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How Fitzgerald’s Life Influenced the Novel
In the novel The Great Gatsby there are similarities between Fitzgerald’s life and Gatsby’s. Gatsby’s life revolves around Fitzgerald’s real life experiences. Their motivation to do well in life and become wealthy both comes from their desire to please the women that they love and live the American dream of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Fitzgerald and Gatsby sacrificed their moral values, their integrity and their honesty to create a perfect life that is accepted by society and the women they love.
Francis Scott Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul Minnesota on September 24, 1986. Growing up he was very intelligent but he didn’t do that well in school. Although he struggled he enrolled in Princeton in 1913 but never graduated. He enrolled in the army in 1917 during World War I. While he was stationed at camp Sheridan in Montgomery, Alabama, he met seventeen-year old Zelda Sayre who he soon fell in love with. Zelda was wild and like to party (much like the people who went to Gatsby’s party’s) and she wanted Fitzgerald to be rich and live a high-class society life. She would not even marry Fitzgerald until he published his book and it was successful. She had the same desire, to be wealthy and of a higher class than everyone else, as daisy. She wanted that sense of financial security and the happiness that comes from it. Of course, Fitzgerald did this so he could be with her even though it meant sacrificing his morals.
In his novel The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald uses Gatsby as a symbol of himself. Like Fitzgerald, Gatsby grew up poor and wanted to do more in his life. He always had high hopes of becoming rich and being better than he was. These dreams were hard to reach but Gatsby was determined after he met Dan Cody, who got him thinking about the business of selling alcohol. Gatsby went to college in Minnesota at St. Olaf. He went for two weeks and then dropped out. He then joined the...