The Follies and Failure of the Post-War Generation in the Fiction of Scott Fitzgerald

Abstract

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald is one of the key members of the group called ‘lost generation’. He is also one of the outstanding writers of the United States of America who comes under a period popularly called Jazz Age. This epoch prominently affected American History. The writings of Fitzgerald are broadly autobiographical, interlocked by the author’s perception and understanding of life. His writings are considered a valuable social document of the 1920s. Fitzgerald stands as a spokesman of his own period who has recorded the revolution of his times. Success and Failure in the life of Fitzgerald and its portrayal in his fiction are closely linked. His subject for his fiction comes from his personal experiences. Several of his writings including his letters, essays, stories and fictional works show two or three moving events of his life. His failure as a big shot in college, his failed courtship with Ginevra King, his early failure and success thereafter in love with Zelda Sayre, his nervous breakdown, his success as a writer are some of the sweet and sour experiences in his personal life. The triumph and crash of an essentially romantic man is evident in Fitzgerald’s life and works. This paper nalyses Fitzgerald’s portrayal of the lost values and failure of the American post-war generation in his fictional works This Side of Paradise (TSP), The Beautiful and Damned (BD, and The Great Gatsby (GG).