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Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby, grew up with writing, publishing his first newspaper article and further pursuing his academics at Princeton University. In his mid twenties, he wrote magazines for the Saturday Evening Post and published his first novel "The Beautiful and the Damned", which reflected the richness and privleged lives that him and his family lived. Shortly after, he published The Great Gatsby, before falling into deep alcoholism and depression.

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American Storytellers: The Sensible Thing

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Home | Labor of Love | Biographies | Reading List | Links

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Fitzgerald's world takes place in a era of immigration and search to pursue the "Amercian Dream", a perceived notion from people outside of the U.S. that America is the place to achieve financial stability and be successful. Robert Frost furthur expands on this idea and connects with Fitzgerald's society, with the idea of choice to divulge away from your previous self and take the "road not taken". Similarly, people in the West Egg like Jay Gatsby directly mirror this ideology, coming up from poverty and attempts to fit in with the privileged, East Egg.

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In this ted talk, Anna Rosling Ronnlund shares her research/findings about the various living situations across the globe as a result of social inequality, class, and financial burdens. Ronnlund's experiment had photographers travel to capture the, "...stoves, toys, blankets, toilets, etc." of varying income brackets across the world. By describing the lives of families living in places like Latvia, Peru, Burkina, Ronnlund's studies are able to effectively illustrate and portray what many Americans/people of privilege do not have to endure.

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Anna Rosling Rönnlund: See how the rest of the world lives, organized by income

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What does it look like when someone in Sweden brushes their teeth or when someone in Rwanda makes their bed? Anna Rosling Rönnlund wants all of us to find out, so she sent photographers to 264 homes in 50 countries (and counting!)

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"I think about the world and those that are less fortunate. Those unable to make their way out of poverty. Those born in to it or stricken by health problems. We owe it to humanity to give all people the basic needs and a chance at happiness."

Social class is a theme prominent in the novel and while readers are exposed to the West vs East, we see glimpses of the Valley of Ashes, a poverty strucken society living on the scraps of the rich. Similarly, this art piece depicts a homeless, poverty stricken woman attempting to make any sort of money on the street.

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This article gives readers a first hand experience of Fitzgerald’s “writer thoughts” and feelings as he was writing the Great Gatsby. For an example when talking about when he was going to finish the book, Fitzgerald mentions that, “...even if it takes me ten times that long I cannot let it go out unless it has the very best I’m capable of in it, or even, as I feel sometimes, something better than I’m capable of.” His dedication and obsession with this piece of literature he was going to create is what makes this book so memorable, but at the same time very personal. Fitzgerald also describes it as “...the greatest weakness in my work”. This brings in many questions that remain unanswered like: Why is he so engaged with this book? Why is this such an important book to him?.

These questions and mainly the letters in the article help readers gain a new perspective on how this book was constructed and how “perfect” it needed to be to satisfy Fitzgerald. The fact that Fitzgerald was so nit-picky about the cover art and took his time page by page makes me look at the book in a different way encourages readers to feel excitement before reading.

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While we can't ask F. Scott Fitzgerald what he thinks about the latest adaptations of his work, we can know what he thought about a novel he considered to be his "imaginary eldest brother," courtesy of excerpts from his letters collected inF. Scott Fitzgerald On Writing, edited by Larry W. Phillipps. "From the start Fitzgerald wanted The Great Gatsby to be a 'consciously artistic achievement,' something 'beautiful and simple and intricately patterned,'" according to the book's forward, written by Charles Scribner III. (Every writer should own a copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald On Writing; better yet, write out the entire novel of The Great Gatsby, like Hunter S. Thompson did to learn what beautiful writing felt like. Then, get Trimalchio, an early version, to read all the fat Fitzgerald cut.)

