Scott Key Fitzgerald
(1896-1940)
Francis
Scott Key Fitzgerald, one of the most outstanding
American
writers of the lost generation, was born in St. Paul,
Minnesota,
in the family of unsuccessful businessman. Yet the
money,
inherited from Fitzgerald’s grandfarther, a wealthy gro-
cer,
enabled him to attend Princeton, a university for well –
to
do
Americans. The cult of success, popular at Princeton, lies at
the
basis of Fitzgerald dual attitude to the rich. Influenced by
the spirit of competition ruling at the University, he tried
to join the most fashionable and respectable students’
clubs, enjoying their carefree, aristocratic, idle atmosphere. He
was fascinated by the independence, privileges and elegance that
money gave. Money gave style and ease and beauty. Poverty was mean,
gray and narrow. It is much later that he found out the
falseness of his belief.
Fitzgerald
left Princeton without a degree because of illness
and
poor grades. However, his literary career started at the
University. He wrote pieces for the “The Tiger”,
the university
magazine,
and contributed texts to several campus variety shows.
In
1917, he joined the army as a second lieutenant. All his
life
he regretted the fact that he spent his time in service
in American training camps and was never sent to the war in
Europe.
His
major novels appeared from 1920 to 1934: “This side of
Paradise” (1920) , “The Beautiful and Damned”
(1922) , “The Great Gatsby” (1925) and “ Tender
is the Night” (1934). Fitzgerald’s best stories have
been collected in four volumes:
“ Flappers
and Philosophers “ (1920), “Tales of Jazz Age”
(1922),
“All
the Sad Young Men” (1926) and “Taps at Reveille”
(1925).
The
main theme of almost all Fitzgerald’s fiction is the
attraction and the corrupting force of money. Once he said
to
Hemingway
, “The very rich are different from you and me”.
And when Hemingway made a remark , ”Yes, they have more
money “, he did not understand the joke. He thought
that they were a special glamorous race and only gradually,
moving from one painful revelation to another, as his work
progressed, he found out their corruption, inhumanity,
spiritual emptiness and futility. He found it out together
with his heroes who are largely autobiographical.
Fitzgerald
is the first American author to portray the lost generation,
a generation, for whom “all the battles have been
fought“
and “all the gods were dead”. The young generation has
no
ideals to uphold against the corruption of the rich. They
are empty people afraid of poverty and idolizing richness,
trying to fill their spiritual void with all kinds of wild
entertainments.
”The
Great Gatsby”
Fitzgerald’s
best work “The Great Gatsby” tells the life
story of Jay Gatsby, the son of poor farmer, who falls in
love with a rich and beautiful girl Daisy Fay who answers
his love while his uniform conceals for a time his poverty.
When the war is over, she marries the rich and elegant Tom
Buchanan. Gatsby devotes his whole life to obtaining money
and social position to make himself worthy of Daisy, though
the only road open to him is bootlegging and dealing in
dubious stocks.
When
later he meets Daisy again, she is impressed by rumours of
his incredibly large fortune, his mysterious origin, his rich
mansion and his gorgeous and fashionable parties and makes him
believe she would leave Tom. Yet once , driving Jay back from
New –York to Long Island in his car, she runs over
and kills Myrtle Wilson, her husband’s vulgar mistress.
Myrtle’s husband, whom Tom has persuaded that Gatsby was
driving the car, follows Jay and shoots him. Daisy, having
learned about Gatsby’s dubious source of income, deserts
him even before his death, notwithstan-
ding
the fact that Gatsby gallantly takes the blame of Myrtle’s
death upon himself.
Gatsby’s
fanatic attempt to reach his dreams is contrasted to the
disillusioned drifting life of the cynical members of upper
society who do not know what to do “this afternoon,
the day after that and the next thirty years ” , and
whose existence with wild parties and vulgar merriment is
compared to the terrible grey “ valley of ashes ”
with the sordid eyes of an oculist’s advertising sign
watching the gaudy show. Fitzgerald stresses that Gatsby’s
romantic dreams of the vast possibilities for happiness on “
the fresh green breast of the New World ” no longer
correspond to reality .
The
device of the intelligent and sympathetic observer at the
center of the novel allowed the author gradually to expose
the moral corruption behind the false structure of upper of
Gatsby class respectability and splendour, at the same time
the stature of Gatsby gradually growing and achieving almost
poetic elevation. Satire in the portrayal of the empty
pleasures of the rich is combined with lyrical atmosphere
enveloping Gatsby’s romantic dream.
Thus,
if Dreiser was the scientist dissecting vast cross- sections
of American society with his social observations, Fitzgerald
was the chronicler of its moral atmosphere.
