Transcript Love, Loss, Nostalgia, and Regret: American Modernists HUM 2213: British and American Literature II Spring 2015 Dr.

Love, Loss, Nostalgia, and Regret:
American Modernists
HUM 2213: British and American Literature II
Spring 2015
Dr. Perdigao
February 18-20, 2015
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)
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Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald born September 24, 1896, in St. Paul, Minnesota
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Family moved to Buffalo, NY, in 1898 after furniture business fails; father was a
salesman with Proctor & Gamble; moved to Syracuse, NY in 1901, back to Buffalo
in 1903
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Family moved back to St. Paul in 1908, F. Scott Fitzgerald enrolled in St. Paul
Academy; first story published in school journal
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Enrolled in Newman School in Hackensack in 1911, wrote and produced four plays
and three stories
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Attended Princeton University in 1913; became involved in literary and dramatic
activities; published stories, plays, and poems
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Left Princeton citing illness but actually poor grades, returned in 1916
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Joined army as second lieutenant in 1917, reported to Fort Leavenworth, Kansas;
started work on novel
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)
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Transferred to Kentucky in 1918; sent off manuscript to Charles Scribner’s Sons,
publishers; stationed in Georgia, Alabama; met Zelda Sayre; Scribners rejected
novel; revised; rejected again; sent to NY awaiting overseas duty but war ended
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Engaged to Zelda in 1919; worked at advertising agency; she broke the engagement
due to his “uncertain” future; he moved to St. Paul; This Side of Paradise accepted
by Scribners; magazine stories accepted
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1920: Engaged again; married; lived in CT; published This Side of Paradise and
first short story collection; moved to NYC
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Fitzgeralds travel to England, France, Italy in 1921; returned to St. Paul; daughter
Frances Scott (Scottie) was born
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The Beautiful and the Damned and Tales of the Jazz Age published in 1922; moved
to Long Island
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1924: traveled to France; Zelda’s affair; traveled to Italy
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The Great Gatsby published in 1925; rented Paris apartment; met Hemingway
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)
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Moved to Hollywood to write a screenplay for flapper film “Lipstick” in 1927;
never produced
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Back to Europe: Paris, Italy, Riviera in 1928-1929
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Zelda suffered a nervous breakdown in 1930; Fitzgerald sent her to Malmaison
Clinic, Valmont Clinic in Switzerland, Swiss clinic Prangins; Fitzgerald stayed in
Switzerland
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Returned to the US for father’s funeral in 1931; family moved back to
Montgomery; worked on screenplay for Jean Harlow
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1932: Zelda’s health deteriorated; she was admitted to the Phipps Clinic at Johns
Hopkins
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1933-4: Completed Tender is the Night; published; Zelda’s breakdown
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Fitzgerald became ill in 1935
F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940)
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1936: Zelda hospitalized; mother died
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1937: Six-month contract from MGM
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1939: Fired from new film due to drinking; worked as freelance scriptwriter; started
new novel about Hollywood
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Zelda released from hospital; Fitzgerald died of heart attack on December 21, 1940;
buried in Maryland
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Zelda reentered hospital in 1947, died in fire on March 10, 1948
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1975: F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda reburied in Maryland; 1986 daughter Scottie
buried with them
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)
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Born July 21, 1899 in Oak Park, Illinois; spent youth in Michigan, summers at
cabin with family
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Newspaper reporter for Kansas City Star, developed a journalistic style
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Experience in World War I: wanted to enlist but his father forbade it, suffered from
poor eyesight; volunteered as ambulance driver for the American Red Cross,
ambulance unit in Italy, 1918; Austrian mortar shells hit, shrapnel in Hemingway’s
leg, shot by machine gun bullets, recovery in Milan
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Started writing short stories when home, rather than “get a job” or go to college (at
parents’ urging), submitted stories to Saturday Evening Post, got work at Toronto
Star
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Married Hadley Richardson, moved to Paris in the twenties; met Gertrude Stein,
Ezra Pound, F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Dos Passos
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1925 collection In Our Time, followed by The Sun Also Rises (1926)
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)
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Married Pauline Pfeiffer; while she was pregnant, wrote A Farewell to Arms in
Paris, but was forced to return to the US in 1928; moved to Key West (lived there
for 12 years), wrote final draft there; learned of father’s death in the same year—
result of suicide caused by failing health (diabetes, angina, headaches) and failed
real estate endeavor in Florida
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Spent time between falls in Wyoming, winters in Key West, summers in France and
Spain
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1932—published book about bullfighting Death in the Afternoon
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In a 1933 short story collection, “After the Storm” focuses on Spanish passenger
liner lost at sea
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During Depression, in 1931, bought Key West house at 907 Whitehead Street with
money from film rights to A Farewell to Arms, went on African safari, bought boat
for deep-sea fishing upon return in Keys
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)
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Depression-era life worked into two stories, become part of To Have and Have Not
(1937), only novel set in the United States, in Key West
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1935 Green Hills of Africa, nonfictional account of safari
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1937, traveled to Spain as correspondent during the Spanish Civil War, met Martha