Though he had high hopes and put his entire heart into writing it, Fitzgerald would be shocked to see the immortality this novel has been granted, other than being the highlight of his epitaph. The Great Gatsby was published in 1925, when Fitzgerald was 29 years old, and had mixed reviews and mediocre sales. Fitzgerald was only 44 when he died an alcoholic, struggling to write and stay relevant, as unsold boxes of Gatsby rotted away in a warehouse. Five years later, the U.S. military saved the book from obscurity by ordering 150,000 copies for the troops, likely to promote the romanticism of a young war veteran who, though tragically, achieves the American dream. On average, 500,000 copies are sold each year, and sales are way ahead of reaching that number this year thanks to the film.

Part of its enduring legacy is due to The Great Gatsby being a Rorschach test. Some see it as a celebration of the decadence of wealth, and others see it as a fable warning of the repercussions of that shallow lifestyle. But everyone gets it all wrong, according to what I personally take away from the book. Here's one of its greatest and most overlooked quotes: "I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all-Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly inadaptable to Eastern life." Being a Northern Californian, from a small cow town no less, living in New York for the past seven years, this, to me, is what the book is all about. But judge for yourself.

Now, in the author's own words, here's Fitzgerald on critics, how to succeed in the publishing industry, and writing The Great Gatsby:

"While I have every hope and plan of finishing my novel [ The Great Gatsby] in June, you know how those things often come out, and even if it takes me ten times that long I cannot let it go out unless it has the very best I'm capable of in it, or even, as I feel sometimes, something better than I'm capable of.

To his editor Max Perkins, 1924

Letters, p. 182

"What I cut out of it [The Great Gatsby] both physically and emotionally would make another novel!"

In His Own Time, p. 156

"I myself didn't know what Gatsby looked like or was engaged in and you felt it. If I'd known and kept it from you you'd have been too impressed with my knowledge to protest. This is a complicated idea but I'm sure you'll understand. But I know now-and as a penalty for not having known first, in other words to make sure, I'm going to tell more."

To Max Perkins, 1925

Letters, p. 193

"My new novel appears in late March: The Great Gatsby. It represents about a year's work and I think it's about ten years better than anything I've done. All my harsh smartness has been kept ruthlessly out of it-it's the greatest weakness in my work, distracting and disfiguring it even when it calls up an isolated sardonic laugh. I don't think this has a touch left. I wanted to call it Trimalchio (it's laid out on Long Island) but I was voted down by Zelda and everybody else."

To Ernest Boyd, 1925

Letters, pg. 497

"If the book [ The Great Gatsby] fails commercially it will be from one of two reasons or both.

First, the title is only fair, rather bad than good.

Second and most important, the book contained no important woman character, and women control the fiction market at present. I don't think the unhappy end matters particularly."

To Max Perkins, 1925

Letters, p. 201

"Suggested line for [book] jacket: 'Show transition from his early exuberant stories of youth which created a new type of American girl and the later and more serious mood which produced The Great Gatsby and marked him as one of the half-dozen masters of the English prose now writing in America...What other writer has shown such unexpected developments, such versatility, changes of pace,' etc., etc., etc. I think that, toned down as you see fit, is the general line. Don't say 'Fitzgerald has done it!' and then in the next sentence that I am an artist. People who are interested in artists aren't interested in people who have 'done it.' Both are O.K. but don't belong in the same ad. This is an author's quibble. All authors have one quibble.

However, you have always done well by me (except for Black's memorable excretion in the Alumni Weekly, do you remember-'Make it a Fitzgerald Christmas!') and I leave it to you."

To Max Perkins on The Great Gatsby, 1925

Letters, p. 211

"To circle nearer to this book [ The Great Gatsby], one woman who could hardly have written a coherent letter in English, described it as a book that one reads only as one goes to the movies around the corner. That type of criticism is what a lot of young writers are being greeted with, instead of any appreciation of the world of imagination in which they (the writers) have been trying, with greater or lesser success, to live..."

In His Own Words, p. 156

"...In dealing with figures as remote as a bootlegger and crook to most of us [ The Great Gatsby], I was not afraid of heightening and melodramatizing any scenes; and I was thinking that in your novel I would like to pass on this theory to you for what it is worth. Such advice from fellow craftsmen has been a great help to me in the past, indeed I believe it was Ernest Hemingway who developed to me, in conversation, that the dying fall was preferable to the dramatic ending under certain conditions, and I think we both got the germ of the idea from Conrad."

