F. SCOTT HTZGERALE
"THE ANATGMY OF FRUSTRATIQN

The-5&5 fer ”the Degree of M. A.
MECHIGAN STATE COLLEGE
imiudwn Mééa Andersen

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Hudson.Hilo Anderson

submitted to the School of Graduate Studies of Richlgan 4:
:e of.Agricu1ture and Applied Jelenca

in partial fulfillment of the requirements

5 ate 00119
for the degree of

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Department of Englisn

19 1+9

To
.AL-‘i'l' E; L 3‘. 02213.: .121- I L '1'
whose enthusiasm for the work
of F. ocott Fitzgerald lad me

to attempt this study.

 

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12133033311 C N

Any study of F. Scott Fitzgerald must take as
its starting-point a consideration of the events hat
brought on the "Roaring Twenties." Eoth the docaoe and
FitZEorald were products-of forces to be soon clearly
only from our vantage point in time. Ono of the salinnt
aspects of the period was its Spirit of revolt. The new
gonorotion.was rebelling against many things which were
loosely labeled Puritanisn and Victorianism. The roots
of the problem lay far back in American history and to
understand the twenties we must examine the courso or
American dovelogmont. The socioloaioal changes reflected
in Fitzserald's work of tho twenties were brought about
primarily by the profound influence of the retreating
frontier. Puritanism or "The New England-Hay" was a
vital and valid sociolOQicol entity in its original sotu
ins. Traditions and inherited values from Englani were
retained by the early colonists and slightly altered to
fit the new environment in.America. Vital to tho devoIOp-
mont of the How England way of life was a sense of com-
munity. and this was retained in their method of settle-
mont.

:hen tho pioneer set out from the sea-board. he

took ho how England idea with him, but across the

Appalachians it began to go bad. The Edriten principle
of being "my brother‘s keeper" needed the strictnese
of-the centralised village life and in the great western
migration few villages were formed. The sense of com~
munity was largely gone and new values arose. The
midwesterner was self~relient and he had.a profound
trust in the natural goodness of unrestricted men.

The conflict between these two divergent moralities
may be seen clearly in the work of Mark Twain. To him
the trensglentod Puritenism was all meanness and hygo-
cricy, so that his serious work is one long protest
against a morality that neither sided goodness nor
sustained honesty. Huck, the eXponent of natural Kid-
westorn morality. becomes a notoriously bad boy in the
Puritan village strictness of nannihdl.1

Ultimately the Eidwesterner Opposed the Puritan
morality with concepts derived from Concord and Walden
Pond. The pioneering movement demanded "self-reliance"
and the ex gencies of such primitive existence often
brought forth, of necessity, he better instincts of men.

with industrial develOpnent come a gradual perver-
.sion of Kidweetern self-reliance into the modern concept
of "rugged individualism." The irresponsibility which

goes with this concept is a natural growth in View of

u-------#------*~-*-

l: fiishOp, John Peels, “Missing.illz Younger Generation."

Virginia Conrterlyéfleview. (January, 1937) D§.lll~112.
, ‘ . J

3

the "lsissez—fsire" economic principles which were pre-
vslent at that time. The society which prized effic-
iency above sobriety reached a high point in the Gilded
Age and was in direct line of descent from the pioneering
background. It has been pointed out that this concept
of an irresponsible individualism was the Jazz Age's
heritage from the Gilded.Age. It was, in its origins.
the moral, or immoral. bequest of a new American money
society to its children in the second and third gener-
ations. The 1920's capped the entire historical cycle
from 1860 on. and most sharply illuminated its meaning.2
The reason for revolt. as roll as the attitude of
irresponsibility was inherited largely frog the Gilded
Age. The "rugged individualism" which had deepoiled
the resources of a continent and created an aristocracy
based on wealth, had also created a middle class and
oroleterist whose only tradition was the ideal of easy
money. One residual element of Euritsnism created an
appelling conformity to the mores of the village, and
another. the belief in the wealthy person as the chosen
of God, evolved into a rspscious greed. The whole of
society was motivated by the confident hOpe of material
gain. filth all aspects of the civilization weighed in
terms of dollar return, it is easy to so why the cul-

tural level was dehesed. The business man, smug as only

-m------~-0----~-Q-Q

2: Geismer, isxwell, Last of the Erovincisls,

 

4

one of the elect can be snug, was the arbiter of morals.
Horatio Alger set the pace and even William Dean fiowolls
was blinded by "the smiling aspects" of shericsn life.

During the latter part of the 19th. century another
element leading to the post-war revolt was beginning to
be felt. According; to Ludwig Lewisohn, the war brought
to a sudden crystallization that nee-nationalism which
was the instinctive fear aroused in the.snglo~imericsn
pepulstion by the gradual srticulstenoss of the later
immigrant strains: German, Jewish, Latin and Elev.

These peeple, for the most part, were completely alien
to the Puritan tradition. The war did not crests but
trought into sudden confrontation cultural and racial
groups with their antagonisss of instinct-and custom.
Thus we had with apparent suddenness shsrp cultural
surfaces and friction among those surfaces, The Anglo-
American group, having rower, was able to espress itself
most definitely by participation in the war and onset—
ment of the l-Bth. amendment.

From the point of View of creative exoression the
signifi out fact was that the new genera ion of Americsn
intellectuals who were on the point of coon revolt
:egsinst their cultural ervironment protested against
the precise mores and regressions which the AnglO¢
America- messes now intensified in self-defense. Thus
men and women of undivided.dhericsh and Euritsn descent

found thossolvos culturally on the side of the minorities

5

of other races and produced a literature protesting the
morale and institutions of their Puritan parents.3 we
can see that the war, which precipitated the immediate
intensification of the Anglo-American cultural tradition,
brought the conflict to such a stcge hat an easy tran»
sition to new folkssys was ingossiblo. The external
change came so abruptlyw-from one generation to the
nextoethst an intellectual rapport was seldom estehlished
between rebellious youth and its conservative elders.
It is only in this context that we can understand why
Fitsgereld's early work caused such consternation in
the genteel ranks of the literary tee clubs.
By 1917, then, the seeds of revolt had been growing
.forwailong time and the catalytic effect of World war I
brought them to sudden fruition.. Fitdersld catches
the essence of the period of revolt in the following
excerpt:
The ten-year period that, as if reluctant
to die outmoded in its bed, leaped to a
spectacular death in October. 1929, began about
the time of the hay Day riots in 1919. when
the police rode down the demobilized country
boys gaping at the craters in Eadison Square.
it was the sort of measure bound to alienate
the more intelligent young men from the
prevailing order.... But, because we were

tired of Great Causes. there was no more than
a short outbreak of_moral indignation, typ.

ified by Dos Paosos’ , soliiers. rresently
we began to have slices o the national cake

Q»-u--¢.-“---“-~auh-~--

3: Lewisohn, Ludwig; EXprgssion in America, (How York,
1932) 93-367~370

ana our idealism only flared up when the news—
papers made melodrama out of such stories as
Herding and the Ohio Gen; or Sacco and Van.
setti. The events of 1919 left us cynical
rather than revolutionary.... It was cher-
ecteristio of the Jazz Age that it had no
interest in politics at all. 4
The can disillusionment which had Qefested Hecdrow
Wilson and had caused strikes and riots and the Eig
Red Scare furnished a culture in which the germs of
the new freedom could grow and multiply.
The restraining effect of Puritan conformity
was badly shaken due to American particiyetion in
the Jar while the tendency toward irreSponsitility
was strengthened. A whole gencretion had teen effected
by He eat~drink~and-be-eerry egirit which accompaniefi
the departure of the soldiers to the training camps
and the fighting front.5 There had been an epidemic.
not only of abrupt Her marriages, but of less convent-
ional liaisons. In France. two million men found
themselves close to death and far from the controls
imposed by the American moral code. Prostitution
followed the flag and.snericen girls sent over as nurses
and war workers had come under the influence of con-
tinental manners and standards without being subject
to the rigia protections thrown about their continental

sisters of the respectable classes. There followed

-’--“C---'#-~Q--‘-‘-

#: Fitsgercle F. Scott, the Crack-up. ed. Eamund
Silson, new York, 1945) 93.13-14 ‘ '
5: Allen, Frederick Lewis, gnlyulestercsg. (New York,
1931) pp.94—ll7. 233—241. luck of the following
e1 floalin; with the twenties was taken.from
escineting book.

 

7

a very t :iospreod and to 3 natural brerkdown of trsoit-
ionsl restraints and ts’oOOS. It wss impossible for

his goreretion to re urn unchanged when the ordeal
was over. Tillions of them had been provided with an
emotional stimulant free which it was not easy to taper
off. They crave: the enodynes of spec s, excitement.
ens :ession. To settle down in what seemed the folly-
snne land of their elders was impossible, eni they let
this feet be Zirnown in a verv dis res ectle fashion.

The mid L119 gene ction was not so imseoistely
effected by the we r neurosis. They had had tire enough,
before 1917, to build u;3 hel3its of confer ity. As the
let-down of 1919 follom ed the ear, however. they found
themselves restless enfi in a mood to question everything
that has once seemed to the: true or :1 sorthy. They
had scent themselves an -d «onto a s {coo time. They saw
their Juniors explorin3 the approaches to he fortidden
land of sex, ens presently they begs to gley with the
lace of ooing a little esperircntin3 on their own.
Fitzgerald.pointed up the chance when he wrote:

say one offer in exhibit the year 1322'. That

was the peak of the younger generation, for

ugh the Jazz sgge continues. it bees so less
.nd less an effsir of youth.
The sequel was lile a children' s yarty
taken over by the eleers. leevin3 tlze cit

eren puzzled and rather ne3lected and rather
token stock. By 1923 their eleers, tired of

watch n3 the carnival with ill~concoelod envy.

had discovered that youn3 liquor will take

the place of young blood, and with a whOOp

the org} began. The younger generation was

starred no longer. 6

The revel otion wee accelere ted Liv the 3r0u1n3
ind pendence of the American woxe.. She won the eur—
fr reje in 192 20 which consolidated her position as men's
equal. Even more marked was the effect of women's
growin3 indegendence of the drud3eriee of housekeeping.
Smaller houses, canned goods, the growth of bakeries,
corrercial leund riee end electricfl egpliences did
much to ennncipate the American wo:ten from he‘sonork.
With the ability to "live their own lives," women
increasinrsly too}: jobs. Formerly thegr rand been pretty
well restricted to 901 col-teaching , social-service.
nurs ing ,sten03rephy, and clerical work in b‘einese
houses. But now they poured out of schools ena colleges
into all manner of new occupations. with a job came
a feeling of independence and a slackening of huebar dly
and parental authority. Yet even the 30b did not
9POV ile the American women with ‘3at co.olete eetiso
faction which the mene3enent of a mechanizoo.hone no
longer furnished. "Lhe etill had ener3iee and e *.otions

to burn; she was rent} for the revolution."7

-Q-.-----Q~---------

5: Fitz3orald. The Crack—up.p 0.15
7: Allen, Only Yeotordgx, p.93

Like all revolutions, this onc was stihulctod
by foroL n orOgL*LALL. It came, howovor. not from
Eoscow, but from Vienna. $ftér the war the Freucian
goopol began to circulate to a marked-extant among the
lay public of America. The one 5reat intollcctual
”orce which hua not suffered disreputo an a result of
the war was science. The public begLn absorbing
QLlantitJ of oopularizcd inforrm ticn atout oiology
anthrOpolO5y which gave a 5onoral L .procoion.t11at men
and women were merely animals of a rather intricate
variety; that moral coaea had no unitoroal validity
and were often based on curious SUpGPStithDSo' A
fertile 5round was mady for tho'soods of ?roud1anism.
Tho first requir agent of mental health was to have
an uninhibited cox life and Fitzgorald noted:

By 1926 the universal preoccupation with sex

had become a nui Lance. (I ramcut er a Lorfcctly

mated. contar .tod youn 5 mother aLL1n my aife‘ 8

advice aoout 'haang an affair r1:b.t away,'

tl1ourh oho had no one esvocially in :nlnd,

'loccuse éon't you thin} it's sort of vmfli5~

nifiad wl on you c ct mucn over thirty?‘ ) 8

The principle romaining forces which acceleratod
the revolution in manners and morals were all complotely
Lmorican. They were prohibition, the auto otllo, the

confession a1*.d sex r335m1 lneo. and the movies.

-odpoou-QQa-QOQ-Q---

82 Fits scrald. 2119 Crack—no, p.13

10

When the 18th amendment was ratified. prohibition
seemed to have on almost united country behind it.
Evasion of the law be5an irmedietely, however, and streno
nous and sincere onyosition to it qzic :ly rs nered forces
The results were the bootlegger, the speekessy, one s
spirit of deliberate revolt which in many co ...... unities
made drinkin n5 "the thin5 to do." This in turn brouc‘at
about the 5snerel transformation of drinkin5 from a
masculine prerothive to one shared by both sexes.
"Under the new regime not only the drinks were mixed.
but the company as well.”9

Meanwhile a new sort of freedom was bein5 made
possible by the enormous increase in the use of the
sutozobile, and particularly of the closed csr.l The

automobile offered an elmos t universally sveilsole means
of escaping temgorerily from the supervision of parents
and chaperons, or from the influence of nei5hborhcod
oeinion.

Finally, as the revolution began. its influence

fertiliz ed a bunper ore; of sex en’soinoo, conf salon
magazines, and lurid motion pictures, sod those in turn
shed their effect on a close of readers and movie-goers
who had never heard and never would hear of Freud sn‘
ne libido. A storm of criticism from hit rch or5sn-

'1zetions led the sotion~picture producers, early in the

--"----------05---‘--

9: Allen, Cnly Iesterogl, p.99

11

decade, to install will H. Hays as their arbiter of
morals and of teete. The result was to n he a moral
ending obligatory, to smear over sexy pictures with
pious platitudes, and to blacklist for motion-picture
production many a fine novel and play which, because
of its very honesty. might be construed.ee seriously
or intelligently questioning the traditional sex ethics
of the small town. The end result was that. while
giving f...lip~servige to the old coee, tn movies dil-
igently and with consummate vulgarity eublicized the'
new."10

Each of these influences had its pert in brin5in5
about the revolution and each was played upon by all
the others. Eons of them alone would.heve ch nged to
any de5ree the folkwnys of America; together their
force was irresistible. In’icetive of the revolution
was the chsn5e in women's fashions reflecting the
psycn0105icsl chsn5es.

...the quest for slenderness. tie flattening
of the breasts. the v05ue of short skirts
even when short skirts still su55estee the

a peerence of a little 5irl), the Juvenile
effect of the long weist,«~all were signs
that. consciously or unconsciously, the

w men of this decade worehipgei not merely
youth, but unripened youth: they wanted to
be~~or thought men wanted them to beuumen'e
casual enfl light-hearted companions; not
broad—hinged mothers of the race, but irreso
pensible playmates. Youth was their pattern.

-~--wor¢~»nm-¢munanfi-

10: Allen. fin g Yegterdey, 5.132

but not you qu1 innocence: the adolescent

whom they 111tuted was a hard~boiled adolas~

cent, Lho thought not in terms of r0: 'antio

love, ut in terms of sex, and \flzo made her-

self desirable not by that sly art which

conceals art, but fran1:.ly ani 03only. In

effect. the HO an of the Lost-war Decafle

said to ran, 'You are tired and disillus-

ioned, you do not want the caras of a family

or the companionship of mature wisdom, you

want a: :cltin3 3lay, you want t\e thrills

of sex without their fruition. and I will

31vo the n to you.’ And,to herself aha adacd,

But I willmmfroe.'11
In the hinterlano a there gag still plenty' of old-fasLioncd
sentimental thinking about sex. of the sort which ex~
pressed itsalf in the slogan of a fafiorutad women's
club: ""en are God’a trees, mo an are His flowers.”12
But in Spite of many frantic and picturesque attcm3t3
to stay the tifle of moral change by law. there wag an
unmistakable and ra3id trend away from the old American
(30(19 a

As in tic case of every rev olution. Le general
puLlic deprecatoi or enjoyed the chan es, while the
intelloctumls sought to explain them. Thifi new gener—
ation was docléedl" artICulate, and L03ofully foresaw
the and of ?ur1tanism and Victorianicmm—obut they
coaldn't find a M! way of life in thich thav could
believe. ihc keynota of tho perioa was disillusionment
about everything. excoot science, bus incas, and the

physical luxuries and improvements hhiCh ousincss would

113 Libido}. 3:).108—139
123 Ma, Poll?

13

bring. With the majority of mericanc t1 ale disillus-
ion,3 cnt was perhazc eubcone clone; .hey felt that life
wasn’t giving them all it should, the. acre of their
values were meltin: away, but they re3ained clieerful.
:ost of'the intellectuele, however, knew all too well
that they were disillusioned. Most of ham believed
in a greater de3rce or sex freeCLon-wand chny of them
found it diee3m intin3 when they got it. They found
the t love was becoming too eae y and too t10103ical to
be an object of reapect. As enemies of etenfiarflizetion
and rep eesion, the intellectuals believed in freedom--
bL at free 0' -or what? Uncomfortable as it was to be
harassed by prohibition agents and dictated to by
chambers of corrmerce, it was hardly 1333 cc fortei>le
in the long -un to have their freedom enl net knov what
to do with it. These were the type deecribed by Fitz-
gerald in a book of short stories entitlefl.All LheSag
young zen. 'olter‘Lijescn caught the eeeer ce of their
difficulty when he wrote:

what most distinguishes the generation who

have approached maturity since the debacle

of it ioclisrz at the er .d of 1:21 3 war is not

their rcrellion efainet religion crud the moral

code or tneir perer ts, but tl1eir disillusion-

ment with their on n rebellion. 13

The intellectuals also believeg in scion'i io truth

and in the scientific methodunand ecience not only took

‘Q---‘*---~“--fi--¢-¢

13: Lippman, Welter, A_Ereface texyerals. (Hew‘York,
1929) p.17

14

their God away from them but reduced men to a creature
for whose ideas of right and wrong there was no tre ne-
oendentel authority. T31e certaint3 he d departed from
life. .And what was worse still. it had departed from .
science itself. In the earlier days those who denied
tie divine order had still been able to rely on.e secure
order of nature. but now even this ::ee woLbling. Einstein
and the quantum heory introduced new denote. ficthing,
than, was certain.

