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American Dream In The Great Gatsby

Decent Essays

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s life shows the true meaning of the American Dream in the novel The Great Gatsby. F. Scott Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896, in Saint Paul Minnesota. He was named Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald after his distant cousin Francis Scott Key who wrote the Star Spangled Banner. Being named after a famous American would foreshadow his life becoming a true representation of what it means to be patriotic, and live in the American Dream, especially in the 1920’s. His life would later be said to be “strongly patriotic, though not the flag-waving patriotic”(Bruccoli.) F. Scott found his passion for writing when he was in high school and had begun writing for his high school newspaper. His love for writing and learning helped him to achieve …show more content…

At the age of 26, after his son had been born, F. Scott found himself in a lot of debt so he began writing again. He had told his editor, Maxwell Perkins, “I want to write something new— something extraordinary and beautiful and simple and incredibly patterned”(Baker.) What he wrote would later become his most famous work and an American classic, The Great Gatsby. The Great Gatsby was publishes on April 10, 1925. It was a symbolic love story with a twisted plot that “develops slowly toward a violently dramatic incident and an ironical conclusion”("The Great Gatsby”.) The novel was complimented on its “directness and simplicity”and technique of “slowly and enigmatically creating the character of Gatsby”("The Great Gatsby”.) The novel became a success because of its interesting point of view and brilliant characterizations,”its individual scenes and its dialogue as in its general effects”("The Great Gatsby”.) Gatsby was seen as a “classic novel of ambition and self destruction”(Daisley.) As the fame of The Great Gatsby started to grow Fitzgerald was rapidly “nearing the peak of his fame and

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