Key
Fitzgerald
(1896-1940)
Lebedev
Slava
11 form
Theodore
Dreiser (1871-1945)
Theodore
Dreiser was an old man
of America. It was in July 1945. His whole life had been a
preparation for that step and a hard life it had been, too
!
He
was born in the family of a strict Catholic, narrow --
minded and despotic. It was because of his farther that he
hated religion to the end of his days. His parents were not
rich. When 16 years of age, he left home to earn his
living in Chicago, which at that time was growing into a
big city. All seemed wonderful to the young lad. He managed
to get a job, but it paid only five dollars a week, besides
it was not what he wanted. He was eager to study. At last
he was admitted to the University. Yet a year later he
left it because of financial difficulties. It was in those
days that he began
to
write for newspapers. But it was not so easy to become a
newsman. He had to call at the offices many times before he
got some work .
In
1900 his first novel “ Sister Carrie ” appeared
and was immediately withdrawn from print by the publisher. The
author was severly attacked by critics. The novel was
pronounced “immoral”.
Dreiser
could not long get over the failure of his first literary
attempt. Only after a lapse of nearly 10 years in 1911 he
published his “ Jennie Gerhardt ” , also the
life story of girl. This book likewise received a hostile
reception due to alleged immorality. Dreiser was boycotted by
publishers.
Three
of his works , ” The Financier “ (1912), “
The Titan ” (1914) and “ The Stoic ” ( which
was published only after the wri ters death in 1947 ), give
the whole life story of an American
capitalist,
showing the ways in which the wealth of big capitalists is
made. “ The Genius ” (1915) tells of the fate of
an artist in the bourgeois world.
He
described his visit to the USSR in “ Dreiser Looks at
Russia ” (1928) .
Besides
the works mentioned above, Dreiser also published several
collections of short stories.
Dreiser
literary work occupies an important place in American
critical realism. His novels and short stories give a true
picture of American society and its influence upon the life
of the people.
“ The
Financier ”, “ The Titan ” , and “ The
Stoic ” compose “ The Trilogy of Desire ” .
Its purpose was to show the ways and practices of American
big business at the turn of the 20-th century .
Frank
Cowperwood - a chief character of all the three
novels
is a representative of a big business. “ The Financier
” gives a broad panorama of American social life.
Cowperwood begins his career by titling against the ruling
clique in Philadelphia. He suffers a defeat and is thrust
into jail. Having served his term he continues his struggle
and using a chance becomes a millionaire again, goes to
Chicago and looks for a greater field of financial activity.
There is no problem of moral or conscience for him when
there is a chance to get money.
“ The
Titan ” portrays Cowperwood as a businessman with a
perfect knowledge of all ins and outs of financial world. He
artfully bribes all high officials and becomes owner of the
Chicago tramway. Cowperwood rolls in wealth but his appetites
are insatiate.
Cowperwood
s life story is brought to an end in the third part of the
trilogy - “ The Stoic ” . The novel remained
unfinished. The action is laid in London where Cowperwood
is
engaged in the construction of a subway. Here he is
different: in the previous
two
novels the writer sympathized with his hero, portraying him
as a man of wide - ranging enterprise. In the “ Stoic ”,
Cowperwood is a typical shark of capitalism. He is an
unprincipled in business dealings as he is immoral in love
affaires. In the last years of his life the bitter truth
grows upon him that the chase for money and big business to
which he has devoted all his life are empty things. His
disillusion in life soon brings him to death.
“ An
American Tragedy ” is Dreiser”s masterpiece. It
marks a new step in Dreiser”s work.
The
novel speaks of the fate of a common American, Clyde
Griffiths. His parent”s are failures in life and make
their living in the streets of Kansas City, singing psalms.
Clyde is tormented by the poverty and his fantasy is set
astir by the luxury. Sincerely believing that wealth alone
makes people happy he determines to pave his way to fortune.
He detests hard work, prefers to make money in an easy
manner and begins his life as a bellboy in a luxurious
hotel. His way of life and of making money lead him to a
crime. Clyde is arrested and put to death on the electric
chair.
Clyde
Griffiths” fate is characteristic of the world in
which he was brought up. Spiritually backward, with no ideals
but a longing to get success in the world that surrounds
him for he sees that by honest labour he would never become
rich enough to enter the world of pleasure and luxury. He
sees that when a man becomes rich nobody dares to find out
the source of his riches.
He
sincerely hopes that his marriage to Sondra would solve all
his problems and cover up his past. The ammoralizing effect
of the environment leads Clyde to a tragedy, which is not
his personal tragedy, but the one of an average American.
Due to the great artistic power with which Dreiser presented
this typical case, “An American Tragedy ” is in full
justice regarded as one of the best books in American
literature.