Pg 158: [Gatsby] did extraordinarily well in the war. He was a captain before he went to the front and following the ARgonne battles he got his majority and the command of the divisional machine guns. After the Armistice he tired frantically to get home but some complication or misunderstanding sent him to Oxford instead. He was worried now-there was a quality of nervous despair in Daisy's letters. She didn't see why he couldn't come. She was feeling the pressure of the world outside and she wanted to see him and feel his presence beside her and be reassured that she was doing the right thing after all.
This passage is Fitzgerald unintentionally revealing how he felt about Zelda and his life in general. It's shows how he is unsure about what would have happened, had his first book not been successful. When Fitzgerald fell in love with Zelda, she was the woman of every man's dreams; beautiful, exciting, unattainable. When Fitzgerald asked her to marry him, she said no because he was poor. When he published his first book, and it became successful, she decided to marry him. He justifies to himself that she felt the "pressure of the world," that she really did love him, but she was unsure because of social pressures. It also reflects what he wanted for his life; to be a captain or war hero before becoming even more important, such as being in "command of the divisional machine guns." But this dream was a foolish one, he writes to himself, because he could have lost everything he wanted (such as Zelda.) Fitzgerald, like Gatsby, is inventing himself, unintentionally, to avoid admitting that he may have changed his dreams to fit his life. Gatsby, however, gets what he wants FIRST, but then everything falls apart, and someone kills him. Fitzgerald got what he wanted after wanting a few things, but he was living it up with Zelda. You could also read it as him telling other people that broken dreams are not always a bad thing.
Also; did anyone notice that you can make "Gatz" out of Fitzgerald? Probably a coincidence...
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While I believe that Fitzgerald did want some fame before marrying Zelda, I think that he put a lot of himself into Tom as well. While Fitzgerald did not have an affair, he did care about Zelda very much in the end while she became more of a slut. Daisy and Zelda are very much alike because they both come off as a pure, innocent, golden girl, but in the end they both end up cheating on their husbands. Tom achieved success and his golden girl, but in the end his golden girl ended up being not so golden. I think that Fitzgerald's only connection to Gatsby is that they are both dreaming about their perfect girl and it takes a while to get her. Tom and Fitzgerald both achieve success and the American Dream, and then their dream gets crushed.
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