Althou3h many will quibble about Fitzgovela‘s stature
as on intellectual; no one will deny that he reflectea
t3ze ti"e perfectly and, in large measure. helped to
create it. Glen Way flestoott wrote: ”In t3 9 twenties,
his heyeey, he was e kinfl of king of our youth:..."14

In the agate of novels which reflected the new eyirit

   

of revolt, Fitzgerald's first novel. This 3 de of

   

Fareiiee. led the way. In the next chapter the import~

 

once of this novel will be discussed more ally; for
the present it nee:1 onl 3r 1e pointefl out that the boo}:
mode artio olete the spirit of he new generation.
Fitz nreld.weo em motly suite to he role of
historee“ of his own generation. Re 316 not have to
reete the "loot generation" legend become -e the le3ena

was his own life as he was its ,oet native voice ard

14: Feetoott, Glenwey. "The 3ioral of Scott Fith erold,"
in The Creek-qg. p.323

signal victim: and his own career wee perhego its
central story.15 Fitzgerald was born in Segtember of
1396 in St; Paul, Finnesotc. The imgortence of the time
of his birth is obvious; he place is equally important.
The fact of his huv1n3 teen born in the new "cultural
nter" of the nation colors all his x 3. Ir evltelly
he judged other worlde from a Fiddleewostern view-
point and, being a 'i‘wcot rnor of his lee, F1t33 MP ll
gee eliaye seeking other worlds. He travelled with his
family durin3 his childhood and was sent to Newman
school in Leketrood, 3a.: Jersey, in 1911. The fact of
his Catholic background enfi education in this Catholic

"prep"

school also leavee :e—ny traces in his r-u1“,.
In the fell of 1913 he went to Princeton, JIIQPS he
plunge 1 into erztre-currlcw or activities much to the
detriment of hial1eolth and acefie3f;ic standing In
Loverter of his Junior year he wee forced to retire to
at. Eaul because of illness. He returnea in 1916 to
repeat this year, but his geolor year leetea only a
Juple of conthe, for he left Frlnceton in SovemLer to
301m the 93:35.16
filo career as “ he army's v: oret elae-d0ucemp was

short and.he didn’t czet overs era. when he was released

he went to flee York for a dismal period of writllg for

-Ou-n-firufic 0.-----‘dp-n-

1

\fl

: Kazin, Alfred, On ntlvo Crounie,

16: Kleenor, .irthur,"Scott F1t33ere 1d and t}:e Ire in-
atlve foeeeecion of fi.merlcan Li fe,“ geocuoe Hov*ow,
54. 'q‘uh I“? 194-6. ,j,..;.‘..2;~9-7O

16
a street car advertising firm. Naturally. he deteeted
the job and its attendant poverty, but there was a more
pressing anxiety:

friends who were not in love or who had
v~itin3 arrangv afiente with "sensible" girls,
tr:lced t: 'celveo patiently for a long pull.
rot I-¢I was in love with a whirlwind and I
must egin a not bi3 enough to catch it out
of my head, a head full of tricl::ling nickole
and sliding 613298, the inoeee ant music box
of the poor. It couldn't be done like that.
so when the 3irl threw me over I went home
and finished my novel. 17

Then came fabulous succeee, wealth. and marriage to
Zelda sayre. still in their twentiee and with money
to burn. the Fit23crelde plunged into the carnival of
the Jazz 339. Everything they did .re.e front 333e news
and as Fitzgerald later wrote: ”...in those days lite

O.

wes like the race in i e 'n ronde 1333, there wee‘

   

a prize for everyone."18

As the decade grew olfier Fit23erald continued to
work and play at a furious yace. In 1924 they wont
abroad to "do” EurOpe. In 1925 Fitzgerald's maeter~
piece. 239 63233 835323. was published and in 1926 he
brought out a. volume of'short stories entitled 3;;

~ jion. lint things were changing; rapidly

 

by then:

By 1927 a wide-spread neurosis be3an to
be evident. faintly ei3nelled, like a nervous
beating; of the feet. by the pepulerity of
cross-word puzzles. I remember a fellow
expatriate Openin3.e letter from a mutual

uou--‘¢¢-ufi-n~--fib~-”fi

17: Fitzgerald, $39 ch‘é-‘tm. p.86
18: -b1 c. D321 .

17

friend of ours, ure‘e~ him to co :8 he;'m and
be revitalize< by the here, tracin5 qualities
of the native soil, It was a e r025 letter
and it efoCted us toth deeply, until we
noticed that it we: headed from a nerve san-
iteriuu in iez‘"VIV hie, 19 ‘

The 315 Bull Karket was in full swin5, records were
being set on the Exchange one day and broken the nex
as the dizzy uywarfl agirel of frenzied finance continued.
The net ion was livin:" on borrowed ti2e, "...with the
ineouciance of grand dues and the ceeuelnese of chorus
girls....Thie was rather splenfiid but things were
getting thinner eni thinner as the eternal neoceeary
human values tried to spread over all Met expansion."20
When the fateful year of 1929 erriveé the Eitzgeralde
were abroad:
Jo w re e<>nenhere in iqerth Africa w.en we
heard a dull distant crash which echoed to
the farthest weetee of the aesertI
:Whet was that?”
'Did v0 on hear it?“
"It was notb in5I"
"Do you think we Que J1t to go home an& Bee?
“Ho—«~1t was nothin5." 21
But it wge something indeed! It wee the end of the most
frenetic period in Americee history and it seemed that
it was also the en& of F. Scott Fitngerald as an artist.
he critics of the thirtiee, wearing fie blinders

H

of one cause" or another. eroneuncea hizn deed artist-

ically and, o: cept for coat ler magazine petbeilere,f

u~~~.¢---0quwuqu

19: ibidd, 1" Jt19-qo
20: 21:31 ep.21~22

21: 21 ;a.. pp.31 32

 

18

Fitzgerald did not cgpeer in print again until 1931.
It was a novel callod.§enoer Io tne‘1ioht and in 80:36
ways it was Fitogcrsld's finest work no to that time.
It received little notice, however. and was soon a
back number along with a volume of short stories
entitled goes it Reveille which he published the
following year.

One major reason for these apparent failures was
Fitzgerald‘s seeming inability to mirror the times as
he had in the twenties. The vast-sociological and
economic changes seemed to find no echo in his work
and when he went to Hollywood in 193? there seemed
to be little doubt that he was finishe 1 as a serious
writer. fie had, himself. announced in a series of
articles published in £3c‘1ire in 1935, tnat he was a
"crooked plats." That tr is was for from true is
immediately evident when one examines hi sunfinishs~
nove1_:be Last gxcoon.

fiis sudden death on December 21. 1910 in Holly¢
wood marked the end of a generation which had gone
throng 1 two unprece lented periods in American history.
Sprin5in5 up after the first world War, his generation
had taken over and had run wild. Their youth had been
lost in the bottomless pit of the depression, and the
flesth of Fit25ereld, a kin& of king of their youth}
found then on the verge of another war. soon to hand

over the country to another poo twvtar reneratien.

19

11.11‘ 111710

Fitzgerald's literary career began in 1920 with
the paLlicetion of a b ooh novel of youthful rebellion.
This Side of Farediee_wee an enormous and instantaneous
success. Fitzaerold comjleted the first of three ver~
oione or it before he left Princeton in 1917. This
ap1eare to he ve contained alznoet notning of what wee
in he final vere ion exee:t the early scenes th Mo—ry' e
arrival at erinceton, and one or the few peeple who
11ove seen it has remarEzed that “it was actually flat;
so ething Ecott‘o work almost never wee.“1 fie eoent
most of hie military career in ilebe1e er.d it was Uzore
that he met Zelda Sayre and rewrote his novel. He
subtitted it under the title ghe3flooentic Egotiet and
it was rejected. After Zelda had broken off with him,
he left New Yorlr and rewrote the novel a third time.
As Igie 1‘ioe of Paradise it was eecoj.1ted and Uhflllsuvdo
In a revie1v of it his friend. T. E. fihlpyle. called
the book "the collected worke of F. Scott Fitzaereld."2

The theme of the novel is an obvious one. emery
Elaine, sensitive, poetic. intellectual and Lezuleomo.
goes to a good prep school,: nieoee distinction at
rrinceton, writes 30:3 poetry. falls in and out of love
several times, 1nd, at the end, broke and.Loffled and

rootleee, ie flirting with the idea of eocielie"1

lz-Kioener.” Scott Fitz3oreld and the Imaginative
Ho session of nonric1 Life," p.70
2: Ziohop, "1 coin" ill: Yo1inger floneretion," p.109

20

It 13 a aecidodly "young" book and was fiery mzch up to
date when it was published.. Freui is first found on
page six, and Amofy's mother is a glamorous sot. There
is a strong contempt for the Victorians, democracy.
american life, and, because of Eéncken, there is a
fluVor of Rietzscho.

It championed youth as against the old, the

rabels against the oonformists. It preaented

tha arguments of the young glausibly and

ingratlatingly....lt dignifiafi air yhllo»
saphy. It encaurufiea than in éefying their

alters and follow fig their fraaat daslrea.

It cast over their daings and draama a wist-

ful, poetic, and nostalgic haze. 3

Tha brashness and intellectua naivetc of the
book brought forth~many eanperatad reviews. fine
anonymous article, authoritatively attfibuted to Ednund
Hilaon, was typical. fie pointefi out that the novel is
not only highly imitative but imitated from a bad
model. Fitzgerald was fascinated by Compton Kackonzie
at the tiwe and tha hock so~1da like.an amerlcan at-
temgt to rewrite ggnlsterAQtr§e§,4' tmory 12 an unceru
tain quantity in a ghantasmagoria of incident which
haa no dominating intantlon to Elva it naity and force.
In short, ggtgffiifla 9: Fangdigq 13 not really about
anything: intellectually it amounts to little more

hfimmwwfimaq-wfiujounwwo

33$CIeaton. Irene & Allen, 200:3 & :attles, (flew york
1937) Paul-0 4 I W

4: In‘a latter to John Eeale Eiaho; reprinted in
EyeLQrackoup, p.269. Fitzgerald remarks on BishOp's
ability to racreate 15th century Italy and goes on
to say: "But. man I wrote T. :3». of P. z-rithout.
having been t0 Oxford.“

21

than a 3osture of indefinite revolt. For another thing,
Wilson 3oee on to any, the novel is very innaturely

ime3ined: it is always 3ust ver3in3 on the ludicrous.

And, finally, it is one of the mos t illiterate books

of any nerit ever published. It is not only full of
bogus iuess and faked literary references but it is
full or English words misueefl with the moot reckless
abandon...After flail1n3 poor r1tz~3rold 1n t13is manner,
Wilson, like the rest of the critics. concludes:

1 have said that This Side of Paradise commits

almost every sin that a novel can possibly

wit: it is true that it does commit every

sin er cent the un3erdonaole sin: it does not

fail to live. The whole preposterous farra3o

is animated with life. 5

so we read the novel we find that the progress of
Amory Elaine's educationeeor dieillueionnent, since it
comes to the some thin3--ie effected principally by
five members of the Opposite sex: Boetrioe.(snory's
mother). Eyre. Isabelle. Rosalind, and Eleanor.

From Beatrice. Fitzgerald tells us, Amory inher-
ited ”every trait. except the stray inexyreseibly»fen.
which made him worth while.” She is an American exotic.
brought u? on the continent. For purposes of distinction,
she cultivates a delicate physical ends 3irit‘11al hy13o
chonaria:

Thou3h she thou ht of her ooa11y as a mess of

frailties, she considered her soul ouite es
111. and therefore 1:23ortent in nor life.‘ one

‘Q---‘QO-‘-’-Ob—-O‘~fi

5: Anonymoue, "F. Scott Fit23ereld." Boolean, Esrch,
1922, p.22

had once been e Catholic. but discovering
that priests were infinitely more attentive
when she wee in process of losing or re3e1n~
in3 faith in {other Church, she :“3einteined
an enc..entin3ly waver1n3 ettitufie. 6

ehen Amory was five he wee already a delightful companion
for Beatrice and until the a3e of ten he toured the
country in his 3rundfather'e yrivete car. while more
or less fortunate little rich toys were aofying
governeesee on the beach at EeWport. or being tutored
or read to from 9035.236. pm.

...Amory wee bitin3 acquiescent bell-boye

1n the Waldorf, out3roein3 a natural repugy

nsnce to chamber music and symphonies. and

deriving 3 hi ighly e; 3ecieli: see education from

his mother.¢..3he fed him sections of the

"Fetee Gelantes" before he was ten; at ,

eleven he could talk 3libly, if nether remino

iscently, of Brahms and hozart and Beethoven; 7
Eeetrice as a direct influence was out off when Amory
wee hirteen. emery had appendicitis, "probably from
too many meals in bed" aha a; ter the 033eretion Beatrice
had a nervous breeltd03-In that wre a sueeicious resem-
bience to delirium tromene. Amory was left in :innee-
pelie. destined to epend the eneuir* two veers with his
aunt eni uncle. ”There the cruee. vul3er air of Western
civilization first catches him..."8

It tee in thie “cruie. vulgar air" that emery

encountered his first adoleec nt ro n-nce with Eyre

.‘....fi‘...“.,*.‘..‘

6: Fit33ereld. F. Scott. zhie side of 1erndi se,
(flee York 192 3) 9.7 F

7: blah. 19304.5

8: .‘L 0’ {1.8

St. Claire. It was merely a fumbling "puppy lava" but
Amory’o reaction is very interesting. It will be dis-
Oussod later.

Amory'o next affair. his first real romance. intro-
duces us to a budding flapper. Isabelle is a "SpaEd;"
sixteen yearo old and in possession of "a dooporoto
past."

Her education or. rather, her oOphiotication,

had,hoon absorbed from tho boys who hoa dangled

on her favor; her tact woo instinctive. nd

her capacity for love-affairs was limited only

by the number of the susceptible within tele«

phone distances Flirt omilod from her largo

block-brown eyes ana shown througa hor intense

physical magnetism. 9
Amory ana Isabelle are both too selfish to do anything

e , ’
but roloct the other a glory for their own enhancement
and the affair is short-lived. Little notice would be
tak n of such an adolescent affair today but it was one
of the moot shocking things to be found in h a Side
of Forodioo when the book was published. In a patently
autobiographical novel such adolescent cynicism woo
bouno to raise a flurry of aoubtful protoototion from

he parents of the younger generation. Such nooso.os

as the following were decidedly disturbing:

Eons of tho Victorian'oothor3-~ond root of the
mothers wore Victorian-~hod any idea how cos»
molly their daughters were oocootoood to be
Liiasedo «- o 6 10

--‘-~*-fl~--‘-~-*~~-fiu

9: Ibid.. p.70

24

Amory sou girls doin3 hin3e the t even in
his memory uld hate been iznp osoiLle: eating
t31r ee-o' clock, after-dance ou~~ero in impos-
sible cafes. talking of every ei;ie of life
with an air half of earnestness, half of
mockery, yet with e furtive excitement that
Amory considered stood for a reel moral let-
down. But he never realized how widenepread
it was until he eew the cities between flew
YOPIE and Clmic go ao one voet juvenile intri3ue. ll

Amory recovers from Ieebelle in a fairly short time
and proceeds to a third cousin named Clara. While
Isabelle is one of the meet si3ni icant of tr e feminine
characters. Clare is one of the most enigmatic. Actually.
Clara is only half a character. The other half is to
be found in Eleanor. the lost of Amory'e levee. The
two women are curiously unreal one unalive-«they are
descendeo from Poe. even to the ne- rec. Glare, "of ripgly
golden hair," diffused e "3olflen radiance." Amory thinks
of her as St. Cecilia and eeyo, "I hink...thet if I
lost faith in you I'd lose faith in God."12 She tells
Amory that eke has never been in love:

She seemed eudflenly a deu3htor of light alone.

Hie entity firepped out of her plane and.he 101v.3ed

only to touc31 ner ares s with olioo t t11e reel-

i‘etion that Joseph ouct he.re had of cry a

eternal significance. 13
Eleanor is the antithesis of Clara. She is "the last
time that evil crept close to Amory under the neck of

beauty...."14 Their meetin3 is so very much like a

-’---Swmwufi unwe- d:- urns-Ion-

ll: lbid.. p. 65 13: lbid.. p.158
12: 31351” 130157 1413 135:0... 13.2.)8

25

tale by fee that the inference is obvious. Amory, who
is in the habit of wandering through the floryland country-
side reciting "Ulclume." finds himself lost in the wooie.
the sky black with storm and the rain splattorin3 throu3h
the trees which have become suoflenly "furtive and ghostly."
Thunder rolls and lijhtnin: flashes and when he stumbles
into an Open field he hears a low, husky voice weirdly
chantin3 some verses by Verleine. It was gleenor with
dork heir and eyes that gleaned like a cat's. "She woo
a witch, of perhaps nineteen“... fizitlfl pale slain. the
color of marble in starlight. slender brows, and eyes
hat glitterod green as emeralds in the blindin3 31ore."15
They fall half in love. but when she later tries to
commit suicide Amory finds that there is insanity in
the family. Amory'e love ”...wcnod slowly with to
noon." and es-he '...hea loved himself in Eleanor, so
now what he noted was only a mirror. Their poses were
strewn about the pole down like broken 31as5."15

Clare and Eleanor are like the representatione of
Good and Evil in the block and white etchings of Durer.
They soon to be prinarily of religious significance.
and a deeper analysis of this problem will be attempted

later.

-OG”¢0~-¢¢D--QQ -----

15: Ibic.. p.243
16‘ I'VEE‘ 0‘ 179258

26

Of the women in the booL, it is definitely Rosalind
rho 13 Fit23ere1d's heroine and.A3ory‘ root love. She
is the first of the long line of floppers who give Fitz:

gereld'e work ouch a distinctive flavor: 1.1:etore youn3

...wlloee usual attire is a diaphenoue gown and

a oi; ygrette case. and whose uo ual occugetion

13 yaanin3: whee e favorite sound 13 e 3leint1ve

African rhythm at three 0‘ 01001: in t-e morn1n3

and whose favorite ar3u? tent is "Shut L3"; ‘

whose zenith is a new hair-bob end whose naiir

is to be eeen to" L 1r? to a boy. ‘

The 3e are tie uLdGP”?fluhdtG : adore Boverye;

t2 115 is the revolt of eo.o very oid angels. 17
Re ealind first enters t.e story on the evonin 30f her
oovingpout party. we facts are established 1znood iutety:
that she 13 beautiful zenoi that she is eelfieh. She is
one of those girls who need never make the elighteo
effort to have Ken fall in love with them. Fit230reld
tell; no tin et she is 3rone to make every one around her
pretty miserable if she doesn't get what she wento~~
but in the true sense she is not spoiled. fier fresh
enthusiasm, nor will to grow and learn, her endless
faith in t1*oe inor.ouotihillty of romance, her courage
ed f1nflamental honesty-otheee ti in3o are not Spoiled.

