The Great Gatsby: Scott Fitzgerald

Shyam Patel, Heidi Duarte, Rachel Sellars

Mr. Pyon

English 3

29 September 2011

F. Scott Fitzgerald

F. Scott Fitzgerald, Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald, was born September 24, 1896 in St. Paul, Minnesota. Born to a Catholic couple, father Edward and mother Mary McQuillan. The mother was the daughter of an Irish immigrant who became a wealthy wholesale grocer. And his Father was from Maryland, but had an allegiance with the South and its values. His parents gave Fitzgerald his name to show the pride in his father’s ancestry. When Fitzgerald was younger

his father took their family to New York to become a salesman for Procter & Gamble, and before Fitzgerald was twelve their family moved back to St. Paul. When he was thirteen his first published story appeared in a school newspaper, it was a detective story. In 1911, Fitzgerald attended Newman School, a Catholic school in New Jersey, where he met the man who encouraged him to be who he wanted to be, and keep writing. Scott Fitzgerald attended St. Paul Academy from 1908 to 1910. From 1911 to 1913 he attended Newman School; because of his enthusiasm he was unpopular. Later he attended Princeton University in Princeton he became really close to coming a brilliant student of which he dreamed of. He became a person that people looked up to in college. In college he became really good friends with Edmund Wilson and John Peale. Even though he had a good social life at Princeton he dropped out and joined the army in November 1917. Fitzgerald’s life changing point was in 1918 when he met Zelda Sayre. In 1920 they got married and later had their first child. Fitzgerald’s literature work is mostly descriptions of his relationship with his wife Zelda. Their romance was even published in a small series in a local newspaper called the Scribner’s and the Saturday Evening Post. Along with his small love writings, Fitzgerald, has had some luck, his novel The Romantic Egoist was rejected three times before being published in 1920 as This Side of Paradise. His next major work was a small collection of stories Flappers and Philosophers added to his already enormous wealth. Fitzgerald’s third hit was his novel The Beautiful and The Damned; which was later made into a movie. One of Fitzgerald’s greatest short stories is his The Diamond as Big as The Ritz. This caused him to gain much fortune along with an alcoholic effect on his mind and health. Fitzgerald‘s last healthy writing was his greatest hit The Great Gatsby published in 1925. The book The Great Gatsby is about a man named Jordan who goes to France and meets the Gatsby. And he loses the relationship with his wife along with two of his friends. Following this was his literature works that reflected his failing marriage and a rotting brain, some of which include The Last Belle published in 1929, Trouble in 1937 and many more. Fitzgerald’s death was a very sad one. Once he came back to America he had an affair with a local writer his marriage failed the cause of his death was the result of two heart attacks on resulting in him recovering the second he died from at the home of his lover.