F. Scott Fitzgerald: Relationships between Love and Money (2012)
Undergraduates: Ragan Glover, none none none
Faculty Advisor: Jordynn Jack
Department: English
An examination of the rhetoric in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s most famous works, The Great Gatsby, This Side of Paradise, and “Winter Dreams,” reveals that success in romantic love is dependent on material status. However, it also reveals that a higher material status should not be pursued for the achievement of romantic love. Fitzgerald’s rhetoric seems to reflect both the troubled relationship he shared with his wife, Zelda, as well as the time period during which he was writing. Such ideas as social mobility and materialism characterize the roaring twenties. However, Fitzgerald’s writing is not so much a product of his culture and lifestyle as it is a criticism. Fitzgerald makes special note of the superficiality of material status by depicting those who possess it as unhappy and miserable. He also shows the difficulties in acceptance and comfort that arise from upward social mobility. In doing so, Fitzgerald shows, by example, that while money can buy love, it cannot buy happiness. _x000D_
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