There are long periods when she cordiallv loathes

her whole family. She is Quite Lin!“h“1nCi;H101, her

Ll

abilOSOpmv is "corpe die: for herself and "laiosez

faire" for others. She loves shocking stories: she has

-‘---- ~-- “-‘---*-fl’-

1?: :Wisoer. last of the frovificiale, p.29A

tizat 303rse strea“ that us 33113 3333 "1th natures that
are both £133 and 313. 333 wants 333313 to lika her,

but if they do not it never worries her or cxcr5‘3 her.
aha 333 been disappaintad in 333 after 233 33 inaiviauals,

but she has area tf 311th in man 33 3 333. women 3h3

{CL

etesta. They r33r33ent qualities that 333 £3313 and
despises in herselfwuincipient meanness, conceit,
cowardice. and petty d=i3honesty. Fitmgerald yoints
out, rather inaflaquatoly. that 333 "13 by no 333? 3 3
model charactar."18

One of the most ctrL in; 3313 3 3L01t 13"“1133.
and 1t 13 3 hallwmark of 311 F1t333r3ld‘3 flagpars, is
her utterly cold and calculated materialism. 39333133

of 113r331f, 3033 lind gays: ”Oh, it's not 3 corporation-—~

[,1

it's just ’Rosal1nd, Unl1mit3d.’ Fiftyuonv shares, 3333,
"sod—1:111, 33.3 every hing goes at Z25,030 3 yoar."19
Even after f31113~ 33 35’ ly in love with Amory, 3r 3 it
33333 to be 3 genuine love, she 33313 33 to marry Dawson

hyder, who is "f103t133 money,"

and who 30333 provide

3 ”sort of b3ckgr333d." 33 33311 333 this tragic flaw
in 3 more developed form in later horuines and 33 33311
find L“ 3t it 13 3 tra :13 flaw in fha 313331331 33333
‘EOC3333 1t 13 the element which br1353.3333t the

disintegration 3f thair characters.

nufiumficnfiufionuuupn—v-

18: E‘itzgerald, 1313 3 L'ie of 31:3133. pp.182~183
193 1313.. polUT

28

Amory. too, is very interested in money. when his
ehafiowy father dies, Amory "...1ookad at the funeral
with on amused tolerance."23 What interested him much
more than his father's floath was the state of his inher-
itance. In imory we have the firat glimpse of Fitzgerald's
infatuation with wealth. The problem 00303 to its ful-
Th

lest development in patob and shall be ro~

   

sorvaé for a later chapter.

Amory Elaine is primarily intorooting in a study
of this kins} as a vehicle for Fitzgerald's ideas or
attitudes. It is always dangerous to identify the author
too closely with his hero but in this case it seems V
not only safe but necosoary. Eo'got a picture of fimory,
and, one may gunpooo,'to some extent of Fitzgerald, as
a young man at St. R9318 and Princeton who felt partio¢

ularly sugorior. Amory tries to live by a code of

M II

aristocratic ogoiam," to move toward a more pagan
attitude," by being versod in tho Byronic dicta plus
Feats and Swinburne. no also has a rather distant
knowlolge of flarx, who can ho invoked, upon occasion.
to fiat the Now Jeroey bourgeoisie in its glaco. In
fact. as Kaxwoll Goiumar points out. Amory Booms to
recall at times a certain "ultra-poetical, supora
aestheticol, groonoryayallory, Groovonor Gallery, 39*

ne-saiB-quoi young man."21

20 3 Ibido 9 P .139

= -~ V- .'. - .. . 1- 1, . .
21: ooiojor, Lost 0L tuo_.rovinciols, pc

29

One of the unknown quantities which effoctod the
growth of Fithgerald as an artist was his religious
proclivities. It would seem that he did not rogsrd
the outward forms of religion as a vital factor in his
life but. like so many writers, its profound influence
on his thinking is reflected throughout his work. in
the person of Amory and, in.g§;g“5igeo$ Earsdiog more
than any other book, Fitzaarald puts before us cons
very curious attitudes toward sin and sex.

In this volatile youth [smori] there are

intimations of a vicious emotional circle

from which Aoory'a successors in Fitzgerald‘s

work, and Fitsaerald himself. are not to be

'exempt. 22
The religious theme is most apparent in ' is 3- o
“ rad so and in the short story cntitled."Absolution."25
Rudolph, the young,hero of “Absolution." is obooosoé with
guilt feelings of sex and sin. He instinctively lies
and retreats into his alter ego whero he tries to trick
God. He feels that he has sinned for the greater glory
of God by brightening up his confoSsions and at the ssce
time he felt a "dork poison in his heart." is he braces
himself in the conviction of his immaculate honor, “horror
entered suddenly in at the Open window." This horror
is like that which forms a sombor background for.imory

33133.39 0

.’....‘Q...’........

22: Ibid.g p.295
23: Fitzgorsld. fill thougcd,YounglEen, (xew‘lork 1926)
P 0109

30

floon after the death of his father. Amory, rather
igiificantly, has 1313 first mystical oxyorio rice at a
garty which io-rapidly approaching debauchery. Fitz»
3orald writes: “rho groblom of evil had solid fiod for
Amory nto tho groclon of Lox....Incor raalj li nked with
evil was beauty.a.lfioauty of great art, baauty of all
Joy, most of all tho beauty of women."24 The first
intimation of this sex-sin identification is found at
the beginnin3 of the book when A:nory is atton; tin3 an
adolescent affair with Xyra. iftor the first tentative
kiss: ‘ I
scion revulsion soized.imory. disgust. loathin3
for the whole incident. F.e dooircd frantically
to to away, novor to ooo.myra again. never to
kiss any ono;...and he v cntod to croop out of
his ooly and hide somewhere safe out of oi3ht.
u; in the corner of 11is Loind.2 a5 _
Amory’s sense of moral isolation and.hounded fli3ht is
inextricably involvod with th ooo fits of sexual revulu
oion,25 'FitZ3crnld‘o later heroes. fr'o Sotooy to
funroo Staiir in fne3laot Tvcoon, are livin3 in dro ans
mi in love xi 2 droan~womon. Gatsby is attom;tin3 to
rocapturo tno foot and StaE ~.r is still hour ted Ly his
flood wifo'o smile. They are lovers for whom roal love

floors to be impractical. 0n the other hand, the youn3

0““---annnfifih 1.--..-

 

 

243 Fitz3orald¢ 2313 Sifio of Io.rod 30. 35332
2‘53 Ibido. Z}?615’16 ‘
231 Colo "oar, loo t of the Provinci ols, o_ P.296 and follo~o n3,

 

oliortanotol 7 nova onlv tlzo fia3to; o-t Lmowloi3o of
abnormal psych0103v so I shall rely almost coz-
plotoly on Colomar 5 analysis of this yroLlooo

31

men who stem from E-atrice E1aine~»from Amory to Dick
Diver in gender 13 thgifligégf;are essentially feminine.
The ?itzgerald heroines in turn, from Rosalind to Eicola
Diver. are given essentially masculine attributes.
Following this pattern, the symptoms of sexual ambivalu
once run hrough at Fitzgerald's work.

Geismar points out the similarity of ?itz§erald's
heroines to 309‘s dream wcrcn. Very much like Fitza
gorald, foe is concerned with the mutual afioratian of
these related. extravagantly baautiful, and finally
altogether perverse lovers. Poe ia concerned with the
love of "cousins“; Clara is imory‘a thira cousin and
the two protaganista of .. ?eauti ml and Bamncg declare
themselves to be "twine." 309 is directly involvaé
with the emotional consequences of the incest taboo; a
taboo which is hardly less directly implicit in the whole
range of Fitzgerald's work. This may clarify that ”inox-
Piable. mysterious crime" of fianfred‘s to which wits-
gerald'a fi st hero refers, since we know Eat Byron's
exotional life flowed in sitilar channels. In Fitz-
gerald's work it is impossible to identify tha raal
origins of this web of feelirg. It may he a final lit-
erary iaoatificatian with Poe himself. or it wry derive
fra: sons early, unrecoraafi chilflhood relatinnshi;.
‘Seatrice Elaine is ajyarantlg a completely fictional

mother. Yet the entire egotional sequence may refer

"I

book to some such feminine 12350 01 whstexer 0423193:
origin; on i2ege that colors almost every thought and
feeling of Amory, that is alfios t ovo‘rfod at the end of
the novel, but that continues to be 3r132sticelly refracted
in a series of'Fit23 2reld's glittering and neursst: e2io
heroines. lro2 t: is vierpoint. the s33erent obscurities
of Tenaer Is the Eight are partially clarified. he
"hidden" emotional relationship of Kicole and her father,
who is the trLIs so JTCG of destruction in the novel,
beOOmes a shield for the emotions of a mothersson relat-
ion2hip. If this is true, Dick Diver's s'ffori2g would
become in turn on set of jensnce and 3 r.ltion~-~ahd
purged, he is free at last to return to the home of his
fetiers. we 822 1 see, in too course of this study,

how this sex-sin dualism crepe up in all of Fitzgerald's
work, but nowhere is the religious significance made so
agpsrent as in This aide offlfaredise.

2 note of caution should be sounded in regards to
th foregoinge 2.213213 of Fit23ersld's psycholosicel
3oculiarities. It must be reme2= 'berea that Fitzgerald
was a CO2plote rC22ntic in the troditio 20f Feats. He
saw women in terms of the ideal and therefore as unet-
toinsble. Fi sgerald'e early heroines are, in a soeciel

sense, or tists--~Roso 112d in lais Sid of Terediso,

 

Gloria in $29 Feautiful 5.21 Samuel, and the two women

33

protsgonists of The Eros Cstsog---sll are co2susiste
actresses on the stage of society. is artists Fits-
2 -rsld's 31s2or girls are egotists 3s r excellence and

thus incapable of' ivi 2.3 " love. Fitzgerald's psychic

c:

mason. lir isation 01 his early heroine may stem fr02 his
incorrigibly romantic attitude rather tnss any dss3orste
neurosis. This would.a1so effect tie characterisstion

” his heroes who are romantic in the extr02e. fihstsver'
the explanation of this ‘POLlOu mr.y be it must wait for
one fully qualifies to rsslze an suthoritsti ve analysis.

It has been men ioned before that I=itzgs mid.w-s

a lesier in th post—war revolt and that This tide_g§
Esrséiss set the tone of the Jazz 236. It sh old be
sointsa out, however, that Fitsgo rs ld was not an intel-
lectual in the sense of forms sting s new v:sy of life,
He did not explain the new changes; he mirrored them
and with his "height nod sensitivity" did much to 3223'26
and direct the deve103oont of the revolution in mssnsrs

"‘ife always suffsred

and morals. Glsr way t‘estcott wrote:
from an ex rose environmental sonse."27 And it is
Fitzgerald's way of refractisg, rather than reflecting
uyon t.ho world osboutohis which so inhibits the intellect-
ual contsnt of his early work. Later on, in Ihe CW 0 cu),

we shall see that Fitzgerald asturos snoifiergtly, bu

during 2e tsenties h s ideas wars the young ideas of

-"--~---------~----

”l fl ""‘-~. ‘* 1' - 3 .’" ,. .2 i . ,
27: Jcstcott, ' he Moral of F. soott Eitsgsrslr," p.337

the tina and he task them at face V3133. The depth of

Vitznw 33313'3 h11 083331331 3nfl 300101331031 tzfi 1333133
991 90 NGflSLw' 11y his 3 333333t‘ ”I am 3 pessimist,

[3.1161] 3 co: 3:: mist ( :1t11 I'Eietachean [-2119] 0333132133) ...."23
33113 it13333333nt that wit"‘W 13 was not an abstract
thinker 3. he must not be written off tao 1133t1y. 1133
came to him in concrete form an& movancnt, and his ability
to catc’;1 the 313 Siva 1133303 oftan throws more light en

a aituation than var could be done by stating its 3333333
in abstract terns.

Fit333rald 3313 that the Jazz 133 was not concerned
with 3311t13331 we can 333 this £33 3; r3flcct3d in
his early work. 133 shady political alaifiht-of-hand
at Versailles and the 031131333 of ”11133113 1333113
groducad an apathy 331 3 033333 tha 333 far the disgraceful
Harding administration. 1n.§hq3?333t3313. Fit333331d'a

mly play (311d 3 3313f 1failure). he satirlzea American
politics 331.13331333 society. The treasury become3
a sort of private checking account for th Er331333t,
the Senate 13 31‘ 333 tha 3331 3raft 13 to be found, and
the $333333 Court..led by Jud33 Fossile. 13 little more
than a clumsy farce. The 333333 clearly shows Fltzgerw
ald’a 03 3133. H3 is not 303033333 with the ultural-

ingllcationa of 3uch 3 political situation; he merely

-nfifiunuduauaaoop—u-w

28: T“”11311'1, C. 0., Pen fh .130 CL‘.r .ov313, (1:‘3w'York
1925) p.172

35

regresants the distzr to of the 222 2321 elite for the

bourfiooia 222023 of monev. 52119 clutch1ng aftar the

220112 2172211,F1t2 er2ld P232222 the v1ctor2 21th
t1 fa of the 33112nm1f is directed

coatecpt. "312 22

’3
1 . M
333333 333 ana 3 of 21:3 hard, not 23 2122t tno aniaal... ‘9

to

The 2123 22223 the cagglata identification of 21210112;
1: ' 22112 rs in t123;:211t10:11 r2132 of Karfiinf 222.32013
1d3e, but the value 1f the play derives fr02 22 fast
that ~‘.’1.’c.*'c=r21c1 Maelf so per1ectly 221 uncansciously
illuatrutea the nationa 1 trait he is att207123. In
spite of the fact that he lays moat 2f tge world's 1113
at the floor of Victorianism, he 212222 that America h2d
the *"tfin t1: 2t 1M hiely produced the Victor 122 period:

”-11:51 is it 221; 211.2 3:11:31 01‘ 2.1.1.1 yam; ‘1» 5.111-
frcm c.1ord 222 022 r1139 30 121to ,olitics andn
12.tTe 2.3.2. 1.2 laave it to the 110 ers?¢~-
r21aed in tna we r1. 21102t12 the 2211.21y
[351 do ant: to CQHJLII 13515. fut-naurcnel 13111111116801.
corru; t12n, 20v21d of'1;oth 12022 and ideals'
22 tT a 122222r2 2222 to 22y. Even 1orty years
270 2a 122 good1gnan in 2211tics, Tut fig, 22 are
brcught u: to 2112 u: 2 2111102 and 'show what
22 are made 2f.’ So.'2et1. 22 I wish 1'1 been an
11.1111122,122r1022 lifa 12 20 222222 2222

\-‘

222 stugid 222 2221thy. 30

'Alliafi with t¢*‘rgld a M} t1uto for bourgeoia
32112122 12 his 2121139 of American 22 ' ucracy. Amory
1. ~ ‘ ' - -« ' " -. .. . -. 1., n
3222 to 1t. £2312 ‘1acz?.use 1 2’2 2 gentle 22‘s 202221,

222 demccracy w2n't hit 322 so early." The 1 migrant

 

“212 2r. La2t of the Provinciala. 2.312
! ‘3

_3122 Q; Iqradise, 2.1753

 

 

36

strains tho more concentratofi in the ant filled Fitz-
gerald2 citx revulsion. Jhon the war is finally brought
to tho att3ntion of Amory

lie thought how much easier patriotism had boon

to a to 0333902 r303, how much easier it would

have been to fish t as the Colonies fo ongrzt, or

as the Confederacy fooght. And he did no sleep-

ing that ni3h t, but 113 t3nod to the aliens

guffow and snore while they filial the car

with the heavy scent of latest America. 31
Eovorty also disgusted Fitz gorald. fie Ezatod it oarti ally
because he was infatuated with youth and wealth and
boauty. but ho‘also hated it bocouoo he felt that he
had ouch in cannon with the alien and the poor. 23 are

agt to be sorowhat annoyei when Fitzgerald has Amory

think 2
I detest poor 300323....1 Fate than for
Loin: poor. Poverty may have $333 tooutiful

once but it's rotten now. It's t.- :3 ugliest
thin: in the world. It's 0 o 2ntially cleaner
to to corrutt and rich 332 it is to to 12200-
ont and poor. 32

lot 2:22 n?itz:orald uooa two drunken solfliors "2922 id

of all oxce t the lomxo t fora of intollL 3303" to r09roo~
out U10 loaor c133 333 in tho short story "Jay 33y,"33 it
is significant that one of the soldiers boars th proud-

st part of Eitzgerold's 02rn nano~-33rrol ey. Francis

boott oy ito-orold-~2oocnndog fr02 A23ri¢2n aristocracy
3d Iri oh *i~ru“t stocE:--cou1d 33232 tIIizo with 2ovorty
but to hatofi its ugliness.

