Essay on Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald and His Work

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald and His Work

By the time F. Scott Fitzgerald published The Great Gatsby in 1925, he had

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already amassed an impressive literary resume. From his first commercial

publication of the short story, “Babes in the Woods” at age 23 to “The Sensible

Thing” at age 28, Fitzgerald published fourteen short stories, one play, two

collections of short stories, and two novels. His first novel, This Side of

Paradise, made Fitzgerald a celebrity. The second, “The Beautiful and the

Damned,” was serialized in Metropolitan Magazine. Few American writers published

as many well-received short stories in the fiction market as Fitzgerald during

this time. After publication of his second short story collection in 1922, he

was recognized as the eloquent spokesperson for the Jazz Age. Among his short

stories that addressed the aspirations of the generation coming of age in the

Roaring Twenties, many continue to appear in popular, literary anthologies

today. Among these are “Bernice Bobs her Hair,” “The Diamond as Big as the

Ritz,” “The Debutante,” “Absolution,” and “Winter Dreams.” Later works by

Fitzgerald such as “Babylon Revisited” also appear frequently in modern

anthologies.

Much of his work during this early period is connected by a theme of aspiration.

Fitzgerald’s personality reflects this theme. In fact, his name carries a legacy

of past accomplishments and future expectations. Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald

was born in St. Paul, Minnesota in 1896, the namesake of his distant but

distinguished cousin who authored the National Anthem. The stature of his

namesake was brought home to him…

…e, they saw that Scott Fitzgerald was more than worthy of

burial in the Catholic cemetery his father was in” (Connor 3). Fitzgerald’s body

was moved in the1980’s to the site he had asked for in the 1940’s. Public notice

of the event was not given. The Church also added a monument and inscribed Nick

Carroway’s final sentence in The Great Gatsby: “So we beat on, boats against the

current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

Works Cited

Connor, Jason. “Biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald.”

http://acs.tamu.edu/~jtc5085/index.htm. October 17, 1996.

Works Consulted

Brucoli, Matthew J. Bruccoli. “A Brief Life of Fitzgerald.”

http://www.sc.edu/fitzgerald/biography.html. October 18, 1996.

—. “A Fitzgerald Chronology.” http://www.sc.edu/fitzgerald/chronology.html.

October 18, 1996.