To John Peale Bishop, 1934

Letters, p. 388-389

"I agree with you entirely, as goes without saying, in your analysis of Gatsby. He was perhaps created on the image of some forgotten farm type of Minnesota that I have known and forgotten, and associated at the same moment with some sense of romance. It might interest you to know that a story of mine, called 'Absolution,' in my book All the Sad Young Men was intended to be a picture of his early life, but that I cut it because I preferred to preserve a sense of mystery."

To John Jamieson, 1934

Letters, p. 529

"[My books] have alternated between being selective and blown up. Paradise and Gatsby were selective; The Beautiful and Damned and Tender aimed at being full and comprehensive-either could be cut by one-fourth, especially the former. (Of course they were cut that much but not enough.) The difference is that in these last two I wrote everything, hoping to cut to interest. In This Side of Paradise (in a crude way) and in Gatsby I selected the stuff to fit a given mood or "hauntedness" or whatever you might call it, rejecting in advance in Gatsby, for instance, all of the ordinary material for Long Island, big crooks, adultery theme and always starting from the small focal point that impressed-my own meeting with Arnold Rothstein for instance."

To Corey Ford, 1937

Letters, p. 573

"Books are like brothers. I am an only child. Gatsby [is] my imaginary eldest brother."

The Crack-up, p. 84

"I expect to be back on my novel [ The Last Tycoon] any day and this time to finish, a two month's job. The months go so fast that even Tender is the Night is six years away. I think the nine years that intervened between The Great Gatsby and Tender hurt my reputation almost beyond repair because a whole generation grew up in the meanwhile to whom I was only a writer of Post stories. I don't suppose anyone will be much interested in what I have to say this time and it may be the last novel I'll ever write, but it must be done now because, after fifty, one is different. One can't remember emotionally, I think, except about childhood but I have a few more things left to say."

To Zelda Fitzgerald, 1940

Letters, p. 146

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F. Scott Fitzgerald on Writing 'The Great Gatsby'

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While we can't ask F. Scott Fitzgerald what he thinks about the latest adaptations of his work, we can know what he thought about a novel he considered to be his "imaginary eldest brother," courtesy of excerpts from his letters collected inF. Scott Fitzgerald On Writing , edited by Larry W.

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Taking place in the 1920s, this article highlights historical significant events that the world of Gatsby revolves around. Classified as the "Jazz Age/Golden Age", this post-war era of "economic boom and expansion" gave Americans financial independence and a freer lifestyle. Additionally, events like the  New York City and the Urban Corruption and the Black Sox Scandal of 1919(losing game to gain money) showcased in this article depict the selfish actions of greed and selfishness, with gambling, prostitution, and corruption being especially highlighted.

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Denmark, in contrast to the world that Jay Gatsby is portrayed in, has highlighted values such as equality where social class is less prominent with factors such as, "...free college tuition; universal, high-quality pre-K, and universal access to health care." As a blueprint for a successful society, this "utopic society" portrays success that Fitzgerald's world was never able to accomplish, riddled by distinct social classes, poverty, and other forms of discriminatory behavior. Denmark provides an example for others to help understand and evaluate the origins of inequality and social immobility.

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American policymakers often point to the generous social welfare policies of Denmark-free college tuition; universal, high-quality pre-K; universal access to health care; plentiful childcare and maternity leave-as a blueprint for a more equal society. Yet recent research by MIP network member Rasmus Landersø and HCEO Co-Director James Heckman shows that despite these benefits, substantial inequality of child outcomes remains across social and economic classes in Denmark.

In their working paper, " Lessons from Denmark about Inequality and Social Mobility," the authors find that family influence on child outcomes in Denmark is comparable to that in the U.S. Their research shows that in both countries children of college-educated women do substantially better than children of parents who did not finish high school across many dimensions.

"Our analysis encourages a critical examination of conventional wisdom from earlier studies of inequality and social mobility," Heckman says. "The persistence of inequality in human capital formation and education in Denmark suggests that it will be fruitful to pursue a much deeper understanding of how parents affect child development."

