Question

Could someone put these notes in someone's own words? Its research notes.

Answer 1

both went to prep school in Minn. Their families had concern for money in youth.

A lot of Fitzgerald's writing concerns love for wealthy girls - which is presumably something he had experience with - Zelda was rich, the hottest debutante in the South. He writes about a poor boy madly in love over a rich girl in many of his stories, including the Great Gatsby - Gatsby wanted that.

Also they had high society connections, joined the army, and had spectacular downfalls - Gatsby is murdered by a wealthy aristocrat, for love, and F. died of alcoholism while attempting to become rich again in Hollywood.

1. Both from northern part of American midwest (Fitzgerald from Minnesota).

2. Both lost their great loves--Gatsby lost Daisy when he went off to war, Fitzgerald turned down by Ginevra King ("poor boys don't marry rich girls") and later Zelda Sayre (though she later married him).

3. Both wildly ambitious--Gatsby made a lot of money bootlegging, Fitzgerald aspired to be rich through his writing and through a play, _The Vegetable,_ that flopped (in 1923).

4. Both good looking in a sporty way.

5. Both excluded from the world of old money (cf. the remark quoted above in #2 (from Fitzgerald's Ledger, and Tom's patrician contempt for Gatsby--calls his car a "circus wagon," etc.)

Jay Gatsby was also in love with a Southern debutante. Zelda, like Daisy, came from a rich family and Fitzgerald, unlike Gatsby, was upper middle-class but poor by Zelda's standards. F. Scott married Zelda and Gatsby lost Daisy.
F. Scott was very self-destuctive. Drank too much, hopeless alcoholic. Gatsby was disciplined and always sought to improve himself.
Gatsby was a recluse. F. Scott was quite sociable in his early years and in his latter years he offended people and so his alcoholism made him more solitary.
They were both loyal and devoted to the women they loved. Zelda had to spend her last years in an asylum but F.Scott never forgot her and never let his daughter forget her either. He visited her as often as he could.
They were both from the Midwest. F.Scott grew up in St.Paul, MN.
Gatsby was self-taught. Fitzgerald went to school at Princeton, I believe, not quite sure, but he was Ivy League educated.
F.Scott was a darling of the society circle because of his writing talent. Gatsby was shunned by "good" society.

Many characters in the Great Gatsby parralell Fitzgeralds life. For example, Daisy, the women Jay Gatsby has been basing his whole life on, is similar to Zelda Sayre, who would not marry Fitzgerald at first because of his lack of success.

To add on to that, F. Scott Fitzgerald lived in Great Neck, Long Island after his first child was born. At the time, the Great Neck was home to many of the wealthiest people on Long Island. A scholar has proven that there are many similarities between the Great Neck and the West Egg.

Gatsby and Fitzgerald both met vital women to their lives at dances, and both while they were stationed at camps in the army.
Gatsby met Daisy at Camp Taylor in Illinois, where they danced and fell in love. However, after Gatsby went off to war, they never got back together again.
Fitzgerald met his wife, Zelda, at Camp Sheridan in Alabama. Instead of going off to war (his regiment was ready to go to Europe, but the Armistace came before they could leave the States), he went to New York to get enough money to marry Zelda.
In the movie version, Daisy tells Gatsby that "Rich girls don't marry poor boys." This line was taken straight out of Fitzgerald's life. The father of his first love, a young woman by the name of Ginevra King, supposedly told him that after Fitzgerald asked for Ginevra's hand in marriage.
There are many other similarities between F. Scott Fitzgerald and Jay Gatz (Gatsby)- keep your eyes out for them!

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s most famous novel The Great Gatsby, the main character-Jay Gatsby and Fitzgerald are extremely similar to each other. However, there are also differences that Fitzgerald made to Gatsby in order to express his own weaknesses. Basically, there are three fields that are most obvious when comparing: their family background and education, their Romantic Idealism and their ambition. First of all, both of them were born in a middle classed family. Fitzgerald’s father was originally fairly wealthy but he became unsuccessful after the crash of his business. Same with Gatsby, he also came from a some what underprivileged family, which influenced a lot on his personality and his goal. Nevertheless, Fitzgerald was someone who had a family root in Maryland, unlike him; Gatsby lied about his family background to impress Daisy. Other than that, they were both drop-outs from their Universities and joined the army in 1917. Secondly, both men were motivated to work hard and grow to be successful for their loved ones. For Fitzgerald it was Zelda Sayre whom he said to be his “golden girl”, to win her heart he used his talents to write novels which made him famous and rich, which was also the only way to live up to Zelda’s “golden” standards. Similarly, Jay Gatsby’s dream girl would be Daisy, she was a beautiful expensive flapper, but because that “rich girls don’t marry poor boys”, Gatsby would do anything to make money in order to propose to her. Thirdly, while Fitzgerald had the ambition of becoming wealthy even when he was a child, similarly Gatsby despised his poverty at a young age and promised to work hard to make money when he grows up. Conversely, the method that they used to become rich is not the same. Unlike Fitzgerald who earns his way through by writing, Gatsby makes all his money by involving illegal alcohol and drugs.