibition. Jay Gatsby lives in Long Island,
a way of Fitzgerald stating that even if he is American, he is part of the place where his ancestors first arrived. Irish immigrants would enter the new land with new aspirations and new desires, and the only way to survive would be by being involved many times in illegal business such as selling alcohol like Jay Gatsby did in the novel in order to make money, even if ironically Gatsby did not drink. On the contrast, Fitzgerald had begun drinking heavily when he was a young man at Princeton University becoming an alcoholic in the 1920s which lead him to have a very tragic and problematic life in the future (LitFinder Contemporary Collection). What led Fitzgerald to write such a tragic but romantic novel were his emotions and affections towards what he most wanted in his life, his true love Zelda Sayre. Fitzgerald’s screams for need of affection and love were reflected in the novel by Jay Gatsby’s obsession over Daisy Buchanan. After 4 years of marriage, Scott Fitzgerald felt threatened and betrayed by his wife’s feelings towards a friend called Edouard Jozan, even if Jozan later insisted that the relationship was no more than an extended flirtation, Fitzgerald did not tolerate this and ended the relationship on July 13 (W. R.). Fitzgerald after ending the marriage with Zelda felt in need of love and care and he later demonstrated, just as Jay Gatsby did in The Great Gatsby that he was willing to do anything to get the woman he loves back and to attract her into his life. Fitzgerald was very similar to the character Jay Gatsby, they were both sent to war and they both lost their loved ones. F. Scott Fitzgerald was enlisted to go to the army hoping to fight in WWI; he was then assigned to a camp in Alabama where he met Zelda. Even though Fitzgerald was smitten by Zelda’s charm he was forced to turn his attention fully towards earning a living as a writer. After achieving his goal of becoming a successful writer he married Zelda in 1920 (LitFinder Contemporary Collection). As Fitzgerald did with Zelda and chose the responsibility of becoming a professional writer as his first priority, Fitzgerald demonstrates this same idea in the novel by how Jay Gatsby was charmed by Daisy Buchanan in their youth however he had the responsibility of going to War, leaving Daisy Buchanan behind. Daisy then felt lonely and in call for love and married Tom Buchanan. “By the next autumn she was gay again, gay as ever. She had a debut after the Armistice, and in February she was sumably engaged to a man from New Orleans. In June she married Tom Buchanan of Chicago, with more pomp and circumstance than Louisville ever knew before.” (Fitzgerald 75). F. Scott Fitzgerald sends the reader an indirect message through his novel criticizing the social class at the epoch. Fitzgerald wanted to reflect that the most important thing at the time was money, money that he thought that could open doors in order to belong to a high class society. He stated that when people become rich they also become powerful. Fitzgerald created Gatsby as a man that was non-aristocrat as himself, whenever Jay Gatsby would throw parties in the novel; people with money and people from the high class society were only invited. Fitzgerald states that the measure in life was money which leads to power. Fitzgerald himself was not part of the high level society and so by creating Jay Gatsby reflected Fitzgerald’s ambition of being a part of this high class society. On the other hand, Jay Gatsby’s only desire was to attract his love one, the ambitious Daisy Buchanan by throwing big parties at his house. In the novel, Fitzgerald unfolds Gatsby's tragedy for us through the eyes of the narrator, Nick Carraway (Thomas Inge) in order to understand each character better, including the protagonist Jay Gatsby. Nick Carraway was inserted by Fitzgerald to have a first person point of view from a different perspective of a more passivity quiet but observational gentile man. It is interesting how Nick Carraway is reflected as F. Scott Fitzgerald himself. Fitzgerald was embodied as Jay Gatsby, the man who was wealthy and honorable by society but also by Nick Carraway, the man who was different from every other man, who did not judge other people from where they came from or whether they had money or not. Both Characters, Carraway and Gatsby, speak for his author as well as for the novel itself. In conclusion, Fitzgerald draws parallels throughout his novel by showing positive as well as negative aspects of his life.
F. Scott Fitzgerald reflects his negative behavior as an alcoholic when he criticizes the illegal trait of alcohol as well as criticizing the society he lived in. Fitzgerald also writes about his memories of the land he is linked to, Long Island, where his ancestors first arrived. The author shows in the novel the tragic side of his life where he was separated from his loved one. Finally, the dramatic way in which he ends his novel, Gatsby being assassinated, is a way for Fitzgerald to be released from his
suffering.

Works Cited
Literature Resources from Gale "F. Scott Fitzgerald." LitFinder Contemporary Collection. Detroit: Gale, 2007. Web. 14 Apr. 2010. http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do? &id=GALE%7CLTF0000022552BI&v=2.1&u=dora13579&it=r&p=LitRG&sw=w Fitzgerald, Francis. The great Gatsby. Scribner Book Company, 2004. 75. Print.
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Monteiro, George. "Carraway's Complaint." Journal of Modern Literature 24.1 (Fall 2000): 161- 171. Rpt. in Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism. Ed. Linda Pavlovski. Vol. 157. Detroit: Gale, 2005. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 14 Apr. 2010. http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?&id=GALE%7CH1420061762&v=2.1&u=&it=r&p=Lit RG&sw=w
W. R. Anderson. "F(rancis) Scott (Key) Fitzgerald." American Writers in Paris, 1920-1939. Ed. Karen Lane Rood. Detroit: Gale Research, 1980. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 4. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 14 Apr. 2010 http://go.galegroup.com/ ps/i.do?&id=GALE%7CH1200001161&v=2.1&u=dora13579&it=r&p=LitRG&sw=w
Yardley, Jonathan. "Irish Americans." Biography 30.3 (2007): 455. Literature Resources from Gale. Web. 14 Apr. 2010. http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?&id=GALE% 7CA168631314&v=2.1&u=dora13579&it=r&p=LitRG&sw=w