Zelda Fitzgerald An American Tragedy

When I first came across information about Zelda , I was in the 9^th grade and we were supposed to do a report on a famous person. This was not a problem for me, as I have always enjoyed history and reading about famous people, and different eras, especially the dark ages and the age of Enlightenment. I also enjoy the turn of the 20th century, especially the 20’s and 30’s. It was such a great time and even though people think that it was a time of great innocence, and it was per se, it was also a time of the first sexual revolution. People were discovering sex, drugs and alcohol and were having a great time. Especially the wealthy, they were leading decadent styles of living and having wanton sex at every turn.

With this book report in mind I went to the library and wanted a book that I could write about that wasn’t similar to the usual suspects that everyone else was writing about. As I strolled down the aisles of the library, I was struck by a picture and it took my breath away, and the woman on the cover was Zelda Fitzgerald, wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald, famous writer. She was basically the icon of the 20’s and F. Scott Fitzgerald is quoted as labeling her as “the first American Flapper“. Once they married and he wrote his first novel This Side of Paradise , they became a celebrity couple, the bradgelina of the 20’s. They were the embodiment of the roaring twenties and they were seen as beautiful, wealthy and people that were the epitome of wealth and style. I felt compelled to read the book and it was very interesting to read about this couple who had basically led a life of luxury, for the most part, but also had such a tumultuous marriage that ultimately ended in tragedy for both.

Zelda Sayre was born on July 24, 1900, in Montgomery, Alabama and wanted with all her heart to become a famous ballerina that she later became obsessed with, she often became obsessed easily and even as a child was known to have bits of erratic behavior.

She met F. Scott Fitzgerald shortly after high school and they had a whirlwind courtship. It was love at first sight for Scott but not so much for Zelda, she was still seeing other men which made him quite frantic to get a ring on her finger, which he managed to do in 1920. They continued to become quite the celebrity couple, especially after the published novel The Great Gatsby came out. Zelda and Scott were basically leading the life of this great novel, which she named by the way.

This novel basically clenched it for Scott, that he would join the ranks of great writers such as Ernest Hemingway, and actually, Scott and Ernest Hemingway became friends despite the fact that Zelda didn’t like Hemingway in the least, and he made it known that he didn’t care for her either. He contended that her erratic behavior at times, such as trying to emasculate her husband was due to the fact that she was “crazy”. What some called crazy, in the wealthy circles, it is known as eccentric and so that is how she was known.

The marriage between Scott and Zelda became even more erratic, because of her behavior (having affairs, throwing herself down stairs for attention) and wasn't  being helped by the fact that Scott was an alcoholic and everyone knew it. They fought so much and with such passion that they would literally beat each other up and tear the house apart and then have great make-up sex, so the sexual aspect of their marriage depended largely on alcohol which was tearing their marriage apart, and it became full of acrimony and resentment.

The constant fighting and discourse left its toll on the couple and Zelda had what was called a nervous breakdown back then. She stayed in a sanitarium to recuperate and did some writing and painting as well. Some say that she was very talented and others have not so flattering opinions of her work. In the meantime F. Scott Fitzgerald took up with another woman in spite of his still marriage to Zelda.

In her biography there is so much more to this story between their romance that it is hard to get into all the details but in my opinion, he loved Zelda very much still, but just couldn’t deal with her personality disorder and her behavior, which sadly turned out that she had schizophrenia. This explained so many things that were wrong with her. Her delusions of grandiose, her accusations of his affairs and her attempts at suicide, whether they were for attention or not.

Sadly while Scott was out with his new girlfriend, who happened to be a movie columnist Sheilah Graham, he was sitting in a chair eating a candy bar when he suddenly without provocation stood up and then collapsed. They tried to rush him to the hospital, but he was already dead from a massive heart attack, he died at the age of 44.

Meanwhile another tragedy struck years later while Zelda was still in the sanitarium, there was a fire that started out in the kitchen of the hospital. Many of the patients died and Zelda was one of the victims. She died when she was only 48 years old.

The couple had one child named Scottie and in 1975, she had their bodies moved to be buried next to each other in the official Fitzgerald plot. Their daughter Scottie wrote after their deaths: "I think (short of documentary evidence to the contrary) that if people are not crazy, they get themselves out of crazy situations, so I have never been able to buy the notion that it was my father's drinking which led her to the sanitarium. Nor do I think she led him to the drinking".

Frances and Zelda are buried in the Saint Mary’s Catholic Cemetery in Rockville, Maryland and the inscription on their tombstone reads:  ”So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past". Which is the last line in The Great Gatsby book.

I’m not sure what attracted me to this couples lives, maybe it was because they had a great love affair, maybe because of the lifestyle of the rich and famous or maybe it was because two very talented people died so young and tragically.

Years after their deaths there have been so many books and movies that have been made in tribute to the Fitzgerald’s such as The Disenchanted, The Far Side of Paradise, Beloved Infidel, written by Sheilah Graham, And a book by Nancy Milford called Zelda: A Biography, which I read for my report. It was a great read and really explained so much more in detail about a woman who had talent in her own right and so inadvertently became part of the woman’s movement of the 1970’s. Zelda is also credited to inspire the name of the video game series: The Legend of Zelda

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s cousin 3 times removed was Francis Scott Key, (August 1, 1779 – January 11, 1843) the man who penned our national anthem, “The Star Spangled Banner”.

F. Scott Fitzgerald was also the first cousin once removed of Mary Surrat, hanged in 1865 for conspiring to assassinate Abraham Lincoln.