-‘--C--‘"-’--‘------

31: Ibid.,o p.160
32: 1:11.,12.r.75
33: E‘itzgorald, £313: of tho Jazz 233, (Ho: ”0 z 1922

{1

37

we have seen that 2313 Side of E’araflise embodied
most of the 13033 which brought about the revolution
in tha Jazz Age. Perhaps equally 133ortant. however,
is the manner 1n.which thase 13333 were preaanted.
finch later Fitz erald wrote a letter to his dau3fit3r
which helgs eXplain the murvsloua effectiveness of his
style:

...I mean that what you have felt 333 t3033ht

will by 1ta3 invant a 353 style, 30 that

when 330313 tal‘: about style t: 33 are alwavs

a little ast033 3 ed at the newness of it.

because they thin2.r tnat 1t 13 only StVlG tha

they 333 tal“1ngataut. when what thay are

t31‘:1ng amout is the attempt to ex 3r333 a n aw

1333 with such force that it will hava t3

orL :13311ty 0f the thcught. 34 -
Eden he wrote ’31- 31% of Earaigsg Fitzyerald was
probably not 3 nacioua of tha 1331'cat1 33 cf his atyle.
This would 3033 33_;ar3nt fron the 33033 3033 article
ref; 3rred to in the 1ntroducticn of this study. 139
author tells us that 303303 a Pna 3313 tAat to 333t
F1t333331d W33 t3 think of a stupid 013.30333 31 h 3303
3333333 has 13ft a diamond; she is extremely 3roud of
1t and shows it everyone; 333 in nothing dues 33
a” 313 so stupid -3 in t 3 rar arka 3?, 3 33333 330 t ti 3
313333d. There 13 a symbolic truth in the 3t3t3333t:

1t 13 true that “1t3vfir313 had E333 left niti a * 3Jelled

up our“ ‘“-¢“““¢ as..- a.--

5’“ Fitzgerald. The Omen-37, 3.3313

38

style wlich he didn't fully undorstand:
For he has been given 1ma$1natlon without
intellectual con pol of it; he has been given

a aosiro for beauty without an aootl;atio idealzi
and he has been r1von a 11ft for exp oasion

k. .‘.-1'

w1thout many 11913 to exyross¢ 35
In spito of this Fitzgerald had the style to catch the
twenties in their golden bowl. fie dollghtod 1n the
external forms and dcolors 11thout being ta1on 1n 1y
them, but he 2: m3 pro-omlnently a yart of tho world his
mind was always disowning. He caught the carnival of
the world of his youth. and 1ts walling inaudible s-dneso
Each of hla wr1t1n3,hovared on the vorge of fantasy.
Tho world swam hrough his senses w1thout being defined
by him an' he could catch all its lights and tones in
his grisznatic ot3lo without huv1ng to understand thea
too consciously. Fitzgerald's pride 1. his craft so ved
his style from extravagance but it was the style of a
c“oftoman ;rofo undly absorbed in the romance of glazor.36
For all its faults, 2118‘51d901411radlso is a good
book. 11919 13 in the writing some of the intoooity
which will ho $01.1 1n itarorald' most mature \:or1.
“is judgmont and toohniouo ore inadoouato alxost every-

w1oro 1n the 1oo1, Cit txo fundanonto l attitude toward

“-‘-“-"QCO‘- .w--.’

5: Anonymous. ”F. soott F1tz;orald,"p.20
6: Vazln, Qgtfiatlvo Gro :ndo, wq,J17- ’

39

xperience which emerges is seriwua and moving. Sixteen
years later, Fitzgerala wrote of This iida of :araéigg:

"A lot of 390316 thought it was a fake, and perhaga

it was, and a lot 0; others thought it was a 119, which

n 37

t was not.

37: Titzgorald, The Crack-mg, p.83

ChA? T33 TKEJJ

The Te v+r1:1 e24 Dam ed 13- great advance over
Fit23ere la’ a first novel. The same type of characters
found in This side of Taredisg are in this second novel
tut with decided chen3ea. The etory is the old one of
character croaed by ifileneee and love by time. Anthony
and Gloria ehart1:1th 6013ble 3 ft, or curse, of wealth
and beauty. This plus intelligence and an insatiable
thirst for today. are their undoing. Unl-ke T his Lido
of Percfi so, it 13 not a novel of disillusionment but

of aecay.;

It is not a mature novel. either in concept-
ion or content; it suffers badly from lack of discipline
and poverty of eethetio ideas. Itsim3ortence. however,
lies in the fact that it shows Fit23ereld'a moral anarchy,
anfl that in he confusion of his revolt he is typical
” hie 3eneretion.

The hero of The Eeautiful and Damned..Ant any Latch.
13 a 3rojection of Amery Blaines "At sixteen he had
lived almost entirely within himself, an inarticulnte
bov, thorou3 hly unma ericen, and politely towildored

"2

by hie contenporariee. Eie father hafi iede-a little

more conspicuously hen A:norv‘e--in Lucerne, leaving

Anthony an income of slightly under §TOOO a year. His

‘MM"“.‘.....”-

1: Littell, Robert. No 013 Republic.v v.30. 1922. p.348
2: Fit23erald4 Ego Beautiful and Defined, (Lew Kori:
1921) 907

41

grandfather, whose fortune will fall to Anthony, is 3
refer med robber—baron ”for [whose] will to 1: wer was
M‘stitutea a fetuoue puerile desire for a land of harw.
ané centiclee on eerth."3 He was so wealthy that ".;.the
hen in the republic whose souls he could not have bought
directly or indirect1r would: cercoly have poy sulated
white Elaine....”4 After graduation from Harvard, A nthony
5033 to Rome for e threeayear period of artistic dallianoe
but is callefi home to attend his grandfather’s antica
ipated funeral. By the time he arrives old Adam fetch
is Hrell 3ain and Anthony conceals his disappointment
as best he can. He settles down in flew York where "fie
did nothing--~end contrary to the moat accredited cagy-
book logic, he manageé to divert himself with more hen
average content."5 To motivate the disaster which
ulti:eta lv overtek oo entlony, Fitererald ea ale an 9? fort
to portray him as a sensitive and intelligent man who.
driven into a difficult place by his refusal to com-
Ipro.i 33 with a brutal and etupid world, fines his weak-
neeees too strong for him. He is temptefl to cowardice
and drifting by his own imagination and eonsitiveneee;
he cannot blame and fi3ht others beca 39 he 'underetende
too well to blame."5 This sense of futility is intern

eating when we recall Amory Blaine. It is ieylicit

m---“-*‘-*~-mm

3‘ bid... P015 5: Ibidb' P616
4‘ hi“ 5’ £31614 6: 211381102‘} 0?.Q1two‘. 9074

#2

in.ghis;§ida_of Porogggg; but Amory has Spurta of striving
and at the end of the book is ready to try Socialism.

In gho Seautigul and Damned even the intense love affairs
have faded. .Anthony has what con only be called a friand~
hip with on usher called Geraldine. ""Btrongo as it

may soon," continued.Anthony, "so far as I'm concerned,
and even so for as I know, Geraldine is a poragon of

7

virtue.“" one was merely company. familiar and faintly
restful. Anthony's life goes along evenly and graciously
until he meets Gloria Gilbert.

His friends are Haury Eoble and Richard Caramel.
The latter represents tho active intellectual element
in the novel and through him as a writer, we got Fitz-'
gorold'a rather nogativistio viow of his own 3rofosoion.
Caramel, who yublisheo one good novel and procooos to

o mpromioo with pOpular demand, in too otugid to En u

> "'

ho is compromising or that the success he 1&3 won is
not worth having. The superiority of anthem: and youry
is atom for grantofi and Caramel seams to point up.

not only the futility of sorious effort, but the super-
iority of tho aristocrat to the artist. Caramel is a
-porfeot foil for Eaury'e "divine inortio”-bohind which

lay a relentless maturity of purpose. He was to aponfl

three years in travel, ‘hroo years of congleto leisure

7: Eeautifulfland_9aflnod, $.45

43

and than to bccc o immensely rich as ooon.ao possible.
much moro important, howovor, is the foot that Hoary
rocallo tho conjunction of sin and fertility which was
found in $318 Qiio of Foragigg and "Absolution." Kaury.
lilo Rudolph in the short story, is adept at fooling
tho deity. He says: ”I prayed immoiictoly after all

. crimes until eventually p oyer and crime became indic~
tinguichable to no.” In a torturod and confused sermon
which follows in some part the career of Fitzsorold
himself, iaury describes his flight from tho nound of

8

Heaven who still growls the Jazz Age. Sock refuge as

he may in beauty or in the intellect. in vice. in
shooticico or boredom, ho is ctill'purcuod and cvora
taken.

This suave nobility and oonoo of panic. those
private reservations, this flight from life,
an. prozonition of a Goath that waits at every
corncrnwuof a dark poison coo clovon hoofoz

it is this entire cluster of psycholOQical
elements, presented hero in their religious
goico, that-has rooted at the bottom of Fitz-
gorcld’c work and that is now rising to the
surface. 9

A further covalOpmont of tho foolnino image in
Fitogorald's work is found in Gloria Gilbert. Gloria.
the horoino of gho Focutiful and Doomed, is Fitcgorald'o

full-length flapper. and through her he portrays the

82 Ibignl P9:2§2*258 .
9: Goicncr,iLcst 0; too Provinciclc, pp.66—67

#4

true quality of hi3 ty‘; icel h3roino: her impatience with
men and her masculine vanity, Ler beautiful and immaco
ulate body that is incapable of poecion; the gum drOpe
that she must chew to avoid cheeing her fingernails; and
by contrast the cool perfection of her brow. She is a.
fully develOped Recalind and she writes in her diary:
April 24th-—~I went to marry Anthony. because

huebenoe are so often 'huobands‘ and I must

marry a lover...a temporarily pa aeoionate lover

with wisdom enough to realize when it hoe

flown and that it must fly. 10

with the marriage of Anthony and Gloria the inter-
action of their narcie-iso produces a rapid deterior»
otion in Anthony. As he traces ea 3 dev3103in 3g wrongnece
in the case" of Gloria, the unraveling of her too 3ere: out
leads him in turn to a parallel realization of 1:113 ca.*n
ioyerfoctione. Fitzgerald's mythological reference is

a3t: clinw ing to toie sum 3, hard, dominant Ganymede.

Anthony himself takes on the role of the volatile. uneasy.
and: crha :33 even betrayed unpNordic woman. Hoanwhilc
his erotic sex eibilitiee vhich re mined calm with eereldine
3 are stirred by Gloria‘s colonoec and tlxie dot ire is
matched by a pa eicn "to 3033333 her triumphant eoul--
to brace her." The nerciooioo of both becomes more '
pronounced and the pathological interdependence becomes

more ooviouo~--" Rer arms sweet enfl ctrcn2lir2 "ere

arcon him."11

Guava-dmcbbflfl-mm

lO: Beautigul and Damned, p.146
11: Geiemar. 03.gi§., pp.300-331

45

Gloria sums up her code in the negative principle
"lever give a flemn...for anything or any: dy...excep‘
myself and, oy 1:3licetion. forAAnthony."13 soon, however,
the 1317 licetion is barely stressed. As Antho1y'e pereon~
allty disintegratee, quarrels with Gloria become more
frequent and bitter. There are wild parties from which
they awaken to physical and e: iri‘ uuel neueoe, and to
which they are irresistibly drawn beck. Anthony's
reali: :etion of 1lorie'e true nature brings him to the
last reaci1ee of dieint% mien efid at the ena of the
booA, after a long lawsuit to get his grandfe her'e
money and a long geriod of dr11n3:ten degre Eation, Anthr
has a complete breakdown. Both he and Gloria are no
longer beautiful; they are only daasned.

In this novel Fitzgora d‘o ide=e are Laeicelly

unche.rjed l:ut we can new be3in to tre ce a definite pet-

 

'tern. In This Siée ef fern: iize 118 ifleae were confused
a1d pres nted in e conf1ein3 way. He dlfilihed imAigrent

Aaericans, poverty, ‘1ecorecy---t‘ e11::erican form of

 

civili":3.tion in general. In The ECALM ful e13 Deznoi
Anti -or:;y tries t0 itegine AiWSelf 11 Corgreee, in " hat

lncreflltle pigsty" with those "Little men with coyyu
booA a bitlons 1flxo by mediocrity haa £30131t to emerge
from mediocrity into the lustrclcse ana mare? antic hoc.vc

of a governxent by the 330919."13 American "aliens"
-“n-d-~--¢---&Q-“-

128 gpautiful and “£3133, p.230

 

 

 

. at.

find.

. 01... ..

46

3331133 3 me v! ger33ect1ve to Fitzgerald's tartured
aristocrats. Anthony 5333 the Jews as 33,: 13:3t3 L33331n3
the rulers of "his" country and Gloria's friend Eloeck-
man canes to stand for the race. The profound saxual
frigidity of Gloria extends to the whole concept of
fertility, and to these imgigrants as the graducts of
a consyicuous fertility.l4

In This 3113 of Paradise twese 3tt1tu133 ml33t Le
acceyte1 33 bravura. shock-trOOps for a novel of revolt
but we can 333 tha Eit333rald had a very definite reason
for admiring the English social 3y3t3.a 13133 he writes
in ghe-Eeautiful and Damned:

Aristocracy‘s only an 313133133 th3t certain
traits which we call fineu-acourage and honor
and ‘ eauty and all thst 3ort of tlfi 33-~~oan
Lest Le develo;:zed in a favorable environxzent.
wnera gou don' t? ave the irarpin3s of ignorance
333 HQCGSS ity. 15

Eithout inquiring too fleeply into the English equivalent.
Fit333r311 1331131 that he American 3r13t03r33y must
be the very wealthy and should embody the 113313 of a
ruling class. lZfi 3 is the crxx of F1tz3erald'3 artistic

“3

:mr L1 :3 r: alt: meant £333101331 freedom 3333t t}m

(2)

appertunity t3 3 ltivate Leauty, courage 3n1 hon3r~~ut33

traits of an 1133 rulin3 31333 in a staLla society.

-----".Qfln-fi~-fifl-~Qg

14: 6318:33r. onacflt.. p.332
15: Eeazxtlffl £314333n31.3.#37

47

it“

{40
v
N
(3
'1
c:
H
a

sought this in the Americoa rich and never
foind it-~-nor dil‘ he really expect to do so. He found
a rulin3 class without a canoe of responsivility for

the country which hodf.1rniohod “c aourcoo of its
gowor. To be sure. he is doalin 3 0:1.iezly with the third
3oncration. $9 is L1'ritin3 a sort of postscript to thc'
Croat American Fortunes: ho is rcoord123 t: 9 history of
this class as it may occur to a Tommy zanvillo rathor
than aJoy Gould~«“16 Thus coca; tin3 all tho bozo fits
of their social status without a notion of their status
in society, Fitzgcrald'a young men arc.no longer even
”wild." They have lost their initial flair for adventure
and become rccpcctahlo ailettontoo. le o3 ha vcn't as
yet, however, lost all contact with reality. In the
dialectic of ?itz:orold's evaluation, the "thesis” of
clamor has its antithesis in tho accoat \crji“~ sense of
‘horror that is always in the background of his work.

“he whole lit+"r.r3 pootdwar picture unveiled in E1_.
Beautiful and fiafigcfi_cprin35 in large cart froo: a darker
search for deception. Jazz Age disillusionment loft a
vacuum and Fitz3orold's charactoro arc searchin3 for
now illuoions. The hero of "The Diamond.As :13 As the

fiitz"17 says "His was a great sin who first invented

163 Geismar. ocggit.) 9.306
17: Fit23orald, Tales of the Jazz A20, 1922

A8

consciousness." The obsessive nature of this search is
the oozinont those of tho novel. In its forced ans
confused ending h- destructive olemont, "some aghast

fl

and irreparable awakening, has troron through the our.

foes. _ln Fitzgerald's work of the thirties this counter-
home will become more ass soro compollin3.13

Wealth, hen, was not an stooluts goal to Fitsgorsld.
so nood only consider the fate of his characters to soc
that. It-wss only when Amory lost his money and social
position Hot he felt he know himself. £.thony, a pro-
Joction of Amory, after gainin3,his gransfsthsr's money,
is bundled off to Eurogez a completely disorganized and
half-mod crigole. Fitsgoralfl does not establish a clear
perspective on the problem of wealth, and the relates
problem of social position, until his next novel, 233
Great Gatsby.

At the bs3innin3 of the chapter I osid.thst £33
gssutigolwsnd32smnod.was an aflvsncs over Fits3orsld‘a
first novel. It is a sore consciously artistic gloss
of work and is nearer maturity. Fits3srsld still employs
the various genres found in his first novoluudialo319,
dramatic scones, poetry. etc.~~but loss ofton and with
loss effect. ‘2313 Siis of Esrsoiso was "instinct with

life" and. so the rscora of youthful confusion and revolt,

-'.--fi-flflflfl--h-#Q#-«

18: Scissor, o.ci§., p.§36

#9

the loss of unity rosul tin3 fro; tho use of those various
forms was co3 sto-l for ty tho ovc r-sll impact. The
novcl,psrsdoxi::lly. could not have been as effective
without the stylistic confusion. ’sis is not the case
with I“ Ecsutiful ancflpsmhcd and that is why its groator
stylistic maturity resulted in a loss of stylistic
.effo cti vencss. Fitzgerald has almost eliminated his
early tendency to substitute lectures for dislozue
although he runs wild in the scone nIZGPG Isury Kobls
dolivers an harsnguc which. as gas his '5 reviewer-rs-
msrscd, sounds "liLfe s rosums of‘ghc e_Educstion of Hoqu
Adams filtered through a particularly thick page of
The short Bet."19 Fit23ersld also allows himself the
pleasure of s Shavicn scene between B suty and Ihs Voice
by way of introouction for Gloria. Nevertheless, 229
Beautiful and Esched is much more successfully focuccsd
on a central purooss than.2his 8149 of Isrsgisg, and
much less often bathetic in its moans; Fitzgorald's
ability to realise the minutiae of humiliation and suf«
faring seldom fails Eis.23

In a lo ttcr to Jolin Foals Bishop, Fitzgerald givss
us the rosson for the congarctivs failure of ghc Scoutiful

and Damned: "I devoted so much more csrs...to tho gaggi;

‘-~----"--‘fi-- M-“

19‘ vhaW. ViVian. The 9183-1317 ”II. 1922. 13.420
23: 'isonor, oo.ci§., p.

50

of the book then I did to hinkin3 out the general

"21 It is the mudeiest in concention Of all

scheme...
FitZ3erald's books. He find this most clearly illust-
rated in his handlin3 of Anthony and Gloria. Fitzgerald
introduces Anthony with nagos that blaze with irony.

Later, however, we find Fitzgerald standin3 aside and
actin3 as the intimate psychological confidant, which
often betrays the autobi03rapher. As the story erogres-
see, Anthony becomes incapable of that devotion to ab—
stractions which made him so entertainin3 before, and

he hecomes impotent. Starting as a brilliant dilettante,
Anthony becomes a brutal and stupid drunhsrd. Fitzgerald's
deveIOpeont of Gloria is more intricate and less effective.
She is introduced rather deftly and, by means of li3ht
touches, FitZ3erold notes of her the essence of the
beautiful, self-centered flapper. She is not really

human but she is extremely interesting. As the story

goes on, however, she delicuesces and loses her uniquee
nose. is she acquires being, she becomes more and more
ordinary, frustrated, and merely selfish. FitZQBPald'a
treatment of those two characters leaves the curious

impression that he was at first inside Anthony's soul

-‘---fi----fi------~--

21: The Crack-no, p.258. In connection with this it
night he nointed out that at one place in the novel
Gloria becoecs definitely pre3na.t and nothing
further is said concerning it. A rather large
“detail" and an onbsrassing one to overlook.

