The World Literary community knows many writers with a tragic fate, who left the writing stage too early without having been given a chance to realize their full potential. Talented masters of the words died of loneliness, alcoholism, constant feeling of desperation, indifference, and lack of understanding. Each case like this attracts more and more attention towards the flaws of our culture and the insensible ways our society treats people who are different in one way or another and how we waste the years of our life given to us.
At the beginning of the 20th century in between the two World Wars, one of the biggest tragedies was the death of a great American author of The Great Gatsby, Francis Scott Fitzgerald.
The Great Gatsby is Fitzgerald’s masterpiece. All of the author’s other novels have both positive and negatives sides to them. In Tender Is The Night, the reader will see more of psychological observations on human nature. The Last Tycoon was his attempt to analyze the American power-class and their reality, and it could have overshadowed The Great Gatsby but was never finished to acquire its polished form.
The book has particular traits that are unique and extraordinary. Despite the tragic events portrayed, the text radiates the untamed desire to celebrate life, and infinite confidence in one’s abilities which is so typical of young Fitzgerald ‘s personality. The book was written early enough in the times when the author still hadn’t allowed the bitterness and coldness of life get through to his writing. It screams triumph, festivity, and celebration in every sentence and every character.
Fitzgerald started his career with publishing a novel about American student life in 1920 titled This Side of Paradise. It instantly made him popular and wealthy. He went from being an unknown provincial person who thought he could write as a well-situated man to one who lived in one of the most expensive New York hotels. He and his wife literally lost count of the money they had and the young couple lived life fast, occasionally making the front pages of the newspapers.
It seems like a fairy tale, yet it is a real story. Don’t get it wrong. The Great Gatsby author was really a talented and bright man. Moreover, he fiercely believed in himself and was optimistic about his prospects from the very beginning. After the success of his first book, Francis started writing short stories for magazines. It paid well and made him even more popular, but many of the well-known and respected literary minds of that time advised him against “selling his soul and stripping his talent” for the shallow and overly popular publications, particularly The Saturday Evening Post. A famous American novelist, Charles Norris, warned the writer that the magazines would strip him to the buff, then throw away and forget his name the next day.
Some critics still agree that this is exactly what happened to the great author. When he published his The Beautiful and Damned in 1922, it was still radiating with optimism and glory, yet the tone of the text demonstrated some worries about the fate of those he praised for being beautiful and damned.
His most known book that later turned into an even more popular movie, The Great Gatsby was written in France in 1925. In this book he reveals himself as a painter who votes against the capitalistic tendencies in the society, separating himself and his ideals from esthetic and moral standards of the people who surrounded him back home. Despite showing the power and depths of Fitzgerald’s talent, this creation didn’t have much commercial success in the United States. This was because the audience was expecting more of a jazz rhapsody from him, having read and got used to many of his magazine stories.
The publishing of The Great Gatsby marks the beginning of the tragedy of its author’s life. Despite partial bright sparks in his career, he becomes very unsatisfied with his talent and his mode of life. He ruins his health by turning to alcohol, scandals, and drama. The illness of his wife only worsened his mental condition. Fitzgerald died of a heart attack before his wife died and was even denied a burial at his family’s Catholic cemetery plot.