The Real Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby is so often presented to us as this completely unrealistic mythical tale of the uber wealthy, because of this you might not be aware that some of the characters in The Great Gatsby were based on real people. F. Scott Fitzgerald, surprisingly, didn't pull them out from some random part of his brain while he was super drunk, he actually took them from the high society around him during his time, and the history behind a number of these parallels is as interesting as their fictional counterparts.
Consider Jordan Baker. She is based on Edith Cummings Munson, aka "The Fairway Flapper," a famous amateur golfer and socialite of the Jazz Age. Edith was among the first female athletes to grace the cover of Time magazine! She was part of the Chicago "Big Four" debutantes, which makes her just about the perfect inspiration for a cool, confident character like Jordan.
Then there's Daisy Buchanan, taken from Ginevra King, an American socialite and Fitzgerald's teenage crush. Ginevra and Fitzgerald had a brief but intense romance. She left an unremovable mark on him. Ginevra's rarefied upbringing and unreachable quality were sculpted onto Daisy, the beautiful but unreachable love interest of Gatsby.
Speaking of Gatsby, he had his real-life representation too. Max von Gerlach, an ex-soldier-turned-bootlegger, would throw extravagant parties, and had wild stories about himself, Sound familiar? From his suspicious claims of attending Oxford to his overuse of the term "old sport," Gerlach's big personality helped mold and shape the ominous character that is Jay Gatsby. It's actually really interesting seeing how real people's lives melded with Fitzgerald's imagination in creating such characters that continue to entertain us to this very day.
Aarush this post is interesting, I originally didn't know that Gatsby's characters were based on real people in the 20s that Fitzgerald either met or heard of. It's also surprising how similar the fictional counterparts are to the real people, I always thought that all the characters were complete products of Fitzgerald's imagination.
ReplyDeleteAarush, I found your blog this week really informative. I didn't really know that each character from the book was based off really people in that F. Scott Fitzgerald has met. I always used to think that people in these realistic fiction style writes were just made up from their imagination, but apparently not.
ReplyDeleteHi Aarush! It's interesting to see how Fitzgerald used real life people in his novels and how that contributed to creating the feeling of the roaring 20s in his novel. Also, understanding the real-life inspirations behind The Great Gatsby gives a better understanding of the novel for me. Really nice blog!
ReplyDeleteThis is really interesting, i guessed he based the characters off real people, however i didnt know who. And now i do, it is always great learning something unnecessary.
ReplyDeleteHey Aarush! I really enjoyed reading your blog about the parallels between characters in The Great Gatsby and people in real life. It was really interesting learning about how Fitzgerald was inspired from people both personal to him and well known to everyone. I also really liked your choice of diction throughout your blog. Overall, nice job!
ReplyDeleteAarush, your post was very insightful. I wasn't aware of the amount of real life inspiration that Fitzgerald took when writing the Great Gatsby, but I now understand that he was heavily influenced by society around him. This leads me to think of the Great Gatsby as not just a novel, but Fitzgerald's commentary on society at the time.
ReplyDeleteHi Aarush! I really liked how you put time in to do your own research! While reading this, I could almost hear your voice from the diction to the tone. I always thought that Fitzgerald made all his characters up and was just a very nuanced writer.
ReplyDeleteHey Aarush, Your analysis on Gatsby's character was really interesting to me and it was interesting to find out Fitzgerald made his characters based off of people he knew in real life. Your allusion to the real life versions of Gatsby was also quite interesting. It was fun reading your blog this week
ReplyDeleteI really like how you were able to connect these fictional characters to their potential real life interpretations. This must've taken a decent amount of time to research. Good job!
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