51

and watcnefl Gloria fro: tWit :o1t, and traiiallv clian ed
these positions.22 Th asterioration of anthony's
or -aractor can b. attributed . in large degree..to the.
catalytic M foot of his love for Gloria. but the chan~e
in Gloria can only be attributed to a shift in artistic
enchants resulting in a basically c?n «3d character.
Serrano the rest ocvious res or for the failure of
no boo: is that Fitsgerald was not able to crevice an
‘adequate cause for the suffering of anthony anfl Gloria
nor an a lequate reason within their characters for their
surrer der. In the end you do not believe that they nan teed
the ongortnnities for fineness that the freedom of wealth
provides, you see them only as peeple who vzantod l"‘1ry.
The Beautifglgand Danneg is not so much a atafiy of also
aster as a stuay of the atnoschere of disaster; of a
w r a in which no moral decisions can be ands because
tnere are no values in terms of wnich they nagr be
measured.23 althorjn the book is extremely unsatisfactory.
it is a decided step forward for Fitzgerald. fie began
to sense the full implications of his material and the

result was his master;o.iece, I29 Great 13atsex.

-‘-“--------“------~

22: Littell. on,git.. p.348
23: Troy, em. scottl itscerald: The Authoritv of Lailure."
in bores of oflern :iction, ed. we. M. O Connor. p.81

52

“r.

:i.‘ :2’ . J... ‘1291

You are creating the cont c~por5ry world wuch

as "Lac'er5y 515 his in P3nlcnr13 5nd 35 nltz

:-:air and this sn't a bad co~~li ant. you

Te 5 modern «orld and a :nodern or3y atr5n5ely

enou5 h it 355 never done until you 515 it in

3313 5139 of: aradis e. :y Lelief -n 2513

£350 of Iaradise kaa alri ht. This is 55

good a bouL and different and cl‘er 553 that

is what one ‘3;oes, one 5053 not rat better but

“ffarent a.nfl older 5r d th5t 18515535 a

pleasure. 1 -
This excerpt from a letter to FitZ3erald from Gertrude
'4 '1' ‘ ~Q L
stein set tne tone for tne critical recegtion at The
Greatac5tshx. There were some of the usual carping
reviews, one of which actually placed the book in the

, "3

”class of negligible novels,"“ but intelligent critics
eve r3wher9 hailed it as a milestana in Flt53arald'a
career. In the work he had done previous t0 this novel
he co bined a nat tural gift with an exuberant self-
confidence, 33 ducing work that was youthful and brilliant.
Eut as t illiant as some of the 35525353 are. the reader
ggsunually left with an aura of glamor, and after h
5lamor £5553 thera was little for the mind to retain.
51th ghe Great Catsby, hoxsver, Fitzgor5ld aefinitely

'left the rank

In

of the 0:;3orimenters, the bright young
man. ana proauced a mature, wellwconstructefl and evenly

written novel.3

1: The Crac:~u:. p.338
2: $13 Sarinrfiield R53ublican. July 5,1
eaten, LsoLa 555tt153, p.2.32

 
 

U1

5' 13-73

 

53

Jay Gatsby, like all of Fitzgerald's heroes. is a
projection of a port of Fitsgorslfi's own personality.
Es is a highly romantic character like the author‘s
first heroes but with this difference: Gatsby objectifios
that part of the author's personality which can only
lead to oisestor in the materialism of modern America.
Fitzgerald says of Gatsby:

If personality is an unbroken series of sues

cossful gestures. than there was something

gorgeous about him, some heigh sued sensi~

tivity to the proaises of life. as if he were

related to one of those intricate machines

that register earthouskes ten thousend miles

away....-~~Gatoby turnea out all right at the

end; it is what greyed on Gatsby, what foul

dust floated in the wake of his dreams... 4

James Gets was born of an impoverishefi family in
Horth Dakota. During the war his uniform.gsins him access
to the gracious homes of Louisville wears he meets Baisy
Fay. They fall in love and James Gstz. who has bosOme
Jay Gatsby by this time, goes overseas. fifter the war
Gatsby is kept abroad and Daisy marries Too Buchanan.
an ex-foo ball star.ssd extremely rich. Gatsby returns,
genniless, to fine Daisy married and he starts his quest
for wealth to win her book. The story begins in pegiss
res. and we find Gatsby established in e tremenaous
mansion across Long Island Sound from Deisy's home. He

gives toochenslisn parties begins that the Buchanans

will happen in but this never occurs. Five years had

”“‘~"-~ -‘-“--“fl”

4: Fitzgerald. Theflfiroat iotshg. (New York 1925) p.2

)

54

passed since he.1eft Daisy, and flick Csrrewey, the narrator
.whose littleb hou.se adjoins Gatsby's property. first sees
him looking across tr e So nd in toe dark:

...he stretched out his srzse toward the dark
water in a curious way, and, as for as I was
fro:: him, I coul‘ have sworn he was tre solin5.
Involuntarilg'e 5lanced seaward-n-end distinu
5uished no ?.in5 except a sin5le 5reen li5ht.
minute and far away, that mi5ht have been

the one of a dock. 5.

It was this green light at the end of the Buchanan's
dock which symbolized Getsby's dream; it meant Daisy
enfi the fulfillment of Cstsby's love for her. Hick
Gsrrowey, who is Baisy's cousin, arranges a meeting
between Daisy and Getssv er a for a brief time :eisy‘ 5
love is renewed. But even without the intervenin5
five years and her merrie5e to Tom. Baisy could not
have lived my to Getsby's dl,ee of her:
z....tne colossal vitslity of his illusion....

had 5one fer beyond her. beyond everytizing

I‘.c had thrown hi::nself into it with a creative

passion. eddin5 to it all the time. deckin5

it o it with every bri not feather that drif ted

his way. fie szr zonnt of fire or freshness can

challenge whet s men can store up in his

ghostly heart. 6
The resolution of the story is tragically ironic. Tom
Buchanan, whose r actress lives nearby, discovers Gstsb oy' a
relationship to Daisy and, resctin 5 in e coaoletely

bonr5eois fashion. is prcperly outrec~ 50d. Durin5 en

-fl-‘-‘---“ ‘- -mma~-

SI Ibido’ p.20
6: m” 99.83-89

55

indijncnt "showdown" in a flow York 1otel. Tom oroahe
~Uaisy's will and, in c contemptuous monont, lets Gatsby
take her back to Lon5 Island in his ear. Daisy drives
the loot gart of the trip and Tom’s nictre-c, ceoin5

tho ag5roacnin5 car and thinkin5 Ton is in it. comes

out to interccgt them and is killed by Daley. Tom lctor
tells the dead women's husband to whom the car belon5s
and Gatsby is murdered.

Gatsby is a new social character in Fitzgerald's
work--onc who had no prayer education and not the cli5ht-
cot pretense to broeaing. K9 is alanotricclly Opposed
to Fit35orold's handsome and luxurious young men.

For F. Scott Fit25erold....Jamos Gctz of Earth

Dakota-«5rontin5 the inevitable excogtion

of His millions~~~io almost the equivalent

of a proletarian protagonist. Yet as the

Great Gatsby, he is more than c class symbol.

He is a sort of cultural hero, and the story

of Catchy'e illusion is the story of on age a

illusion. too. 7 -

Gatsby'c rise is the American success story in its most
primitive form. he is the Emersonien man brou5ht to
comyletion and eventually to failure. He had returned

to the East where conditions which could tolerate his
self-reliant rowanticism no longer exist.8 It is ironic
that his money is made outoifio tn low, but the structure

of American society was no lcn5or such as to proviéc an

easy release for the old ideas of univcrsal success. The

-’-----~‘~'--"----“

7: fcicnor. oo,cit.. p.319
8: xiohcp, oo,ci§.. p.115

UT
on

frontier trm ion of ru3 ed individualien, the fleratio
Alger lejend of the sudden emerzé 392- .ce of the year boy
into the gclfien up;er world, mig;t take etrenge forms.
Gate by must daminate his environ? eat to win back Deiey
nd he creates an illusory character for himself
precarious and in ezeible 3iamcr out of a hundrcfl half-
truths enfl feleeb 00 d'. then these crugble at the cnfl.
the fL 31 irony of the novel resides in Fit23ernld's
-uncoverin3 of their genisia. Getsby'e father, who has
come Last to attend his een' a finerel, sanes*ick Carra~
way the self—improvement.scheaule w12 ch Cetel‘y bee made
as a'bcy. In it we see all the pathetic reminders of
an cutworn American treeitien.- The childhecd dreams
of a 9renklin or an Edison lay behind the ccreuln~wthc
traeition tlm t everv “merican bev could we: :0 a million
dollars or become fires: dent.9 Cater"'e ugwerd struggle.
his naive eegiratier s to refinement; the fixation of
his provincial soul upon a childlike notion of betuty
and grace and the reliance ugon materiel power as the
single chthcd or eatiefyin3- his searchin3 and 1m rtic-
ulete cpirit-—-these are the elements of a :.in ant
cultfiral legend in ite purest. most 93m pethetic form.
n9 have seen that Gatsby we2 a a reflection of one

side at Lit: erela'e mercenality, but the character of

*‘.--“” “flu-“u-”

9: Hair. Charles. ”An Invite With Gilded 3d Hes,
ginginie Quarterly Leview, hintar. 1944, ;3p.110¢111

57

Hick Carrawcy 13 even more central to an PJerctandin"
of thc author's attituac tcward 13931 an accicty. Hick
stands with less dictcrticn for Fitsgcrr111 tn 3 probably
any other character he cr33 cd~*-th initiated but actachcd
Midwesterncr, thc moralist. H9 is carefully placed ac
far as his attitude is c3nccrncd. He has cc c Sac -t to
be an Easterncr and rich, But his moral roots are in:
the Heat. In the most delicate way11~1tz3cr311 builds

up thcsc grounds fcr*hic final ju13mant of t .a story. In
the first scene E1 H’s hu3cro as axarcncss of the greater
sophistication of Daisy's lifc 13 markcaz "Ion make

we feel uncivilizcd, Daisy...Can‘t you talk about arc;
or cc*ct31n“”"lo A 30333t later, when Daisy has con»
fanned.h3r unhapw me as " th Tom, Ilck suéJcnly rcalizca

he; 1331c corrumticn1

Th0 imam mt her voice hrolzo off. cwm‘...U to
ccmgcl my attcntlon. :3} belicf, I felt t2}-
bavic incinccrity of what she had acid. It
made me uneasy, as thcu3h the whole evenin3
had been a trick of $036 sort to exact a
contributary auction from me. I waited. and
sure or laugh, n a moment 0-13 looLcd ct mm'with

-b3u utc 3 irk on her lcvcly face, as if
cIc Im1lcsscrtcd her 30: bcr3-13 in a rather
dicti 3uichcd secret society to which sI c
an‘ Tom bclcnI‘ 3191. 11

Hick says of Daisy, ""19‘ s 3ct an indiscrcct voice,’”

and C—atsby rc;311e3, "'Hcr vaicc is full cf money.' 'That
was 1t...1t was full of money---that was tho incxhc ustiblc
aha :3 that P089 ané fell in 1t....'"12 That was Daisy‘ 8

*“flv’- ."flfl-’ M‘W

101 The Great Gatsbz. p.12
11‘ I11: qu‘. p.17
12! Zhido’ p.110

 

CD

5

entree to the 'distinguishad secret saciety" of the
rich 3r nd t33t 333 tre 33 33333 of hnr corrugtion. .Daiay
finds her counterpart in Jor133 ,3wvr, a f*-IL3‘w0333
3t;“ l3t3. 333 and flick 33.v3 an affair t33t is 3 subtle,
carefull muted parallel to Gatsby 3nd Daisy's early
Algve; fut tharo is 333 33Jor diffe renc3, uni Daisy.
Jord33 is corrupt 3333 Kick first meets her:

Jor133 Eakor instinctively 3vc1101 clover,
ahrewd.men, and now I saw that this 338

tec3° use 3h3 felt 33f3r on 3 31333 3113r3 any
divergence fr03 a code would he thoug‘1
133033 itle. She was in wratly 11330 nest. 13

This basic 11333 esty of 33 3y, Jordan 331 Tom is th

"£0 31 dzzst" that M10 ted in the H3313 of Cat? bv' 3

I.

"incorruptlbla aream. In splto of 5.3t333's shady bus-

iness life. Nick tells him: "'Tho"'r3 3 rot 333 b3nch...
You'ra'worth tie whole 1333 bunch cut to 3Q13r. '“14
tut E133 had been trogght up in a spirit of t313r3333

for other 3303133' faults 331, at thé 3r 2d of he book.

'I

33 3333 of T03:

I oozldn‘t forgive 3.13 or 1133 313. but I 334
t33t wlzat ha had done J33, to him, entirely
justified. It was all very C3r31333 and con-
fused. They were careless pectle, Tom and
Daisy-~-they 3333331 3) things and creatures
and then retreated back into tnoir :3cney or
their vast carelessness, or 133.3t0ver it 333
that 33 ;:t then tagether, and let other 330313
c1333 up th3 333 s tmy Ln 1 3313.... 15

L103 3:33 33'3 to tha'xest and the 33st r333 33 for him

m----------‘--”*"‘

13‘ EbIdo’ p.54
1&3 b11da9 p.112
1531b; .g.p.165

"9 night 9 on by 31 Grace." In moral terms, to F1t9~

gerald the East 9:9 the 93319r of urI29n so histication
ana corru3tion and tha 999i the 9193319r of vi rt99.15

It shoub b9 noted tha t it 19 the 99:99 vul gar air of
western civilization 991 9 had once caqu finory :;laine
"in his aNx'w‘nr-wscuz', 99 to 3999 It, wnich now ivea flick
his 99 99 of 39r9399t1ve. 39 9999 it up by 993193:

I 999 new that th-9 ha9 9999 9 atorv o9 the

999t. after allww-Tam and Gatsby, Daisy and

Tordan and 1, were 911 99t9 rners, and perfi

haps we 309999990 90:9 d9 ficiency in can an

{hich 9999 us suttly unad9<3t9919 to Eastern

life. 17

In via: of this 399t~999t diohotamy there 19 little
doubt that :39 G 99999tabg 99 a whole 19 a response to
9 m930r strain in Fitderald'a t993er999nt-9-the strain
of the out9ider, the "unadjus9ablo" boy so evident 19 the
39911 Lee stories. It was certainly Eit9991d atI ewnan
99 well 99 29911 Lee at St. 99319 9h "writhqa with
9h999...th9t...h9 was one of the poorest boys in 9 ribh
boya’ school." In another respect, however. Fitzgerald
99- proud of his family in its connection with Francis
Scott Kay, once calling them "the few remnants of the
old Amarican aristccracy that's managed to survive in
cannunicable form."13 Fitzc9rald at; W19 coton, 1n 93ite

of the fact that he were $119 rifi’lt clothea and aid the

right things, was not ty3ical and r92911-99 the outsider.

16: Fizener, on.cit.. 33.?7-78
17: ‘99 Grea Gatsby. P.163
18: Xizener, on.c§t., 33.63~69

 

m
romanticieing the enobhieh, highly comgetitive life of
irinceton into an heroic world. But nerhape the most
eignificent event in cryotelliein; FitzSereld‘e ambiv-
alent attitofle toward wealth and social goeltion occurw
red just after the war. Fitdereld.wee in love with

Zelda Sayre end he later wrote in the Crackaop:
It was one of those tragic loves doomed for leek
of money, and one day the girl closed it out
on the beeie of concon sense. During a long
summer of floopair I wrote a novel instead of
letters, so it came out all right, but it came
out all right for e oifferont person. The men
with the jingle of money in his pocket who
married the nirl a gee later would always
cherish an etiding distrust. an animosity,
toward the leisure clace~-not the conviction
of a revolutioniet but the smouldering hatred of
a peasant. In the years since then I have
never been able to etc; wondering where my
frienao’ money cexe from, nor to stay thinking
that at one time a sort of droit do eeigreur
might have been exercised to give one of them
my girl. 19

?itzgereld see that the eegnent of society which might
xerciee trie "droit do ceign or" was not only supported
but insulated by wealth. Aware that they could buy their

way out of any situation, they cared not what kind of
a situation it wee. Fitzaereld ineietefl that this was
their attitude and it did more than characterize the
privileged products of American success. It expressed
the national frame of mind during a period enen the
maximum of national prosoerity coincided with the mexo
item of national corruption. It was the coincidence of

these we factors wnich gove a peculiar tone to life in

19: ghe CrecZ-up, p.77

61

the twenties. In Fitzgerald it produced an "abiding
distrust" which was really intellectual and moral. It
was the resentment which any intelligent American might
feel after exposure to, and disillusionment by, the

world he had been bred to revere. iko most middle-
cless Americans, Fitzgerald had been obeyed by a pri-
marily Puritenicsl environment in which the acquisition
of wealth was the sole test of worth. and the ways of
those who possessed it the sole\criterion of excellence.
Two of his novels snow the disastrous results of these
standards when deliberately applied or successfully
imposed. Getsby--poor, highly imaginative--wae led

to his doom by a single-eluded pursuit of the stereotyyed
American dream. Takini -nic% millions by alliance with
racketeere, he succeeded in en ering the American world
of presumptive excellence only to be destroyed by its
degraded ethics. Equally destroyed, as we shall see,
was Dick Diver in he society of decedent OXpatrietoe
in gender Ie the Eight. In Fitdereld's View, there
ens something inherently evil in a society which ele-
vated es models those who were so demonstrably rotten
at the core. The average neericon was being deceived

and ruined by who his environment ooeed for his cool-

C

C

etion. FitZcheld’s "outsidere,' like Ring lerdner's

"little people," were yethetic victioe of a myth. The

' ’3
function of the myth :so to keen eroseerity ‘0

an d- 0

Gina.

(No
._I
-Qfifi---’--‘---- . mpfiufl

20: Eorris, Lloyd 3.. Eoeteori
1947) pp.151~152

:t to Yesterday, (low Y rk

62

It is in The front Cater: that FitZSerald finally clar-
ifies this problem. against Kick Carr m m.y‘e gradual
uncerotanling of tee inconrrrtitili ty at Ize heart of
Gatsby's corruption. Fitzgerald sets his gradual pens.
tm its on of tee on ore and grace of Ten and Deisy's world.
Win t1 openetrates to is dishonesty, grossne es and moral
cows d ce. In contrast to the out :ard cnar3 of the ir
world, Cats ‘oy’s fantastic mansion, his absurd pin3 suits,
and his elaborate formality of sgwebeh a: ;‘~car ludi.crous:
but e; sins the corrugtien whicEL underlies Ten and Daisy‘s
charm. Gatsby's'esgo entisl incorrustibility is heroio.21
It is in the tragedy of Jo y Gatsty the t we 3i n3 Fitz~
Cernll‘s r nuns iation and repudiation of the great Amer“
ican fyth.

