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FRANCIS SCOTT FITZGERALD (1896-1940) - Coggle Diagram
FRANCIS SCOTT FITZGERALD (1896-1940)
LIFE
Born in Minnesota
he studied in a Catholic boarding school in New Jersey and then at Princeton
he joined the army in 1917 during the WWI
1920 he married Zelda Sayre and they led an expensive life
After some time in Europe he came back to the States where he started to write film scripts to pay his debts
he was an alcoholic and his wife suffered from mental instability
1940 died of a heart attack
WORKS
1920
This Side of Paradise
a picture of the lifestyle of young people in the Twenties
sense of loss and emptiness behind the cult of money and materialism
1922
Tales of the Jazz age
The Beautiful and Damned
corruption and loss of ideals of the Lost Generation
1925
The Great Gatsby
decline of his popularity
1934
Tender is the night
the failure of the dreams and ideals of the Twenties
cooly received because of the changing of tastes owing to the Great Depression
1939
he began the novel
The last tycoon
but didn't finish it
The Great Gatsby
PLOT
Summer of 1922 in New York and Long Island, in the fictional area of West Egg and East Egg.
Nick Carraway
, a young stockbroker, has just moved in West Egg, a rich but unfashionable area. His neighbour is
Jay Gatsby
, a mysterious man who gives fabulous parties in his mansion.
Nick's cousin,
Daisy
and her husband
Tom Buchanan
introduce Nick to
Jordan Baker
, a cynical woman who begins a relationship with Nick
a play on 2 popular car brands:
Jordan
Motor Car company and
Baker
Motor Vehicle
Jordan tells Nick that Tom has a mistress,
Myrtle Wilson
. Nick receives an invitation to one of Gatsby's parties and they become friends. Nick discovers that his real name was James
Gatz
, he comes from a humble family and made every effort to rise above poverty. He had a relationship with Daisy, but when he was in Europe during the war, Daisy married Tom. After having made a fortune illegally, he rented a house near Daisy's house.
Thanks to Nick, Daisy and Jay meet again and begin an affair. One day, they all go together to Manhattan, but after a fight with her husband she drives back with Gatsby and accidentally runs Tom's mistress, who dies.When Tom finds out that Gatsby's car killed Myrtle, he shoots him in his pool.
Daisy reconciles with her husband while Nick arranges Gatsby's funeral, but nobody comes. Nick ends his relationship with Jordan and moves back to the Midwest, feeling that the American dream of happiness and invidualism is over as well as Gatsby's dream of Daisy was corrupted by dishonesty.
funeral:
'So we beat on, boat against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past'
CHARACTERS
JAY GATSBY
a romantic hero who dies for his dream
a self-made man finally destroyed
the expression of the American dream corrupted by materialism
NICK CARRAWAY
the only one to show a sense of moral and decency
an outsider as Fitzgerald felt to be
expression of the contrast between the West and the East and of the fondness for the West, ideally more moral
TOM BUCHANAN
unfaithful, arrogant, aggressive
DAISY
moody and impulsive, she is the object of desire
FILM VERSION
The Great Gatsby
(2013) a 3-d film by Baz Luhrmann with Leonardo DiCaprio, Carey Mulligan and Tobey Maguire
STYLE
Nick as retrospective narrator
fragmentation of time, frequent flashbacks
language as blend of realism and symbolism, frequently appealing to senses (colours, repetitions..)
SYMBOLIC IMAGES
CAR
the destructive power of modern society
THE VALLEY OF ASHES (land full of rubbish)
the spiritual sterility counterpart of the modern metropolis
GATSBY'S HOUSE
luck and success (when full), melancholy and loneliness (when empty)
THE GREEN LIGHT
at the end of Daisy's dock, symbol of Hopes and dreams, but also of the American dream
BLINDNESS
the characters, except for Nick, don't wish to see and seek out blindness in the form of drunkeness or careless driving