F. Scott Fitzgerald and the Beauty of His Broken Dreams
By: Charles Hanna
Tags: Life, Society, Literature, Life Lessons, Art

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You probably had to read The Great Gatsby in high school. And you might have also seen the relatively recent cinematic remake featuring Leonardo DiCaprio. To refresh your memory with a summary in a nutshell, it’s the story of a rich tycoon — Jay Gatsby — who is hopelessly in love with an old flame remarried to another wealthy fellow.

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel is regarded as his magnum opus— a reflection of the glitz and glamor of the Roaring Twenties and a comment on the shortcomings of the American Dream.

You may or may not be surprised to learn that pretty much all of Fitzgerald’s other books and short stories explore the same themes. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, because each one is an expertly written piece of literature. But if you read through his works, or even if you just sample one, you will see a few key themes emerge.

#1: The magic allure of alcohol.

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Prohibition was in full force during the time period in which Fitzgerald wrote, giving alcohol an extra source of allure and excitement. But for the protagonists of Fitzgerald’s novels, alcohol is not just an escape: it’s a sublime spiritual experience. When characters like Anthony Patch from The Beautiful and Damned descend into the underworld of the Speakeasy, they find themselves in a state of clarity about life and its problems. They meet up with unlikely characters for a bout of fun that gives fresh vitality to life. This penchant for libations among Fitzgerald’s characters mirrors his own biographical struggle with alcoholism…which was perhaps, also a muse for Fitzgerald as it was for many other authors such as Ernest Hemmingway.

#2: The pain of an unreachable woman.

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Many of Fitzgerald’s stories (pretty much all of them) have the pain of spurned romantic overtures or disconnection from a difficult spouse as a core element. From out-of-reach Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby to the fickle Gloria in the aforementioned The Beautiful and Damned to the almost psychotic Nicole Diver in Tender is the Night, Fitzgerald’s stories are driven by the theme of unrequited love or love that cannot be emotionally consummated. This too might mirror Fitzgerald’s own biography, since his marriage to Zelda Fitzgerald was often disrupted by her mental health challenges with schizophrenia.

#3: The emptiness of wealth.

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One of the most telling scenes in regards to this theme is in The Great Gatsby: Jay Gatsby stands alone at the end of his dock, reaching out across the bay to the lights of Daisy’s home. This lonely moment is in stark contrast to the wild and lavish parties he throws at his mansion. But at the end of the day, all the wealth, excitement, and celebrity mean nothing to Gatsby. It’s much the same way for Dexter Green at the end of “Winter Dreams.” He climbed the ladder of corporate success only to realize how it all means nothing; he is thrown into a depressed state when he learns that the woman he loves is married to man who treats her coldly. This theme is also perhaps reflective of Fitzgerald’s life story. He was not the typical starving artist, but saw acclaim and financial success from his work, which allowed him to mix in with elite social circles.

So what does it all mean?

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I believe that Fitzgerald’s key themes all revolve around the American Dream. Though the idea of that dream has changed over the years, in the main it is the idea that hard work can bring you to the top of the world. And yet, the question remains: what happens when you get there?

Though I myself do believe in that dream from a financial perspective, I do not believe it is the ultimate source of satisfaction in life.

For many, fulfillment and happiness continue to be as elusive as Daisy Buchanan or Nicole Diver. Their American Dream becomes like an unreachable woman, forever filling her worshipful followers with a sense of emptiness.

In their pain, they turn to the magic allure of alcohol, which has become their spiritual experience. For some, that alcohol is actual alcohol, or drugs. For others, it might be immersion in a distraction like television or social media.

Unfortunately, Fitzgerald’s works don’t really pose a solution to this problem. Almost all of them end on a note of broken bitterness, with the protagonist dead or as good as dead in the gutter or broken-hearted. His last novel, The Last Tycoon, remains unfinished. Perhaps we would have seen a solution therein, but we’ll never know. I suppose it’s somewhat ironic, or telling, that he left if unfinished.

In case you’re wondering, Fitzgerald did not come up with the idea of writing around themes that center on longing and loneliness. He got them from writers and poets before, most noticeably the romantic poet John Keats. In fact, the quote that opens Tender is the Night comes from Keats’ own poem, “Ode to a Nightingale.”

The longing that is often expressed in Keatsian poetry — whether it is the longing of love or the longing to experience sublime union with some beautiful object — itself becomes a source of beauty and poetic inspiration.

In the same way, this eternal state of unrequited love and longing haunts the works of F. Scott Fitzgerald. It fuels the creation of beautiful works of literature, but ones that are painful reflections of a broken dream.

And yet, that is exactly what makes them beautiful.