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Briana Griswold
Ms. Boucher
10/16/2014
En111
Fitzgeralds Life and His Book The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald is one of Americas greatest writers. He wrote The Great Gatsby
which is characterized as one of Americas greatest novels. Elements of Fitzgeralds life such as,
education and alcoholism, are reflected in his characters in The Great Gatsby. When Andrew
Oye, a screen writer and a journalist, writes about this in his article, The Great Gatsby as
Fitzgeralds Life Mirror: A Thesis by Journalist and Hollywood screenwriter Andrew Oye he
states a quote that Arthur Mizener said in his documentary The Far Side of Paradise stating that,
Fitzgerald always wrote about himself or about people and things in which he was intimate. As
a consequence his life is inextricably bound up in his works (Mizener xvii). Nick Carraway and
Jay Gatsby are perfect examples from his book The Great Gatsby of characteristics that are
shown in his characters that are also in himself.
Nick Carraway is the narrator of the novel The Great Gatsby. He is a bonds man that
moved to West Egg, Long Island to work on Wall Street. He also wanted to work on writing for
the summer after finishing school. He is a World War I veteran, and as the story goes on with
Nick Carraway his life starts to get crazier and crazier as he starts to do things that he normally
would not have done if he were in his normal atmosphere. Nick realized that he was becoming a
drunk just like F. Scott Fitzgerald had done after moving to Hollywood. Nick Carraway grew up
in Minnesota and went to school for writing, just as Fitzgerald did. Nick Carraway comes to a

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realization in The Great Gatsby while he is watching his friend, Jay Gatsbys, life fall apart, and
you see this when he says the loneliest moment in someones life is when they are watching
their whole world fall apart, and all they can do is stare blankly (Fitzgerald). You can see
elements of this when you compare Nick Carraway to F. Scott Fitzgerald.
F. Scott Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896 in St. Paul Minnesota. On the
website encyclopedia Britannica I found an article about Fitzgeralds biography that states he
was a Minnesota raised rich boy whose parents were extremely proud of him (F. Scott
Fitzgerald). After graduating from the Newman School in 1913, Fitzgerald decided to stay in
New Jersey to continue his development for arts at Princeton University. That is where he finally
dedicated himself to writing after considering many different directions that he could go in life
(Oye). In 1917, he dropped out of school to join the U.S. Army. Fitzgerald was commissioned as
a second lieutenant in the infantry and assigned to Camp Sheridan where he met and fell in love
with Zelda Sayre. After meeting Zelda he left the army to go and try to publish a book so he
could marry her. In a biography from A&E the author finely explains how after marrying Zelda,
Fitzgerald soon became someone he wasnt and changed completely for the worse (Francis
Scott Key Fitzgerald). Fitzgeralds life became a hard one after he started to get famous for his
work, and his wife started to have problems with her mental health.
Fitzgerald, like Nick Carraway, also ended up becoming a drunk (Oye). After moving to
Hollywood he started to become more famous and began to drink more. Fitzgerald also went to
school to become a writer, and like Nick Carraway, both grew up in Minnesota. Also like Nick
Carraway, Fitzgerald moved to New York to work on writing. The only difference in Fitzgerald
and Nick Carraway moving to New York was that Fitzgerald went to New York to publish a
book that would make him rich enough to marry Zelda, and Nick Carraway moved there to get

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away and be a bonds man. In the book The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald opens the story with Nick
Carraway saying whenever you feel like criticizing anyonejust remember that all the people
in this world havent had the advantages that youve had (Fitzgerald 5). There is a connection
there because Fitzgeralds parents taught him to be honest and know humility (Oye). Fitzgerald
was a part of two worlds, the world he grew up in and the world that he came to know while
becoming a writer. Like Fitzgerald, Nick Carraway lived on the inside, reflecting deeply on life
as he lived it and he fought to resolve his inner conflict with his surroundings (Oye).
Jay Gatsby, also known as James Gatz, was a poor North Dakota boy born to a dirt poor
German American farming family in the 1890s. Gatsby did not enjoy the life of poverty. After
dropping out of college he met a man on Lake Superior named Dan Cody. Dan Cody became
Gatsbys mentor and invited him to join his ten-year yacht trek. At the age of seventeen Gatsby
had officially changed his name to Jay Gatsby and learned the ways to get wealthy from Dan
Cody. While Gatsby was training for the war he met and fell in love with Daisy Fay, who was a
southern belle. While at war Gatsby received a letter from Daisy stating that she had married
Tom Buchanan (Oye). After this event happened Gatsby dedicated his life to becoming part of
the wealthy class, trying to gain Daisys love.
When noticed by Andrew Oye, the screen writer that wrote an article on The Great
Gatsby realizes unlike Nick Carraway who is internally focused, Gatsby is externally focused.
Andrew Oye states this by saying in contrast to Nick Carraway, Gatsby lived externally,
struggling to draw joy from things outside himself, such as the physical representations of his
materialism and the people who are drawn to him for his riches (Oye). In The Great Gatsby you
could see how Gatsby was so focused internally by noticing that no one really ever knew him, or
anything that was the truth about him. To symbolize to Daisy that she gave up something

