Francis Scott Fitzgerald

The life of Francis Scott Fitzgerald is a tragic example of the two sides of the American Dream: the joys of love, wealth, and success, and the tragedy intertwined with excess and failure. Born in 1896 in Saint Paul, Minnesota, to a Catholic and affluent family, he began writing at an early age. When the U.S. entered the war in 1917, he enlisted in the army, serving his two-year term in America, and met Zelda Sayre, who refused to marry him due to his lack of money. However, in 1920, his first novel, "This Side of Paradise," was published and became a great success; the marriage with Zelda followed immediately. As a professional writer, Fitzgerald collaborated with various magazines, a partnership that would have been profitable if not for the couple's extravagant lifestyle. Fitzgerald's second novel, "The Beautiful and the Damned," precisely describes a couple living in luxury and hedonism. Shortly after the birth of their only child, he published his greatest novel, "The Great Gatsby." The lavish lifestyle, constant relocations (traveling from city to city in Europe and residing in eight U.S. states), and the tumultuous relationship between the Fitzgeralds took a toll on both their health: Fitzgerald faced increasingly severe alcoholism, and Zelda, after several nervous breakdowns, was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia. Nevertheless, Fitzgerald managed to complete and publish his fourth novel, "Tender Is the Night," in 1934, which is rich with autobiographical elements; it is also a chronicle of failure or multiple failures. Fitzgerald died in 1940 at the age of forty-four from a heart attack. Although in his time he was mainly known as an eccentric drunkard and embodiment of the excesses and extremes that characterized the Jazz Age, the depiction of this era in his works and his undeniable talent rightfully earn him a distinguished place among modernist writers today.