Using longitudinal data from both countries, the paper synthesize findings from their projects in three main areas: intergenerational educational mobility, intergenerational transmission of wellbeing, and parental investments including choice of neighborhood, peers, and schools.

Many of Denmark's social welfare policies were introduced in the 1960s and 1970s, when public spending as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP) increased from around 20 percent in 1950 to almost 50 percent by 1980. By comparison, in the U.S., public spending and transfer payments as a fraction of GDP were around 15 percent in 1950 but less than 30 percent in 1980. Yet, despite this divergence in public spending and the role out of free college tuition and universal pre-K in Denmark, educational mobility rapidly declined for Danish cohorts born during the 1970s and 80s. For those born in the mid-1980s, educational mobility in Denmark was on par with the U.S.

"Comparing the 1960 and 1985 cohorts, college completion was around 10% and 20%, respectively," of children whose fathers did not finish high school, the authors write. For children whose fathers finished high school, college completion rates are around 15 percent and 30 percent. And for those whose fathers obtained a college degree, the numbers are 30 percent to 60 percent, respectively. These numbers clearly show that family influence remains crucial to Danish educational attainment. As the authors note, "Equality in access to services is not the same as equality of opportunity."

Next the authors analyzed the traditional approach to measuring intergenerational transmission of economic status. Most literature compares snapshots of the lifetime income of parents and their children. "This approach gives only a limited picture of the transmission of lifetime well-being across generations," the paper notes. Because of the richness of Danish register data, the authors are able to analyze lifetime measures of intergenerational elasticities of income, which takes into account different life-cycle dynamics such as increased schooling and timing of marriage and childbearing. The data show that, using this approach, intergenerational elasticities of income of lifetime well-being are much higher than those estimated using incomes measured over a small window of ages. "Well-being is much more tightly linked across generations in Denmark than conventional snapshot measures of lifetime income indicate," the authors find.

Lastly, the authors consider neighborhood sorting by economic status, which has been increasing over time in both countries. This sorting is most pronounced during the preschool years of the first born child. Geographic mobility declines rapidly once children enter school. "In the years leading up to the first child's birth, sorting into affluent areas becomes increasingly prevalent for highly educated mothers," the authors find. This segregation in turn impacts school quality, peer quality, and more, as better-resourced parents are better able to influence the quality of their children's schools.

"Denmark is a laboratory for understanding the origins of inequality and social immobility because its generous provision of social services does not eliminate inequality in many important life outcomes across generations," the authors write. "Thus, the origins of inequality and social mobility lie elsewhere. Families shape child outcomes and affect the utilization of programs even when these are universally available."

This paper shows the need for more research on how parents influence child development, through direct parental investments and through neighborhood choice. Related to the neighborhood effects literature, the authors argue that their findings beg for "further analyses of the factors determining how, when, and under which conditions families decide where to live, and how these decisions shape children's lives."

The paper also notes that policymakers must take into consideration the dynamic role of both "the family and markets in shaping child outcomes and in complementing or undermining public policy." Effective public policy, the authors write, must recognize the "Matthew Effect," that more-advantaged families are better positioned to access and influence resources.

As Heckman notes, "If there is one overarching conclusion from the study, it is that formal equality in access does not guarantee equality of opportunity."

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Research Spotlight: Lessons from Denmark about Inequality and Social Mobility

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American policymakers often point to the generous social welfare policies of Denmark-free college tuition; universal, high-quality pre-K; universal access to health care; plentiful childcare and maternity leave-as a blueprint for a more equal society. Yet recent research by MIP network member Rasmus Landersø and HCEO Co-Director James Heckman shows that despite these benefits, substantial inequality of child outcomes remains across social and economic classes in Denmark.

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Driving Question: How does an individual's social status have an effect on their identity?
-How does growing up in wealth differ from growing up in poverty in regards to self development and identity?

-How does Fitzgerald’s world in the Great Gatsby reflect social issues in the real world such as privilege/racism?

-Is the American Dream truly attainable?