.{il 11m sTroy has an inter~sting xylenetion of how
Fitzgerwld came to a clarification of ti: s sociological
ohenonenon. He says tlw t in trio book we finl a rersrk-
able instenc e of tne manner in w: lloh adoption of s seecial
for: or technique can profoundly nolify and define e

riter' 3 Whole sttitu e tows rd his world. In the earlier
books author an hero tended to melt into one because
there mas n internal technical: rinci: le of oil ferent-
istion by which they might be separated. Lut in‘flgg
greet :stslrr is ecniet*ed a dissociation, by which Fits-

gerald was able to isolate one part of himself. -he

-‘fi-fi----‘w a. -’-“--Q-

21: fiizener, oegcit., p.79

63

spectatorial or osthetic,e and also the more intelligent.
in the person of the ordinary but Q it) oeneiile narrator,
from another part of rimeelf, the dream—riaien adolescent
from St. Eeul and Erinceten, in the persono of Jay Gatsby.
It is this which makes the latter one of the few truly
mythological creetiona in recent literature-for what is
mythology but this same process of projected wish tul~
fillment carried out on a large scale and t3 the whole
conecioueneee of a race? Gatsby beeches much more than
a more exercising of vhatever false elements of the
American dream Fit23ereld felt within himself: he becomes
a eymool of imerice itself, dealer -ted to "tile service
of a vest, vulgar, an meretricioue beauty." It is not
mytn01033, !.owever, but the technical device of the
narrator ch ht to hi3h develOpnent Eye " on ad and Jw
which mace thie dissociation possible for Fitz3ereld.
.Tho device inccees on the novelist the necessity of
tracin3 t3rou3h the narrator hi.1:eelf 33 .e sort of trowth
in general moral percogtion, which will constitute in
effect 2;; story. ,In so far as the book is {ateby' 3
story, it is a story of failure-w-the prolongatioz of
the adolescent in Hoe: ecity to a; stinguieh between dream
and re-.lit3r, result.” .n; in disc ter. L‘ut ea I‘ficlz'e story
it is a successful t.enecender ce of a bitter set of
experiences localized in the sinister, distorted Long

Island atmooohere oi the twenties into a world of restored

‘-

64

sanity and calm, symbolized by the returning trains and,

ine winter ni3hts of the "1 west.22 In the light of this
theory we can begin to understand the i.“c redible tech-
nical develce3ment from the char. blin3 structure of 239
Beautiful and Damned to the intensely economical unity

T ghe Great Gatsby.

We have seen in the foregoin3,snelysis that :33

Greet Gatsby is indeed a literary landmark of the twenties,
so is portsnt that a critic of T. 3. Eliot’s stature
said of the book

...it has interested me and excites me more
than any new novel I have seen, either English
or American, for a number of 3eers....ln fact
it seems to me to be the first step that.smer-
icen,fictien.hss taken since Henry James. 23

Unfortunately for smericsn literature, The Great Gatsby
was Fitzgerald's apotheesis. Le did not lose his skill

(Vida ins Lest Tycoer) but something in his died cen—

~“m---------u--”

22: Troy, Wm., Opacite, cp.81«82. There scene to be a
difference in critical oeinion rs regs.rds the above
development in EitZQersld's literary career. Esxwell
Ceisrer, in The Ire t of the lrovir ciels, takes the
ep; osite View: the.t Fits ' ersli "clocked out the die‘
corfisnt ares s in his own temoere3ert and obje stifled
tees in terns of t22e onericter and 3r0223 s of oher~
ecter s wLo form t12.e novel's tension..." (e. 320) It
seens rather chicien-or-eoriss but I s22 inclixzed
to accept Kr. iroy' s er. 2lenstion. lot only because
"itsgerald was more of e crsftssen than an intellect-
uel but because, if 2m refer-to The C~e k-ep, we will
see tlmt “it""orild die not really consider th efell
1. H110 tione of his life er work until se -sde .ii
treekdo22n. iertsss even :2ore es2e3 ir to 2r. Geisssr's
case is a letter nit"12re14 "re te to :iohn reels EiShOp
(Creel-us, 3.271). peakir* of ;etsoy he wrote: "I
.e 2r at any one time saw his clesr 23self--for he
star ted out as on men I knew and then clzen3e d into
myself“. '0")

23: The Srscggup, p.310

 

u up ..-‘ ‘r. ,9 fl ‘\. - ‘ 4' . ‘ .
urrontly titL 1e dyina 0L his world.
decomfiosei slowly, lingerie
rr‘fi "#275 2-2" 733’s“ ‘121 #1211 "21" ”$3.2 “-.-rr\2*wt1ns
bLutter, iia-LQ- an“; Lid-AU». , t0 tamlcv uil‘ . .5413 L 19.2 $33
«I .. ~~ uh .4 I- n ”my w Ir"! ' ‘A 2, ~ 3 ,'
were rcnillj a iros L113 catastro3Le 1231 he wrote 21 e
. , t- a .. . . -2 3. _. , ,5 c- -. .J' 3.0 2‘
Great Sets 3, eLd Fl 3 ere l, a sort oi Lin; oi tle
. 3 . a 3,. ma a ..- '2 A.” i--. 3 ..-3 c ..
decM o, danced in tLe lest. 2L3 lutOLlQwadl gerofioctive

cn_his own proble1s and he ,rcile.s of society

3'

O
(:3
F.
E:

.'I’I'. 1" - a“ + 7" " fi-w N. " n.‘ ~ 1" D D . . 1 - .2, , - ' s a o I
in the ”role ectQL: mi3nt Late carol “43 waen Lie world

rent euceh in l?29. Instead we find that tho ”‘C'llflh-

e- a

icel enl .ouciulo i 11 coniiti rs of Biol -orrawey's

W. a .. ,.., ,.. 2- '0‘ ,. In. 3.1 n 3 .. I =th 1‘
oecision to 33 heat LQrG are icliillei only in 33_ Lost

9 .3,“

Tee-3.121 131 1341. The return 220 :10 0‘2. 9113.3 "western specte

M

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stur’ st t4? JuVOl'fi onl is a 6:1 ti13-ulf Fit 3oreld'e

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l" J"'3u1 4.11'.--1I$ilb.l.ns ilire, £121; 01.19 till iddGB.

J
(2
*3
((J
E)
1

lne esotioesl 3192131 n sti l persists s-& olnost a

wealth enl social gosition. he has become. in Ecnier Is

a
9.. ' i. - ,..- fl '- .. 1- .. . 3..., , .. C.
tnfi LiLLt. $OPG lantern," wee t.ier-~usu- more despairing.

‘4

In View of this, Setsc"' s trig oy is cJen more 101321 rt

and ironic because Fitol '2reld old not yet realize the

all iigiicstions of what he had written. His tragedy
came ocout because he. like Gatsby.

o..13:3iiOVO'l in the CFOOII .L.L:_,L1Cv’ L.--C' 01" 33.213.50.110
flatire that wear by ym recclcs tefore us. It

elidcl us tlon, but that's no matter--tomorrow
we will ran foster, stretch our arms ferther....
Asa one fine morn1123a-ao 25

fid"-’--Q-----~--‘“

24: 3...a"li’1, 07:01t’o’ PQJEC.

25: Gels er, oe,cit.. p.347

25: 3132.0 Treat Eatsbjz. p.153

66

.1,

w L: ' T". :O‘T-
"dd... 14 l .t.‘ h J» V" 4

After puhlication of rho Treat Cst‘t: in 1925,
Fit3; erzlla eet ”1""elf a tea“ which. as Dan n3 Yilson
ur Hod. would.have given Dostoievski pause. It was
to be a story of matricide, a: d, althoo"“ a good deal
of uorlt was {mo 3 on it, tlxe central idea of the novel
was firepged in 1929.1 The material Fitz; eralfi had pre-
pared‘was carrlea over in part and incorgorated in

Tender Ia tie fl ght. H worked for nine years to com-

elete this novel and, when it was eublished in 193$, it

A.

g

was barely a nine nays' success.

Fitzgera i called the book a "novel of deterior-
ation" and, as in hie earlier work, the deatructive ele-
’ment dealnetes. It 13 the difference in the quality of
the gradual change that distineuishes gender Is the Eight.
The characters are more hlvkly civilized ana their
disintegration hae always a hivhly sozh eticated veneer
to shield it fr3n t1".e re w physical violence found in
3:3 Ggeat Gatsby. we are given our first glimpse of
the Riviera Divers through the eyes of Rosemary Hoyt,

a young . beae tlful and successful fiellywood actress.
To the centeritlvely naive Rosefery they regreeanted
"...the exact furtnermoet evolution.of a class...." she

"...responded‘w2 elehoarteély to the 0333: Give eimglicity

1: Vizener. tacit.. p.80

67

of the Divers, unaware of its conglexity and its lack

“2

of innocence,... We are shown wLat would soon to Le

Fitsgereld'e perfect aristocret3---cuarzihg, intelliger t.

a COUDIG ”Lose "...dev we 13 Spaced like the day of the

older civilizations to yield the utmost from tLo mat-
erials at L end. and to 3ive all the trans tie us their
full value..."3 The first hint of aloe tor 00133 when.
Dick Diver gives a party to wrich he invl‘ tee a heter-
ogeneous group which includes 20 Jule vLo rQ went all
the rawno oe erd lecL of eo:Lieticetion wLicL eo dist: n-

3uiehes his own clique. He went to give a "reLlly bed

7' 0!

party, one at which ...tLere‘e a brawl and eefiuctione

and peoale 3oiL3 Lon ewith their feelings hurt and :o non
gees ed out in tL.e c3 iygnet do toilette."A At the party
we are eLown DicL’e "extraordinary Viz tooeity with
peeple."

Save enor: a £3 .'r of the tough-minded and per-
Liclly auspicious, he had the power of erou 23 n3

3 fascinotoa 3L3 uncriti 31 love. ILe roe ctior
ame when he recli zed the waste er .d extrava3ance
nvolved. 53 so :eti es lo oLod Ecol: “1th aw

at the carnixels of affection Le Lsd given, as

a 3ener l fi5Lt 3-ese upon a massacre he he.d
ordered to as tisfy an impersonal blood lost. 5

The party breaks up when one of the women finds Licole
in.a demented condition. The details are eupglied later
in the mar etive. we are told tin t DicL, a brilliant

young @oychiatriot, originally meets Eicole .'arren as

2: Fitzgerald, Tender Is the Li;;Lt, (I ew York 1934) p.192
33 LLdot pol-91‘

’4': 1131.6... 1363.ng

5: ELLE" p.199

 

 

 

68

a mental patient due to an incestuous relationship
forced on her by her father. She is in a cliLic in
switzerlend and, when Dick eturne to France to reeuee
his werwtime duties, Licole writes Lim frequently. She
falls in love with him end, due to this outside influu

once, begins to recover. after the war Lick comes be L

to the clinic to break off Lie attachment she has formed.
During the short period that follows Dick falls half in

love with her but, acting on his better judgment, breaks

off the affair and leaves. Hicole is released from the
clinic and several weeks leterthey meet e3ein. Her
Lceuty and obvious adoration of Dick are sufficient and
he falls completely in love with her. "Baby“ Lerren,
Licole‘s sister, feels that Dick is something of en
adventurer but because he is a psychiatrist she allows
them to merry. The story from that Loint on shoes tL
gradual deterioration.of Dick and the emergence of Licole
as a complete and normal personality. The plot is
resolved when Nicole di orcee DicL for another man and
Dick dieefi;eare into tLe anonymity of a arell-town gena
~ere]. practitioner in the fitetes.

In the character of DicL Liver, Fitzgerald.hee
agein.created his typical hero. thLeugL more mature
and urbane, Dick is eeeentielly GateLy; just as Gatsby
is e development of Lnory Elaine. Dick, too, has a

"heightened sensitivity to the proxieoe of life" and

69

he is also betrayed by his own inability to make the
right distinctions. In Cat by 'hle fee ltr -ae so :0 vol-
ldlty ie that he was obsessed by an illusion and ruined
by an incorruptible dream. His love went beyond reel-
ity and brought disaster. with Dick biver. however,

the process ie reversed. He wanted to be trove and 1186.
and above all he wanted to be loved. Th: e is the flaw

in his character and when he is faced with the problem
of Eicole'a love for him. he fails ee a ;Meyoh1atrist

to cake the correct decision. I’I‘Ofessor Bohmler, he
head of the clinic. reminds hie hat it is a professional
situation but for Dick it is a human situation also.

He accegate the reu;onoib111ty of being loved by hlcole
and groeually by all the 0 here whom 2113 life drew aroun
him. To teem he gave lavishly ofh estrangth, of his
ability to translate into their terms the necessary
human values and so remind them of their boot selves.
Eut the people he did tile for hue no energy of their
orn. and {re dually the "carnivals of affection" flick
in pirod e heusted his own supyly of energy: "...1f you
spend all your life euaring other peeple’e feelings and
feedx ¢tieir vanity, you get so vou can’t dist: rguleh
"what she: Id be res.ectod in them." "5 Devoting his life

6: Ibid.. p.381

70

to the cure of ricolc, Dick finds that the Warren
has lulled him into dilettantisc:

Ho had lcat h 3331f--33 could.n3t tell
the hour whon;...[bu§]...th3 3:33r had been
blunted.

watching his father's 3tru:; 3133 in poor
parishe3213d wedded a desire for money to an

essentially unacqxisitivc nature. It was mat

a healthy nec3331ty for 3ecurityw-ahc had
never felt more sure of h1‘3elf....than at
the time of his marriage to 313313. Yet he

had been swallowed up like 3 313310. and 3orc~

how 93 alttea.hls arsenal to be 1031 {3d up in
the warren safety-deposit vaults. 7

money

As Eicolc regains her mental stability it becomes

apparent that flick is losing his grip. "The dualism in

his views of her-that of th msband. that of the

wchiatr13t~-v.'as incr3331.gly paralyslng his faculties

He relies more and mare upon alcohol for stimulus and

when, due to} is steady ark 133, his partner in the
clinic 34"“33t3 tha he «1t33r 3 his interest. 3133 is

given more evidence of his failure. ""ct without dean

peration he had long felt the ethics of his profs

dissolving into a lifeless 3333."9 Even 3333 the charm

3103

or the Divers" life 1: at its hozgn we are told tlmt

"...a qualitative change had already set in...“ and

towards the and Dick ahoxae his awarcncs 3 of the process

1‘8

in worfis that remind us of‘Ihgglrack~g3:

came a long way baok-but at firat it didn‘t show.

-“cmma-hwum

.. pp.h09-410
:09 9-394
- Lo 0 9:47}

I'“

 

 

the change

The

. 1“?

lg
I

 

71

manner remains intact for some time after the morale
cracks.”1o Dick Lnors that: Sicole' a love for 1-1m is
bound up with her degendence and Lee aeolined with the
decline of her need for him. 'Knowing that he has ex~
haueted his own power to love her or enfione else. Dick,
by a last effort of the will, breaks Hicole'a yeycho-
logical dependence on him. ‘In a cold. cruel ecen
brought on by Dick, Nicole struggles to free herself
from his influence:

.And suddenly, in the space of two minutes e} 1e
achieved her victory and Justified hereelf

to herself without lie or subterfuge. out the
cord forever.

Dick we itod until she was out of eight.
Then he leanei his head forward on the paran
pet. The case was finished. Doctor Diver
was at liberty. 11

By a terrible irony it comes about that what he has
refused to treat as a merely professional situation is
just that.

Hicole. like all of '1‘it33ercld'e h roines, is very
beautiful and very rich.

For her sake trains W3en tl1eir run at Chictm3
and traversed the round bellv of the continefit
to California; Elicle factories fu.ned s.nd link
belts grew link by link in factories;...half~
breed Indians toiled on Erazilian coffee plant~
etione a11d dre inere were muscled out of yatent
ri3hts in new tractora~-these were some of
the peeple who gave a tithe to E10019.... 12

She is a very appealing character th u3h ut the early

to“- nun--4.“ nah-awocpm

10 8 1m: 9 13.509
11: 111.. p.529
.12 3 1mg. 3 13.233

 

 

72
part of the book, but we are given an occasional fore-
shadowing which pregeree us for her change of heart
toward Dick. She was aware of the magic power of her
money. that the fierrene “...were an.Americen ducal

family without title...”3 She felt no compunctione

about making Dick fell in love with her and placing. L
pen him the terrible responsibility of her cure. Al- !

ways standing behind her was the wealth one power of

N

 

the ficrreno, person fied by the "wooden and oncniotic
flaky warren. It ls she who suggests the plan of get»
ting a doctor in Chicago to merry Hicole., She takes it
for granted that there would be many who would Jump
at the chance. Dick solved that problem for her butv
she never really accepts him as e preper brotherwin-
law. it one point later in the marriage, Dick suggests
that perhaps he was the wrong person for Eicole. "'You
think she'd be hapgier with somebody else?' Baby thought
aloud suddenly. 'Cf course it could be erranged.'”14.end
when Dick is beaten up and gelled after a drunken brawl.
Eaby procuree his release:

It had been a herd night but she had the eet1e«

faction of feeling that, whatever 3102' Lrev~

ioue record was. they now possessed a m rel

ougerlorlty over him for as long as he proved

of any use. 15

This attitude could not help but have some effect on

13‘ 12315.0 0 130357
1%: lbid.; p;427
15; Jbiq.g p;452

 

 

 

 

73

Eicole. and it enables her to justify her divorce. Hicole

"r.

is attracted to the atavis tic Tommy Earban and, as :er

" she seen

930 be gcsn Lloosin 5 like a great rich rose...
to hate all the places where she had played planet to
Dick's sun. Feeling the nearness of her completion she
has an affair with Ton 2y:

With the Opportunis tic: nemory of women she

scarcelgr recallea he: she had felt when she

and Dick 21a possesses each other in secret

places around the corners of the world, during

the month before they were married. Just so

had she lied to Tommy last night. swearing to

hizn that never be? ore had she so entirely,

so com3let013. so utterly.o.. 16
after that it was but a matter of time before the mar»
riage was tor: meted. Ricole was not wholly vicious,
she knew what a tre. enrl ous oebt 8116 owed Dick but she

soared to agree with Easy, who says in regards to Dick's

love and tender care«-"That’s w? o-t he was ed .zceted for."17'

Eicole Ea arren, like fiaisy Buchanan. had too much money.
Rose.ssry iioyt represents a cieparture from Fitzgerald's
usual feminine type. Ihysically she is in direct line

her predecessors but she is also quite moral, hardeorking

N

and, with her "virginsl emotions, Specifically imerican.

h
"...embodyin3 all the immaturity of the race..."10 She

is very differer .t from the an finishes butterflies of

Fit33erald39 youth. 30 too, Rosemary's mother. the tough

16: gti do; p.5%
17: , :3“, nggc.