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wonderful, Gatsbys house was one of his biggest prides. His house shows a dream come true
and makes him feel like he is finally a member of the upper class society. Gatsby revalued
everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from Daisys well-loved
eyes (Fitzgerald 96-97).
Jay Gatsby also reflects the personal experiences of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Gatsby, like
Fitzgerald was a romantic who had relationships while serving in the military, made a ton of
money early in life, and they both also threw huge parties to try and impress the women they
were in love with. Andrew Oye says in his report about The Great Gatsby that Gatsby and
Fitzgerald succumbed to the decadent lifestyle, eventually losing themselves in the affection they
had for their lovers, Daisy Buchanan and Zelda Sayre (Oye) proving that Gatsby and Fitzgerald
were very much alike. Like Gatsby, Fitzgerald believed a man was judged by the company he
kept and felt the need to fit into elite circles through association (Oye). The desperate need to
gain the affections of a woman that they loved, made both Gatsby and Fitzgerald hunt down
success like hungry animals (Oye).
Life was not perfect for Fitzgerald after he achieved his dream of becoming a famous
writer and a screenwriter. Also, his marriage to Zelda was not perfect. This is brought to
perspective in a great way by Mizener when he says for a moment the delights of anticipation
remained a part of the achievement. At the same time Fitzgerald knew that fulfillment destroys
the dream (Mizener 129) just shows what it began to come too. Ironically, Gatsby and
Fitzgerald both lived lives that ended in tragic deaths, which obviously Fitzgerald did not know
would happen. When Fitzgeralds writing career began to take off he started showing his money
off in extremely tasteless ways. After dealing with drinking problems and a bad health record
that started to go downhill Fitzgerald died of a heart attack in Hollywood, CA. He was not

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placed in the chapel, but in the back room, and like Gatsbys funeral in the novel, almost no
one came to see him (Mizener 336). Fitzgerald was denied the right to be buried next to his
father because of his books, and him not being a good Catholic (Oye).
In addition to the comparisons that can be taken from Fitzgerald and Nick Carraway and
also Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby you can take the depiction of upper class life in the 1920s
is illuminated by the authors own experiences (Oye). The Great Gatsby is a novel about
ambition and excess, reflecting Fitzgeralds fascination with the Jazz Age (Oye). The novel is set
in a get rich quick decade that brought about the organization of crime, giving a little look into
Gatsbys involvement in bootlegging.
As you can see, F. Scott Fitzgerald is very much like his characters in The Great Gatsby.
He portrays his characters and gives them characteristics that he himself possessed. You can now
see the way that Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby compare to F. Scott Fitzgerald, and how similar
he was to his characters. Like Jay Gatsby, Fitzgerald had a hard time getting the girl he loved
until he became rich and impressed her. Although Gatsby did not get the girl, Fitzgerald
fortunately did and this proves to be one of the only difference from his life to the book.
Fitzgerald is also very much like Nick Carraway in so many ways it could possibly be scary.
Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby were perfect examples from his book The Great Gatsby of
characteristics that are shown in his characters that are also in himself.

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Bibliography
Fitzgerald, F S. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1995. Print.
"F. Scott Fitzgerald." Encyclopedia Britannica. Encyclopedia Britannica Online Academic
Edition. Encyclopedia Britannica Inc., 2014. Web. 23 Sep. 2014.
"Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald." Bio. A&E Television Networks, 2014. Web. 09 Oct. 2014.
Mizener, Arthur. The Far Side of Paradise: A Biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Boston:
Houghton Mifflin, 1965.
Oye, Andrew. The Great Gatsby as Fitzgeralds Life Mirror: A Thesis by Journalist +
Hollywood screenwriter Andrew Oye. Hollywood Inkslinger. Web. 09 Oct. 2014