Fitzgerald offering commentary on his own lifestyle???
We've spent a lot of time in the last two weeks talking about the writing of Fitzgerald, specifically The Diamond as Big as the Ritz and The Great Gatsby. What I found interesting was that in both stories, Fitzgerald criticizes the lifestyle he is a part of.
After reading the literary criticism of The Great Gatsby through a feminist sense, it was evident that Fitzgerald had written all his females so that they would be disliked for there new women persona. Daisy was written as a character who is inhumane as she leaves Gatsby for the aristocracy and drives off after killing myrtle. Myrtle is overly sexualized, and Jordan is a compulsive liar. All of Fitzgerald's New Women characters were written with no redeeming qualities; however, this is ironic as he deemed his wife, Zelda, the first flapper. Both in a Diamond as Big as the Ritz and in The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald tries to demonstrate that a materialistic mindset leads to corruption. Fitz-Norman Culpepper Washington killed his own brother because his brother was a threat to his wealth. The Washingtons keep inviting guests just to kill them at the end of there stays, and they don't even seem to feel guilty about it. In addition, Fitzgerald criticized the new party-oriented lifestyle of the 20s. He comments on how, at these parties, you see meaningless interaction and unnecessary crannied. What's interesting, though, is that Fitzgerald himself was a part of this materialism based party lifestyle. He and his wife were famous being "The most notorious literary party animals" in New York during the 1920s. Knowing how Fitzgerald lived his life, I found it interesting how he wrote his character to resemble him and his lifestyle and use them to set an example that should not be followed.
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| This Picture came from a Pinterest post that was titled "The most notorious Literary Party animals". More on that later. |
After reading the literary criticism of The Great Gatsby through a feminist sense, it was evident that Fitzgerald had written all his females so that they would be disliked for there new women persona. Daisy was written as a character who is inhumane as she leaves Gatsby for the aristocracy and drives off after killing myrtle. Myrtle is overly sexualized, and Jordan is a compulsive liar. All of Fitzgerald's New Women characters were written with no redeeming qualities; however, this is ironic as he deemed his wife, Zelda, the first flapper. Both in a Diamond as Big as the Ritz and in The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald tries to demonstrate that a materialistic mindset leads to corruption. Fitz-Norman Culpepper Washington killed his own brother because his brother was a threat to his wealth. The Washingtons keep inviting guests just to kill them at the end of there stays, and they don't even seem to feel guilty about it. In addition, Fitzgerald criticized the new party-oriented lifestyle of the 20s. He comments on how, at these parties, you see meaningless interaction and unnecessary crannied. What's interesting, though, is that Fitzgerald himself was a part of this materialism based party lifestyle. He and his wife were famous being "The most notorious literary party animals" in New York during the 1920s. Knowing how Fitzgerald lived his life, I found it interesting how he wrote his character to resemble him and his lifestyle and use them to set an example that should not be followed.
I do agree in the sense that many of Fitzgerald's morals are contradictory to the ones he writes about in his works. He always had financial troubles due to his lavish lifestyle being too big for his writing to support him, as well as that other quote on the classroom wall contradicting Fitzgerald's views of non-whites.
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