“ONCE AGAIN TO ZELDA,” is printed on the first page of The Great Gatsby. F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote this novel for his one true love and ended up writing about her and their relationship. The characters and themes in The Great Gatsby reflect the life of F. Scott Fitzgerald.
A continuous theme through The Great Gatsby is the chase after an impossible dream. When Fitzgerald originally proposed to Zelda, she declined his proposal because he wasn’t wealthy or famous enough for her. Scott then put copious amounts of work writing and publishing his novel, This Side of Paradise and when it was finally published, she agreed to marry him because he was beginning to gain the success she wanted. Gatsby did the same for Daisy Buchanan. He spent almost his
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Just as Gatsby died without fully achieving the American Dream (he gave it up for Daisy, as seen in the -), Fitzgerald died without achieving the amount of success he desired. He was famous and (despite losing some of his wealth over the years) could still be considered rich, but he was never successful in his own eyes. This was partially due to the fact that he wasn’t considered as influential of a writer during his time period, and he is only now considered one of the greatest American novelists. Another intriguing parallel between Fitzgerald’s death and Gatsby’s were their funerals. F. Scott Fitzgerald had alienated himself in final years and did not have many friends attend his funeral. Perhaps the most important missing guest was his own wife; Zelda Fitzgerald had become too ill to go to her own husband’s funeral.
The way Fitzgerald writes about his own life greatly impacts the quality of his writing. Because he could relate to the characters and themes in The Great Gatsby, he was able to create a more powerful and relatable novel. The emotions and motives of the characters are more believable and have a level of depth that is hard to achieve in writing. The way the novel reflects Fitzgerald’s life has made it into one of the most praised and loved novels of all