Greater Than Gatsby: The Struggles and Travails of F. Scott Fitzgerald

Question

Jared Levy 2023

Childhood, Education, and Early Writing
Frances Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896, in St. Paul, Minnesota, to a middle-class Catholic family. His father was a well-to-do businessman, and his mother was the daughter of Irish immigrants who became wealthy grocers. Fitzgerald also had one surviving sister, Annabel, who was born in 1901. There were two other sisters who died, one before he was born, and as to the other, according to an entry in his journal dated January 1900, “His mother presented him with a sister who lived only an hour.”

Growing up, Fitzgerald showed an early love for literature. He was an avid reader and later in his life, he recalled the large impression made on him by his father reading him Arabian Nights and The Odyssey. He attended St. Paul Academy, a prestigious local prep school, where he excelled academically and displayed a talent for writing. Fitzgerald wrote for the school newspaper and published his first piece of fiction at the age of 13. And he began to dream of attending Princeton University.

“Fitzgerald desperately wanted to get into Princeton,” says biographer A. Scott Berg. “It represented the East, the Establishment, it was really a kind of social pinnacle. I think Fitzgerald very much wanted to belong to that.”

In 1913, Fitzgerald enrolled at Princeton University, the place he dubbed “the pleasantest country club in America.” There, he continued to advance his writing skills and pursue his literary ambitions. He wrote for the Princeton Triangle Club, the Princeton Tiger, and the Nassau Lit. However, as a student, Fitzgerald was more interested in writing than in his studies. He earned some of the worst grades in his class. A classmate of his wrote about Fitzgerald, “I spoke to a professor… [who] looked at me and said firmly, ‘He spells very badly.’” This could be one of the reasons why he decided to drop out during his junior year of college and join the army. By the time he dropped out of school, Fitzgerald had flunked trigonometry, geometry, algebra, and chemistry.

“Even after Fitzgerald left this school, he never quite got over being a Princeton undergraduate,” says Berg. “And I think the way he felt robbed of his birthright, in a way… the dream bumped into reality, and he realizes in some ways how pointless or how hollow the dream was.”

As a young man, Fitzgerald…

wanted to have a higher social status.

earned a reputation as a good student.

struggled to find opportunities to write.

felt smarter than his peers and professors.

Answer 1

As a young man, Fitzgerald wanted to have a higher social status. His desire to attend Princeton University and his perception of it as a social pinnacle highlight his aspirations for acceptance among the elite. This desire influenced many of his life's decisions and goals, shaping his literary voice and themes.