18' $351.51.. 130250

fin?"- I‘m“!

72.

one devoted: ‘.rs. olsie 3;:eers. lisrdly resembles the
fabulous Beatrice Elaine. The delight wit11w3tzicn nose~
nary cones u_3on the 3rscious life of tie Liters recalls
perk s3s the similar apostrOQhes of s Eu3eno Gent ugon
the first glimpse of the cultivated Rosalind in her
feudal castle on the Hudson. Here Rosemary has a sense
"...of a return from tne derisive end selscions imgarov~
is stions of the frontier."19 This is a. typical seen

in the annals of provincial American writing. There are
also Howells and Garland in Boston, Kills Gather in the
musical circles in_Chics3o, Dreiser among the financial
titans of flew York. The Riviera Divers represent the
lost uni desperate attempt of Fits3orsld himself to
grasp that vision of ease and grace he he“ jursued from

Einnesots to he Cote d'Azur.20

Ros e: org also press: to s new: departure in tech-
nique for Fitsgersld.‘ in st r t: e trill1nnt effectiveness
of the cor trsl narrator device in ins Crest Gatsby.

Fit33orsld attempts it again in

 

only this time he uses a feminine fi3ure. Tee difficulty.
however, is thrt lee does not use this device consistently.
The emphasis shifts from Rosemary to Lick to Eicole ens

he result is structural confusion. Fitzgerald didn't

decide whether the story should enter around a sin3le
hero or fies l with a whole group :ot3 a3 roscr so are

do- do-“ flaccpuuw w‘c‘-”

191 2bid.§ p.207
23: Golfimr, 03:02t0'1m30327'32 8

75

present and interfere with each other. lhie artistic
confusion seems to reflect the difficulties ?i zgersld
himself was going through in that period. It seems that
his feelings were too close to his characters, his own
story too much theirs~onso that in his attempt to form»
slize them in detached characters, he could not separate
himself except by deliberately falsifying he truth. It
is @recisoly shore srtfulness is substituted for reality
that the book fails to convince and continues downhill

with its chs scters.21 1

The fact that Fitzgerald worked for nine years before
he finally produced the novel may account for some of
its episodic qualities. 'Thct plus the fact that it
epgesred es a serial in Scribner'a Fogssiee. During
these nine years his attitude inevitably changed, and
no matter how he revised his early chapters, he could
not make them wholly agree with the later ones. As
Xslcoln Cowley points out. once c chapter has assuied
what seems to be a final shape, it crystallizes and
cannot be renolded. The result is that several of the
characters are self-contradictory; they don't merely

change as living creatures do; they trsnsfore themselves

(-9
s2

into different pearls.
In spite of the fact that it contains some of Fitz-

gerald's most brilliant writing, Tender Is the Eight fails

21: Ross, Alan, "Rouble Among the Drums." Borizon, Dec.
22: Cowley, Felecia, Kev Eegotlic, June 6,1934, 9.136

76

primarily because we don't know what really caused the
moral and psych0103ical disir -te3rstion of Dick Diver.
Is it that once ificole is cured of her disses e she no
longer has need of his kind of love; is it the old story
of the paysician una ole to has 11 hi aself? fies Hicole's
money destroyed him and his work or is he simply'wesk,
unable to resistkemptation and concealing he fact with
alcohol? All to 1080 causes are indicated. and so ch is
sufi‘ icient but the author’s unwillin3nes s to Choose and
his uncertainty communicates to the reader and the result
is do; rescin3 in the way that confusion in a worl: of
literature is always depressin3.23 On the cresit side
we find tilet Fit23e rsld has greatly deveIOped his sense
of American cultural patterns. In Paris Sick meets
sn.Amoricsn, "...s type of which he had been conscious
since early youth---a t3 pa tr at leafed about tobacco
stores with one elLos on the counter...in Loyhood Dick
had often thrown an uneasy 3lance at the din borderland
of crime on which he stood."24 Of the idle-rich Nicole
:arren, Fitzgerald says that she "...illustratefi very
single principles, containin3 in herself her own doom...."25
FitZ3erala's characters have reflected this before but
Fi s3erald is now conscious of it and the new intellectual

framework is clearly articulated. Fit33orald has not

.’m.‘....“..”-.”

23: Troy, 'em. "The ”arm 1' t1 19 Bud," Fation, Kay 9,
”)4! p0 5539

24: Tender Is the Ei3ht. p.279

25: 11315.0, p.233

 

 

77

only disentangglerl himself from his cum earlier aspirations,
he has stepped outside of the American leisure class.

when Dick Diver returns to America at the end of the book,
Fits3ersld has learned the lesson explicit in Kiel: Cer-
rewsy. The author has returned to his home and we shell
see that in his last novel , he is completely immersed .4

in America and American civilisation.

Hr

Weir: a“ ‘ =

 

 

 

78
CHAPfSR SIX

In 1936 Fits3erald published a series of articles
in Escuire Paganine under the general title of 23g
Crack-us. It was, as Glenway Hestcott said: “...self~
autonsy and funeral sermon."1 These articles, with
excerpts from Fitzgerald's notebooks and other items
of interest to the student of Fit23erald'e work, were
edited by Edmund fiilson and published in 1945. The
book as a whole is one of the most fascinating volumes
in American literature but, for the purposes of this
study, the articles centering around Fits3erald’s break-
down are primarily important.

Fits3erald's crisis, in 1935 and 1936, was caused
by a series of big and little m sfortunes: serious ill-
ness, fanily troubles, drinking, reduced earnin3 power,
debts, and, worst of all, a feeling that he had used up
and wasted.his abilities. He tended to think of Spiritual
resources---of courage, generosity, kindness-w-in the

aht of physical resources, as a sum in

k,

same way he thou
the ink to be drawn a3ainst:

...I began to realise that for two years my
life had been a drawing on resources that I
did not possess, that I had been mort3a3in3
myself spiritually up to the hilt. 2

At the a3e of thirty-nine Fitzgerald broke down and, in the

.....---...-..-..-.¢

13 §GStCOttg Goscito. p.327
2: The Crack-32, p.72

 

79

following period, began seriously to consider the implic-
ations of his life and work. He ca-e to the conclusion
that:

...I had done very little thinking, save within

the problems of my craft. For twenty years a

certain man had been my intellectual conscience...;

That a third contemporary had been an artistic

conscience to me~~~...That my political conscience :1
had scarcely existed for ten years save as an

element of irony in my stuff. 3

These are damning admissions and Fitzgerald found that

he was unable to live up to his test of a first-rate }
intelligence: "...the ability to hold two ongosed ideas

in the mind at the same time, and still retain the ability
to function."4 He found that he had become identifie

wi h the objects of his horror or congassion; an ident-
ification which spells the death of accomplishment.5

when he had reached this nadir Fitzgerald made a token
renunciation of his humanity. He would continue to be

a writer because that was his only way of life but he
would step being generous or Just:

There were plenty of counterfeit coins around
that would pass instead of these and I knew
where I could get them at a nickel on the
dollar. In thirty-nine years an observant
eye has learned to detect where the milk is
watered and the sugar is sanded, the rhino-
stone gessed for diamond and the stucco for /
stone. There was to be no more giving of
myself--all giving was to be outlawed hence—
forth under a new name, and that name wa~
Keats. 6
3: Ibid.. pp.78-79
4: ibido. p.69
5: bid., p.81
63 bids, P082

 

80

Even at this lowest point of demoralisation some quality.

 

of toughness or Irish Puritanism would not let Fitzgerald
rive us. He went to Hollywood in 1937 to asks a nev

start. In the next four years he stooped drinking, worked
at writing secondvrate movies. paid off nest of his debts.
and started ghe Last;$ycoo.. we know that Fitzgerald did
not step being generous or just, but his breakaown took

a terrible toll of his physical and spiritual resources.

He had lost the old dream of being "...an entire man

WI;- m- firr

in the Goethe-Byron¢3haw tradition..."7 but had attained

 

a full maturity. He was 00mins to know himself, to
evaluate his talent and prepensities in the context of
his time and place. He assessed the dualism in his
approach to writing and recognized the ambivalence of
his attitude toward.wealth and society. Even after a
long period of hack-writing, he wrote his daughter:

...I guess I am too much a moralist at heart.
and really want to preach at peeple in some
acceptable form, rather than entertain them. 8

From his ordeal he learned

...the wise and tragic sense of life....the

thing that lies behind all great careers...

---the senseithat life is essentially a cheat

and its conditions are those of defeat, and

that the redeeming things are not "happiness

and pleasure" but the deeper satisfactions

that cone out of struggle. 9 ~

It is this new element of maturity and understanding

that we find in his unfinished novel. The Last Ticoon.

“a- w“..”.‘-“

7: Ibid. p.84
8: ibido: p.305

“an.“

9: Ibid.. p.306

 

81

Cf ghe Last gzcoon it may confidently be said that
it is the best piece of creative 'sriting we hem e about

one phase of American life--Hollywood and the movies.

0
“.1

all the anorican novelists, Fitzgerald was 1y reason
of his terrerament and his gifts the best suited to
re~create that world in fiction. The subject needed a
romantic realist, which Fitzgerald had become; it re-
quired a lively sense of tr a fantastic, which he had;

it donan ed the liind of intuitive perceptions which were

 

in .a‘omdance.10 Fitzgerald realised that the Kelly--
wood atmost‘3hore was highly congenial to 1-.i s temperament.

It apgarently had an insulating effect, ar d he writes:
I have a novel pretty well on the road...as
detached from me as Gatsby was. in intent
anyhow. The new Lrnageddon, far from making
everything unincortant. gives me a certain
lust for life as sin. This is undouutedly an
innature throw-back, but it's the truth. The
gloom of all causes does not affect it--I ,
feel a certain rebirth of kinetic impulseso-o
however misdirected.... 11

Pit':orald was very,r serious about the book, sure of
hinself and his ability to esploit his materials fully.
In a letter to sinund Uilson he wrote: "...I am trying

a little harder than I ever have to be exact and honest

n12

emotionally. From a study of this tragic fragment

we can surmise w} at the Iini nod novel would have been

although it is very difficult to s4i3eah with any real

- ----------*-'----”

10: Adams, J. Donald, The Shape of Books to Come, (Row

1.201": 1945) p.90
11: The C ac2:~ o, p.282
12: Zflid.’ p.205

assurance. The published draft of the novel :ooresents
that point in the author's work where he has asooshled
and organized his material and acquired a firm grasp of
his theme, but has not yet brought it finally into focus.13
The Last Eycoog doesn't depend for success on sets
or atmosphere, local color or inside stuff; it doesn‘t
even depend for effect on the necessary exaggerations of
the life it describes. It is character that dominates
the book, the complex yet consistent character of Konroe
Stahr, dosinating and dominated, as much a part of his
business as the film in the cameras and yet a living man.
It is an extraordinary eertrait. and the tragedy of the
book is implicit in Stahr Eimself. in his strength as
well as his weaknesses.l# The figure of this Hollywood
producer is certainly the one of,Fitzgerald's central
figures which he had thought out most completely and
which he had most deeply cone to aderstan . Amory
Elaine and Anthony Eatch were romantic projections of the
author; Gatsby and Dick Diver were conceived more or less
objectively, but not very profoundly explored. honroe
Stahr is r ally created from within at the same time he
is criticised by an intelligence the has now become
lure of itself and knows how to assion him to his preper

15

place in a larger echoes of things. Jtahr is Fits-

13: Fitsgerald,‘TheyLastfliycoon, ed. Edmund fiilson,
(Sew York 1§Ei§ Foreward p.1x

l4: Benet, S. V.. Saturday Review of Literature, Dec. 6.
1941. p.10 '

15: East Tycoon. pp.ix—x

 

gerald's most highly deveIOpeda nd most syn‘etaetic
hero:

He had flown up very high to see, on strong
win1_s, when hev we young. And whi lo he was
u'19 there he h° ad looked on all the kin1.ido_1 s,
with the kind of eyes tliet can stare strei3 ht

into the sun. 16
He is "the last of the yrinces," a ,storeal uHiO employer
who takes care of his employees and feels that their

loyalty should be directly to him. He is overworked

and very ill, "...rulin3 wi th e radiance that is almost
. 1 n . -
moribund in its phosphorescence," 7 he has had everya

thing in life but the privilege of giving himself un~
selfis H lg to another buns an being, and this Opportunity
is presented to him when he meets Kathleen. while the.
character of Kathleen is a rather uncertein factor, we
find that she reminds Stehr of his dead wife and that
Fit11ereld planned a love :1ff1ir between Stahr and
Kathleen which foul d be "the me 1t of the book.“8 With
this as the central theme, Fitzgerald shows the inside
workings of Hollywood and the struggle of Stehr, as the
last tycoon, ts fi3ht off the encroacheents of Bell
Street capitalism and corrup labor unions. Just as the

:3"

love emf ris to be uns uc cessful, so Stehr loses his

fight against the anti-paternalistic forces and is killed

in an eirslsne ore uh.
16: Ibid.. p.200

17‘ IEJido. p.139

18': Ibido, P0139

 

84

sleund Wilson has pointed out that otdhr is the
first of Fitsgerald's heroes to be shown congletoly
a. .a? -. ‘ 1" J. n 1.-.! 19
against one becxground or an industry or 1ere-slon.
While Fitzgersld considered the love-affair to be the
"meat of the book"; a student of Fitsgoreld's work finds
the handling of the socio-econonic background much more
interesting. It is here that we find evidence of Fits-

gereld's intellectual develoyment. Just as Fitzserald

{2:

had described himself as being strategically place

(D

between the prenwsr and post-war generations of th
twenties, so we find Stshr placed. or rather causht,
between the expanding forces of labor and capitalism;
both working in sinister collusion with the racketeering
element as exposed in the Willie Eioff case. Stshr is

the "...frsil half-sick person holding up the whole

thing."20 While Brady, 1 co-producer, is scheming with

wall street capitalists to oust Stshr. the long,ne30tn
istions with the union cone to a dead end. Btahr
couldn't find a common ground with.the new forces of
labor.

...his mind was closed on the subject. He was
a rationalist who did his own reasoning without
the benefit of books--snd he had Just meneged
to climb out of a thousand years of Jewry into
the late eighteenth century. He could not bear
to see it melt swey~~~he cherished the pervenu's
yessionste loyalty to an imaginary past. 21

198 lbid.. Foreward, p.x

20: Ibid., p.127

21: Ibid.. p.118

 

 

 

85

we find that Fitzaerald's gradual realization of American
cultural patterns is the factor that so distinguishes
this novel from M 8 other work. As Kaxwoll Geisrarl
points out, Stahr is an archtypa .AKerican whereas a
whole row of early Fitzg eraldf igures hate tried desperu
ately to becone archtyoal ourooa'n figures.22 Fitzaerw
ald‘s treataer .t of: gro and Jewish characters also shows
his realistic perspective on.Ar erican society. It is

a poor Kecro whose Opinion of the movies ...had rocked

":23 aid the "slithering aliens" of Fitz-

an industry
gerald‘s early work have evolved through the strange

figure of Bloecknan in The Eeautiful and Damned to become

 

Eonroe Dtahr and many of the other characters in fine Last
Excess. Stahr is described with a combination of intimacy

and detachmen ; with no trace of envy or adulation. Fitzgeraki
writes about Stahr, not as a poor man writing about some-

one ric?.1 and powerful, nor as the imootent la" st unthrust

of sosze established.nmerican stock snoorizsg at a pervenu

Jew; but coolly, as a man writing about an equal 1e

knows and un HP taids u. Innodiatcly a reams of reference

is established that takes into comprehension the Holly-

wood magnate and the workers on the lot. In that frame

13 q

of reference acts and gestures can to Cesar ed on a

bros sand to a cer* in degree passionlos 313 12::ersona1
- . , . 24

terrain of common humanity.

“om-oufinmn“u-”o

22: GG¢SIJtfirg O'chito' p. 5 44

23:14? Jt .‘.yCUOH, p.93

24: Des lassos, John. "A Xote on Fitzgera id," in rho

Crack-us, p .242-243

 

«I
‘

 

86

The technique of The Lastxgycoon is deliberate in
a way that only Henry James of the novelis.s of this
century has been fisliberate it"" ra a asproacses his
material first objectivelyt rocwh.his synopsis narrative.
then discusses the reactions of each character at their
intersecting points, ans finallv rocasts characters and
episodes in the light of he co2m1-sions he cones to
after his horizontal" analysis. The result, even in
its-unfinished fern, shows the so iousness mit3.1 whi ‘1
Fitz;o“ald a§;roachei this task of wr-tin;, for the first

'5 success

{a

.. 1 I .~ :- e. -
time, "free the out sine."2) 1art of sits.e al

v

'3

.o
v"

(D

t

(J

is derived from his sense of balance. liove in

Stahr's genius to cause his virtuosity is shown in a bril-
lia nt ch1auter where we see him de s ively nanalinc

scri3t-writers, actors, airestors; ani ex osins with
o genie clarity t‘i 1e whole cross- structure of the oicture-

‘-

- ‘r’: ,... I. - 1 ~ p. 3- - .K A ,1 ‘,- 0.- 3 4-‘~ .’c 1.
7351.-.;ng lJuhour’fgg Ural»; Sii HS us bu?) uOCith add.

2'“! 4. ..
' t '. -\ ‘ n- i "N r. " " w H '5“ r. n r: »~ cm ‘1 r. Parka J” ‘
business U1 the movies, .0 longer 11cm the Quint 01 View
a ‘.. . s )‘ a .1 Q .‘- A . no. a g. . f‘. '-.§ 1‘ ~ -. n q ‘ ,3
o. no outsi “or to anon e.eryth_n is blamorous or n...uic-

ulous, but from tne viowooint of 30u1lc nh' have
up or livsi host of tlieir lives in Lollywcoi, an& to

when its laws ana values are their na'sral ha1 it of life.
12R33 are criticises by hi her stanuards and in the knee-

loage of sis er horizons, but the criticism is implicit

in the story.26 ‘

:LCJSS’ 03.01t..73¢433

.'.ils on, .:1.:1und. ons In the 'ac'r‘on, (San Franci cc
1341) Peril

PO 3")
C'\ U"
u u

 

87

FitZQereld again used the central nerretcr device

in the person of Geollia Brady, a proiucer'

a daughter
who "...13 of the movies but not in them...$o she is,
all at once, intelligent, cynical, but 1 ml PS "411“"

51,1 1.: we -.

