Francis Scott Fitzgerald: biography e Il Grande Gatsby

FRANCIS SCOTT FITZGERALD: BIOGRAPHY E IL GRANDE GATSBY

American literature: Francis Scott Fitzgerald.

3.1 Introduction. The 1920s in the United States, called “roaring” because of the exuberant, freewheeling popular culture of the decade. The Roaring Twenties was a time when many people defied Prohibition, indulged in new styles of dancing and dressing, and rejected many traditional moral standards. American literature found a period of gold during all Twenties. The author, who gave an alive imagine of “roaring Twenties” is Francis Scott Fitzgerald.Fitzgerald was one of the best known American authors of the 1920s and '30s and is closely associated with the optimism and excesses of that era's "Jazz Age." Fitzgerald's stories often featured people like himself: middle-American types infatuated with the wealth and status of upper-crust society.

Great Gatsby e Fitzgerald: riassunto

FRANCIS SCOTT FITZGERALD BIOGRAPHY

Life and main works. He was born in 1896 in Minnesota.

His father was a Southern gentleman and his mother was of Irish descent. He studied in a Catholic boarding school in New Jersey and, in 1913, he went to Princeton University to complete his education. There he began to write and had the opportunity to associate with rich young men.
When the United States entered the First World War, he joined the army in the romantic hope of fighting to defend democracy, but, to his disappointment, he was sent to a training camp in Alabama. Meanwhile, Fitzgerald was working at his first novel, which he published in 1920 with the title «This Side of Paradise». The book gave a forceful picture ok the lifestyle of young people in the 2roaring Twenties”, and also captured the sense of loss and emptiness hiding behind the cult of money and materialism. The novel was an extraordinary success; it gave him fame and money.

Great Gatsby: riassunto breve

FRANCIS SCOTT FITZGERALD: IL GRANDE GATSBY

In 1921 he married Zelda Sayre. They settled in New York, where they led a glamorous life spending a lot of money on entertaining, parties, alcohl and drugs. Their only daughter, “Scottie”, was born in the same year. Fitzgerald worked hard to keep their sophisticated and expensive lifestyle. In 1922 he published «Tales of the Jazz Age», with which he gave a name at that period of  moral weakness following the First World War, and which flew in the Great Depression. In the same year he published his second novel «The beautiful and Damned» where he portrayed the hedonism, corruption and loss of ideals of  the “Lost Generation”. Infact, in this novel, a great sense of disillusionment emerges:it dramatizes the self-destructive marriage of the rich and glamorous Anthony and Gloria Patch, damned by their excesses, and it clearly echoes the author's own marriage and high-flying lifestyle. He was never really accepted by that society which he described in his works, even because he was always conscious of  disperation and irresponsibility of the society during this period.

 

Fitzgerald e Il grande Gatsby: riassunto