F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Life in His Work The Great Gatsby
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Life in His Work The Great Gatsby
Thesis Statement: Fitzgeralds life shows through in all aspects of his work, such is the case in The Great Gatsby. He uses his life to create people and places through out the book.
I. James Gats- Jay Gatsby
A. Fitsgerald
B. Edward Fuller
C. Robert Kerr
1. Edwin Gilman-Dan Cody
2. Nellie Bly-Ella Kaye
D. Max Gerlach
E. Herbert Bayard Swope
II. Daisy Fay Buchanon
A. Ginevre King
B. Zelda Sayre
III. Meyer Wolfsheim
A. Arnold Rothstein
IV. Tom Buchanon
A. Charles King
B. William Mitchell
C. Tommy Hitchcock
V. Jordan Baker
A. Edith Cummings
Fitzgerald’s life shows through in all of his work, such is the case in The Great Gatsby.
He uses his life to create people and places. Fitzgerald used his own experiences for this novel; he spent time on Great Neck, Long Island in 1923. There he met some of the sketchier people from New York. He met everyone from bootleggers to hit men, he met Arnold Rothstein the man who allegedly fixed the world’s series in 1919.
Fitzgerald used many different real life people to build up his characters James Gats and Jay Gatsby for his book. He used his own life as a model for James Gats both of their fathers were failures. They vowed early in life to be successful and prosperous (A+E Biography).
Fitzgerald used not only himself but also people he met and some he knew. His Great Neck neighbor and friend Robert Kerri shared stories of his boyhood. Which later became part of Jay GATT’s life story. Bob Kerri when he was 15, he boated out to a Major Edwin Glimmer’s yacht in Shapes Head Bay, He told him that the tides would break up his yacht. Major Gilman then gave Kerr a job for 3 years. These years were the last three of his life. Gilman was then a model for Dan Cody. He had a mistress named Ella Kaye she was modeled after Nellie Bly who were both newspaper reporters, it was whispered that she had “helped” in the death of Major Gilman (Tate 95).
Another Great Neck neighbor who became a model was one of New York’s shadier people, Edward Fuller who was a bond bucketer like Jay Gatsby. There was the same friendship between Gatsby and Wolfsheim that existed with Rothstein and Fuller (Lehan Limits 55).
Fitzgerald even used real life people’s personalities and speech. In The Great Gatsby he used Max Gerlach as Gatsby, Gerlach was a rich bootlegger from Great Neck. In a letter to Fitzgerald...