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Zelda Fitzgerald's Treatment Of Women In The Great Gatsby

656 Words3 Pages

Fitzgerald used positive characteristics from his wife, Zelda Fitzgerald, and negative characteristics from his first love, Ginevra King, as stimuli for the character of Daisy. His blend of the two women lead Daisy to be portrayed as a man’s ultimate downfall, much like Fitzgerald felt these two women were for him. Fitzgerald describes King as “the first girl I ever loved and I have faithfully avoided seeing her up to this moment to keep this illusion perfect” (Mangum). Fitzgerald’s wish to keep his fantasy in perfect condition correlates to Gatsby’s wish to immortalize Daisy in the goddess-like position his mind created for her. Fitzgerald shows similar emotions through the character of Gatsby when he says, “There must have been moments …show more content…

Fitzgerald, likewise, had problems with distinguishing between the two, leading him to falsely equate wealth to love in both his affair with Ginevra King and his marriage to Zelda Fitzgerald. Before Zelda and F. Scott were married, Zelda broke off the engagement due to Fitzgerald’s financial instability. Fitzgerald successfully won her back with the success of his first novel, This Side Of Paradise (Banach). In doing so, Fitzgerald shows that he, too, is wealth-obsessed, as he associates his wife’s love and his eternal happiness with his financial success. In The Great Gatsby, prosperity is frequently linked with happiness. As Banach explains, “Fitzgerald’s own lifelong pursuit of wealth and fame suggests that he found [it] persuasive” (19). Since Fitzgerald was so interested in this idea, he used it as the main goal for his female characters. Materialism, class movement, and the necessity of economic prosperity were all deemed imperative personality traits in Fitzgerald’s novel. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s real life connections to his text display his opinions on a woman’s behavior altered by the corrupt society she lived in, whether it be by an elite carelessness, class refusal, or blatant materialism. The Great Gatsby showcases women as greedy, selfish, and unhappy, a reflection of the women in Fitzgerald’s life. Fitzgerald’s courage

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1756 Words | 8 Pages

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1909 Words | 8 Pages

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