These two were the couple that summed up the 1920’s perfectly - a flapper and a struggling writer whose partying and expensive lifestyle acted as a veneer to their tumultuous marriage, made up of plagiarism, fiery arguments, alcoholism and much more. Some say their relationship was doomed from the start: a southern belle turned flapper who challenged the conventions of women in the south at the time, who danced, drank, smoked in public and who, according to a review of one of her dance performances, was only interested in “boys and swimming”, being courted by a poor writer on the cusp of alcoholism, in training before being deployed for World War One. It’s no surprise that their relationship was a whirlwind, but this begs the question: how much do we really know? Zelda Fitzgerald’s writing was plagiarised from the beginning of their relationship, with any proof of this being wiped from the public’s memory with only a few diary entries and a scathing review left to prove it. So let's look at the woman insulted both by history and by her husband.
Born in Minnesota in 1896 F. Scott Fitzgerald moved with his family to New York for his father’s business (around 1900, about the same time, Zelda Sayre was born in Alabama). He enrolled in Princeton University before dropping out and joining the army where he was stationed in Alabama. Meeting Zelda, he claimed “I love her, and that’s the beginning and end of everything”. His life was characterised with a few successful books and a few flops, one of which was (brace yourselves English Lang Lit students) “The Great Gatsby”. Now considered to be one of the great American novels, it was then considered the ramblings of an alcoholic attempting to pay for his numerous European trips and nannies, writing merely to finance his party lifestyle, before his death in 1940.
Their marriage had a rough start. Initially, Zelda refused to marry Fitzgerald until he found a publisher for his debut novel This Side of Paradise. Scott re-wrote the character Rosalind to resemble Zelda - oh and stole a whole passage of her diary for Amory Blaine’s ending soliloquy. What followed was a life of hedonism; parties, alcohol and affairs filled their days and nights with servants and nannies employed to maintain their excessive lives (how very Tom and Daisy Buchanan of them). Zelda’s influence on Fitzgerald is constantly downplayed which is attributed to his jealousy. Even though he’d steal passages from her diary, he believed her work wasn’t worthy of being published. Zelda commented on this in her review of The Beautiful and Dammed in The New York Tribune: “In fact, Mr. Fitzgerald—I believe that is how he spells his name—seems to believe that plagiarism begins at home.” But this scathing review didn’t stop him. Indeed, one of the most famous Great Gatsby quotes, said by Daisy Buchanan in the novel, was uttered by Zelda after the birth of their daughter: "I hope she's beautiful and silly, a beautiful little fool".
When the pair moved to Paris, Fitzgerald began working on The Great Gatsby. Frequently left alone, Zelda fell in love with French pilot Edouard Jozan. Zelda demanded a divorce, however, Fitzgerald locked her in their house until she withdrew this demand, leading to her first suicide attempt. After this Zelda took up dancing which led to anorexia and obsessive behaviour. This, paired with Fitzgerald’s resentment towards her, caused her to turn down an offer to join a prestigious school and, similar to the drunken rows at Gatsby’s parties, their relationship turned septic and destructive.
Their hedonistic lifestyle came to an end with Zelda's admittance to a psychiatric hospital where she was diagnosed with schizophrenia (though many psychiatrists now believe she was bi-polar). For the rest of her life, she would be in and out of psychiatric hospitals, but this didn’t dampen her creativity, as she was still able to complete her first novel Save Me The Waltz. However, when Scott read it, she was reprimanded and censored, forcing her to release a heavily edited version as he intended to use the material for Tender is the Night. Zelda’s novel was a commercial flop with Fitzgerald criticising her, referring to her as a “third-rate writer”.
Her final novel Caesar’s Things was unfinished as Zelda tragically died in a fire that broke out in a room she was locked in as she awaited electroshock therapy.
From just a few quotes to whole books, we will never know how much of Fitzgerald’s work is Zelda’s, which begs the question: how great was America’s greatest writer? Is he worthy of the status he has gained posthumously?
No matter what the answer is to these questions we can all agree that Zelda needs more credit than a feeble “To Zelda” at the beginning of Fitzgerald's books. Zelda has been dismissively labelled as Fitzgerald’s “crazy” wife, although this is from Ernest Hemingway’s A Moveable Feast. In reality, she was known to many as a “surprising, intelligent, shrewd, funny woman who ”loved a good party” according to Churchwell. Zelda’s legacy has been erased but the few parts that remain need to be remembered.