- — J- ~vr .'. -.-,
“e n¢ud j bOdurd the gee

9.1

ale, great 0“ 85‘ 11, who are
of Hell"1:eua."27 It is imeoeeible to say how well Fitz-
gerell would have succeeded with this device but it is
apg‘e x1t that he 11° as having 802 e dif ficulty.' Cecilia

dy—

reminae ue somewhat of Rosemary Koyt in 1ecfer Is the

Eiefit but, due to tie unfinished state of $39 Last Eycoon,
it is fruitless to eeecglate on 11w far the parallel
would have "One or whether Fitzeereld could have resolved
0 1..»
his technical troubles completely. The letter seems
possible since, in a letter to his publisher, Fitzserald
ulote: "1he;e' 8 nothing that worries me in the novel,
1' J." .L ‘ 2Q '1 - -
notnlne tact seems uncertaln." ” 1n egite of the fact
L;
t.1e t tue reader faces zany uncertainties in the novel

‘V

as it new eta: us, 1itz

()3
'(4
i
[.J
p:
If)
0
$3
:3
C?
O

gerelfl's pregrec
+dulCuu3 t11et his tecl1nicel re urccs were indeed aeeo
quate t3 the deeenfie of the work.

In 1he Hr1ck-up we finde brilliant eccey 0n Th

Le't Ivceon by John Doe :eeeos in which he says that

 

the work may well turn out to be one of those literary

--4--------------------

27: lee t Tvcoen, p.138
23 3 11,111. . ‘J 0.1.41

 

as

fri3::m ants that a'year occasionally in the stream of a

cu ture and profoundly influence the course of future
events. Fitsgerald's unique echie emcnt. in this unfin-
ished work, is that here for the firs t tL

...he has nzanagod to establish tLet uno'ezatle
more 1 atti *mie to"ards the Jorli we live in and
tows ré-s its temgaorary standards that is the
3310 essential of an} DOHIOP.u1 work of the
iea3ination. A firmly anchored ethical stan-
dard is so "ethin3 the t American writing has
been stm 1:11:13 to wards for half a century. 29

Fitz3 rald emerged an intellectually ands mitually

 

mature artist from the sodden-dark self-imeolation
described in fine Crack-32. His fascination with what
Glenway Ieetcott termed the "fiddledeedee of boyhood,"-30
was gone and an artist worthy of he front rank of American
literature emerged. Fits3erald's untimely death degrived
us of a work tliat not only dealt with what is perhaps
the most important single aspect of our civilization,
Hollywood and the movies, but prevented him from com-
.pletin3‘wnat would have been a technical milestone in
American literature. Dos Passes indiCates the future
importance of the work then 118 writes:

fiven in thei.r unfini hcd state tnece fragzxents.

I believe, are of sufficien dimensions to

raise the level of American fiction in some

mzch vrv as Farl We 3 bla.£: verse line 'ei e:

the whole 16v e1 of sliuatetian verse. 31

-~------- man‘s-“h-..

29: Dos Pa 230 s, 073.cit., p.339
30: destcott, 0o. cit., p.329
31: Doe 2 secs, 03.01 t.. p.343

 

 

89

gho Last Tycoon is an ironic finale for Fitzgerald's
career. His life and work run a curious parallel; a
brilliant surface with undertones of flisaster; illimit-
able promise and partial fulfillment. Tho fatal heart
attack that ot0933d him Just this side of tho paradise
of complete artistic fulfillment oooms to have been timed
too ironically well. It is almost as though some second»
rate movie producer had emgloyed his best ocenarists to
brixg about a tragic climax---but this woo a very unhappy
ending and it couldn't have happened in the "real" Holly-

wood.

 

90
CCNCLUSICN

In the foregoing study we have traced, throu5h his
novels, the artistic develOpment of F. ccott Fit gereld.
It is obvious that his gift was chenneloi oy his person-
ality, 1113 time and the society in which he lived. It
wouldl ve tat en a cool he ed indeed to retain a perseoctive
in the flood of adulation which met Fitzgerald in his
early teen ties-«oend his xv is not a cool head. He was
suddenly cs tepultei into the national limelight, given
wealth and love and notoriety. his myths, l he Getsby's,
were conceived early in his life and, in the clierecter
of Gatsby, Fitzgerald described a single-nindedne as that
he himself lacked. His own.wesknesses both broke him and
5sve him a trs5icslly short-lived rerirth in the lest
years of his life. But it was a different person.who
stru551ed to finish The Last Tycoon: the real Fitzgerald

ed died with the Jazz A5e. a decade before.

Dos Faseos suggests that Fit35er ld was another
victim of the Ame icsn do able standard of morals. He
was plagued by the difficulty of decidin5 whether to do
"good" writing for his conscience or "cheap" writing for
his purse. Since the standards of value have never been
stron5ly e:3teblisl -ed it is often difficult to te 11 which

"good" or "cheap" work.

is which. ihe effort to do toth
slterznltely or s: z'nultaneOley, and the subsequent failure

to make 500d either aim, has produced esroxysms of moral

in

J l

“(fl—‘—

 

 

E34. .3394- ‘5‘1 .., II 5' ..L emu—4

91

and intellectncl confusion. A 5rest deal of “its5er rdli's
own life we 5 made a hell by this sort of schiZOphrenia.1
It seems apgeren that, efte r ylslicltion of The Crest
Gatsby in 1925, Fits5ereld hecs:e a poyuler rritor in
the most obvious sense. :erner'

of his work from then until the :dhlics ion of fender Is

 

the IIi5ht was the fertility of invention dis

6*
O
C)
(’1
(I-
t
:3
p

earned stout Ins lf e million dollars out i
5reat deal. It cost his, first, tee criticism he ni5h
have saved him: by shaming E1i.n from his ted work, stif-
fening his conscience, protecting his arsinst his shese-
ment. The old associiti on hi th Edmund hilson and John
Peale Bishog seems to have been his only link with the
critics of his day. He even went so far as to prostrate.
himself before Hemingway, finding in To Lave and Have hot
"...ps; 33 t1 at are right up with Dostoiefs:i [sic] in
their undeflected intensity."2 Isis he rt his work and no
‘body of reS'w sible Jud5ne nt was close to show his Ren-
in5~ sy' s fc act of clay or the su5r :eriority in certain ways
of his own hi? est nor-In:5 Perhaps the most disastrous
results his p pular writin5 was that it cost him his
faith in art for s time. He find his writin.

Crock-us of "...a rsxn {ling indi31ity, that to me had

fium.“m-mm..

1: D03 138.8 303, 0.1.0111... @230339‘340

2: The Crc. t-ue, p.2eh»

3: Derry an, John, "F. Scott Fitzgerald," Kenven Review,
inter 1946, p.111

 

 

J ‘l ‘1"

.I

 

92

*

become almost an obsession, in seein5 the s rer of the
written word suborainated to szzotler power, a more .
glittering, a grosser power."4 By this he meant the
movies. Vhilo Fitzgerald has often been excoriated for
this attit‘.1de, it might be well to point out the fact
that his fears had a very real basis. Fifty years ago
the reading of the Bible in every home sug,lied a floor
literacy under literature as a whole. Today the

botto.s level of the co:n.on e lucation is tie visual and
aural culture of the movies, not a literary level at all.5
.It must be remembered, however, that Fit25erald wrote
this from the oepths of s: iritual despair. That he
re5ained his faith in art is shown by The Last Tycoon.

For all its manifest faults and errors, Fitzgerald's
was a rather heroic life. Kany of his contemporaries
‘preceded or followed him into the "public brothels of
Hollywood" but he was one of the very few 6v er to return
artistically. He was always fascinated by the line from
a Shakespeare sonnet: "Lilies that foster smell far worse
than weeds"; and.we find his writing near the end of his
life:

'hat little I've acconslishea.has been by the

cot laLorious and uehill work, and I vial: now

'i never relaxed or looked back-~-bat said at

he and of The Crest G-atsty: "I've found my line---

iron now_on this cones first. This is my need»
iate duty—~awid10ut this I an notlzing 6

--.fi-----‘-----”"--

4: 211:3 Clamp-1'13, 13.78

5: Des » ssos, oo.cit., p.341

6: The Grieg-ug, p.294

56"“ 5‘}

 

93

But the decade of the thirties had 33; . ed hm" reserves

.9

and when he again fe“md 1113 "line" it was too late.

q

Tee Gre a eeteeg and Ike Lest Tycoon 33- re Fit333reld

 

of a 3ersenen ml ce in..M33rice n literat;re but it is
re3rett3tle t1? Ht--i s;ite of his me3nificent gifts—-
his gereenel weaknesses in lee3ue with the exterior
forces of e stifling civilization denied hie mplete
fulfillment. :rustre tien rather failure is the keynote

of Fit23ereld’s career.

 

94
BIBLIOGRirHY

The following bibliographv is selective rather than
comprehensive.

Adams, J. Donald, The Shage of Books to Coze, flew York,
Viking frees, 1955 .

Adams, J. Donald, ”F. Scott Fitzgerald,” American :ercury,
1945, No. 61. 373-377

Allen, Frederick Lewis, Only Yesterday, New Yarn, Harper,
1931

Anonymous, ”F. Scott FitZ3era1d," Booknan, 1922, No. 55,
20-25. Also in The Literary egotlight, John Ferrer, ed.,
Hes York, Dcran 00., 192i

Arvin, Newton, "Fiction Hirrors America," Current History,
Segtember, 1935:

Baldwin, C. 6., Ken flho Feke.0ur Revels, New York, Dead-

Beech, J.H., Qgtlook For American Prose, Chica3o, Univ.
of Chicago frees, 1926

Benet, Wm. Rose, review of All the Bad Young Hen, ;aturdqv
Review of Literature, 1925, K0. 2, 682

Benet, Wm. Rose, review of The Last gycogg, Saturday
Review of Literature, 1941, No. 24, 10

Benet, Jm. Rose, "An Admirsble Revel," Saturday Review
of Literature, 1925, E0. 1, 739~74O

Berrymsn, John, "F. Scott FitZ3ereld," Kenyon Review,
1946, NO. VIII’ 103-112

Sishoe, John Peale, "Kissing All: youn3er 3enerstion,"
Virginia Quarterlefieview, 1937, Lo. 13, 107~121

BishOp, John Peale, "Hours: poem," Kev Regublic, 1941,
2‘60} 104 ’ 312-313

l‘oyd. Ernest, Portraits, Real and Imaginerjz, New York,
Dorsn 00., 1924

Eromfield, Louis, new Yorker section, Booknun, 1925,
1:0 0 61’ 685

Cargill, Oscar, Intellectual America, Lew York, Iecnillen,
1941

95

Bottles:

sfiiton

., Irene, and Cle .eton, Allen, 30029 e
e, 1920-1930, Loston, heed.

Cleet.r
Jimeri can LitGI-‘Li‘ Lil—r
Jifflin 00.,11937

Cowley, Falcole, Cnile's Return, H w York,

934 '

if .128" O EOI‘tOH "

C sley, ielcoln, ifter Z':e Centeel Treii ion: iznericsn
grits rs Since 1915, lee York, 3.6. lortcn, 1937
Cowley, Lelcoln,” reeldoxn, Lew Republig, 1934, Lo. 79.
105
,Eslcolm, "Cf Clocks & Calendars,
1941, KO. 104, 375*377
Colle'e

Cow ley , Felecia, "Generation That Hasn't Lost," o . ‘
Mn 113 on, 1994, E0, 5, 233-239 ‘ l.
Epilogue," Efew Yorker,

Co.»r leg; list-r Elf-33:11:19,

owley, Ealcolm, "Third.ict e
1945' K03‘213‘53‘54
Deiches, David, The Eovel and the Vedern Terld, Chicago,

U.iv. of Chics3o Ereee, 1939

the Press,” 393 Rep sblic,

 

Dos issues, John, "Fit23erald and
1941. £05 104. 213

Dos Zeseos, John, "A note on Fit23era1d," in fine Crech-ug
by F. ‘cott Fit33ereld ‘

Drew, 3. 3.. Epd ern Love ;, fies York, fiercourt, Brace, 1926
Inhier, WGllSP' "Fe SCOtt Fitsgereld
Chimera, 1945, E0. IV, 48-55

V-..‘ .‘

and the Future

A

John, revi w of The Veéetetle, Bookegg, 1923,
1:00 53: 57

Firkins, Ins I..E., lnder to Short Stories, second supple-
sent, new YorL, h. 5. e’ilson, 1935. :or a full list
of Fitsgersld's magazine publications I refer woe to

t1 £18 source.
Fit33erild, F. Scott, T3118 Side of eredl

Groseot e nuslse, 1920
_;hiloso:hers, New Yo n, Cree:

9, Ken York,

at

9
3d
*3
(a
.Q

Fit33ersld, 31
e Dunlap, lyao

Fitzgerald, Line 3' "*“tif‘zl one ‘Terreal, lies-r York, scrilmer‘s,

1922
cribrer' s,

-it""erel u, 10103 of the Jazz Age, Lew Kerk,

193

 

96

Fitzgere 1d, The ve"°t“b-o, Lew York, Jcrilner‘s, 1923

Fitzgergld, The Greet Go.tsb1, Lew l'er1:;crienor 8, 19? 35.
since both this ne.el and Ienle : the Hi3nt are
most easily obtained in t} e Vi: n3 .orteble edition,
that is the one I have need for footnote references.

*9

7. -r..
A I»
f

Fitzgerald, :11 he Eed fiern1?.3%en, flew York: Scribner'st
19:3

ritesereld, Tone er Is the: ir;1t, Lew YorL, Scrioner' s, 193#
Fitzgerald, Tens At Revel 9, E69 York, ScriLner' e, 193
Fitzgerald, ghe Creek-up, Eew KerL, flew Directions, 1945

Fitzgerald, The Portable F. Scott .lt~<eroln, Dorotry
Lerker, ed., Lew york, Viking iree as, 1945

U

Fitxjereld The Lest T coon, Edmund Wilson, 9d,, flew York,
ecribner's, 1937

Genes, Christian, "Edmund Eileen, the Campus and the
Easeau 'Lit. ‘," Princeton University Library Chron-
icle, 1944, No. v, Iii-50

Seiemnr, M KWBll, Last of Jtze Iroxincinle, Boo ten, {1.0n33ton,
:ifflin, 1947

Gurro, Leo & Zorro, \iriem,” The Essence of .. Scott
Fitz;: goreld," 1944,_golle3e English, 1944, E0. V,
372-3 76

Betcher, E. 3., Cr etin the :odern teerican Zfovel, Raw
l'erk, Barre. r 8. nine: art, 1953

fieflin3-, .Ielen, lnzlex to Contemnorery Biographx. Boston.
billion 30.. 1.9 )4

fiewerd, Sidney, "Flowers that Bloom in the Spring,"
Looknen, 1921, Ho. 53, 116

Jackson, Unerlee, "F. Scott Fitzgerald, frorn the he Wrt,
Leturdev Review of literature, 1945. Lo. 23, 9-10

Kezin, Alfred, Cn Ietive Grounds, Lew York, a ynel a
liitcncocL, 1942

unite, Stanley J. ed. 1.1 vii-:51; “cut ore, Lea-r lforlz,' :2. 1:5.

 

XLmitz, Stanley 3., e Eiaycraft, fiewerd, :yenti eth Gent rv
.Authore, flew XorL, fl. 5. Jileon, 1942

 

 

 

Lewisohn, Ludwig, 333Pesaion In America, Eow York, Haryer,

1932

Lippman, Walter, A Prefaceito Tqralg, E33 york, fiacnillfin.
1929

Littell, Ro‘ cert, revi aw of_1;e :oautifulfanfi Damne1, Egg
:‘9 31112713, 1922, 310. jg, 31+?)

ownins, Vernon. I flear AmsrlCa: Literature Since 1900,

Raw Eorl, Crowell 00.. 1937

Earshall, E.."Eotea by tho way." Nation, 1941, Lo. lfiei '
159 ' *

3:,rry. 3.. gLove Among the Ruins,“ 131 Ragublig, 1945. j

 

 

iichaud, 30313, Le Roman Americaln.d'3uj0ur&5hQ;1 Parla.
Eoivin, 1927

Rillett, Fred E., C tempo org American Authors, Eew York,
Harcourt, Brace. 1949

Eizor er, Arthur, "Acott ¢itz"cra1d and the IPA Tjinative
2053953102 of American L1fe,”wianoe Review. 1946.
54. 66-86 -
Uizener. Arthur, "F. fiestt FitZfiGPfild, the Eoet of
Esrrowed Time." in lives of Einhteen from Frinceton,
Willard T11orp ' ad.. rrincaton, rrinceton Univ. 1ross,

1946

C‘zener, Arthur, “A 120ta on ‘The £0rld'5 Fair'". Henven
Review. 19%. 1:20. A:

1' .

Eorris, Lloyd 3., fostscrigt to Yesterday, E51 1ork, i
Rando.n h011se, 9 7

Suns on Mor1am , "Gar Iost~fiar Eovel," T1: 2:.3n, 1931,

:5. 74, 141-144

~~~—~:~~, Jazz A39 Fr0;1het, Still lwvow 11115 Aide of
GatPQQS, 1ewrveex, 1945, E0. 26. 76

' ~' 'I a H w . Hr . " I
G’hara, Jo1n c Achulberg, Budd, ur.. "In “emery of QCOtt :
11133911 d," 191 u.«1111c, 1941, E0. 31v, 311-312 :

 

rarrifimton, ". L.. Eain C11rrents in American The pit.
101R; 5 c~PCOurt, ”Files, 1927

-hilllps. H. A.. "In Defense of 0 ar Literary Anvztrcateg,
Sooknan,1927, E0. 65, 412-415

93

"Dealer in Diamonds A Rhinestones,
l

E UGPS. J. F

W831, 1,4

0.

L2

AouenTeld, 1AA , Hen

*3

: TL- enty-Fou' fislern Authors.

80?
qfir\

 

fl

3035, A an, "Rumble An.0ng the Drums,"

Larissa, December,

19'+3’ 421’435

Jclmneider, Isidor, "A Battern of Failure," Lew ”Assqg,
93‘5, KO. LVII. 23*24

 

Jeldas, Gilbert. review of The Great Gatsfix, Vial. 1:25.
LO . LZCZII;, 162-1525

J:1Au, Charles, The LOHruz33Ln, Re.v York, Holt. 19

R)
U)

 

 

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I.

 

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fr}, 3
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