Gellhorn, supported Loyalists, as anti-fascists (not Communist sympathizer)
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Separated from Pauline, away from Key West, lived in Cuba with Martha, then,
because of tumultuous weather, sought respite in Idaho
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For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)
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Split with Martha, met Mary Welsh, married in 1946, after war, received Bronze
star for work as correspondent
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)
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Across the River is only publication between 1940-1950, bad reviews
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Created stories about the sea that become Islands in the Stream, published in 1970
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Story about Cuba leads to The Old Man and the Sea, finished in 6 weeks, written in
1951, published in 1953; mother died, publisher Charles Scribner died, ex-wife
Pauline died after quarrel
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Appeared in Life magazine, more than 6 million copies sold overnight
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Safari with Mary after publication, after Spanish bullfights, two plane crashes,
Hemingways reported dead, read own obituaries
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1953 awarded Pulitzer Prize
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Returned home to Cuba in 1954, wrote new account of safari, learned he won the
Nobel Prize
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Film Old Man and the Sea released 1958, between 1957-8, work on A Moveable
Feast (published posthumously), about Paris, nostalgia and regret
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1940)
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When away in Idaho, revolution in Cuba occurred, fear of losing all possessions,
bought home in Idaho
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Traveled to Spain, wrote story about competing matadors
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Began to show signs of mental illness; could not cut down manuscript, later
published as The Dangerous Summer
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Returned to Cuba for the last time in 1960
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Mary went to NY, Ernest to Spain; showed signs of memory loss, paranoia,
insomnia, depression, sent to NY, developed paranoia about FBI following him,
was hospitalized—diagnosed with diabetes, cirrhosis, depression, resulting in
electroshock therapy
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Could not write, tried to reorder A Moveable Feast
Ernest Hemingway (1899-1961)
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Mary found him with shotgun, had him readmitted to the Mayo clinic; on the way
to the clinic, he tried to walk into propellers of plane; underwent more shock
treatments and was again released
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After two nights home, went to basement, Sunday, July 2, 1961, got gun, shot
himself in foyer
Nella Larsen (1891-1964)
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Born in Chicago as Nellie Walker; daughter of white Danish mother Marie Hanson
and black West Indian father Peter Walker
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Father died when Larsen was young; mother remarried Scandinavian Peter Larsen
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Larsen claimed to have lived in Denmark, returned to attend University of
Copenhagen, but scholars have not found support
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Studied at Fisk University, studying nursing (1907-1908), then Lincoln Hospital
School of Nursing in NYC (1912-1915); worked for Tuskegee Institute’s Andrew
Memorial Hospital as head nurse, then NYC’s Board of Health
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1919—married research physicist Dr. Elmer S. Imes; went from working class to
African American middle class
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Employed at 135th Street branch of NY Public Library; met writers in Harlem;
entered Library School of the NY Public Library in 1922
Nella Larsen (1891-1964)
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Carl Van Vechten claimed to have discovered her, introduced her to Knopf
publishers
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Walter White, former director of NAACP, had encouraged Larsen to complete
Quicksand
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Van Vechten introduced novel to his publisher; W. E. B. Du Bois praised the novel
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Quicksand (1928): Helga Crane, daughter of white mother and black father; teacher
at Naxos; travels to Denmark; considered exotic; returns to America; questions of
race in America, abroad: South: Chicago: Harlem: Copenhagen: NYC: South;
desire for control over her body and identity—resulting in quicksand, loss of
autonomy and agency
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Passing (1929): Irene Redfield, Clare Kendry; passing in America; racial identity;
psychological doubles; themes of racial passing, class and social mobility, and
female desire
Nella Larsen (1891-1964)
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Harmon Foundation’s bronze medal for achievement in literature
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Guggenheim Fellowship in creative writing (1930)
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Wrote in Spain and France
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Divorce in 1933
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Failure to publish third novel
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Loss of status in return to nursing
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Stopped writing in the late 1930s
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Charges of plagiarism for story “Sanctuary” (1930); Sheila Kaye-Smith’s story
“Mrs. Adis” published in 1922
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Lost connections to other New York writers; former husband died in 1941; worked
as nurse in NYC hospitals until death in 1964
Race, Gender, and Sexuality
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Recovery of her work in 1970s
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Contemporary critics questioning endings of stories: sacrifice of independent
female identities
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Marriage and death as themes
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Conflicting ideas about racial and sexual identities, a black and feminine aesthetic
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Ideology of romance—marriage and motherhood
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Repressed female sexual experience
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Ideas about black female sexuality—insisting on chastity like the purity of
Victorian bourgeoisie (McDowell xiii)
Redefining Race, Gender, and Sexuality
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How does one identify him/herself and why? What happens when academics,
philosophers, and sociologists change the terms on you?
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What does it mean to be black, middle class, and a woman?
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Ideology:
Social constructions that can confine groups; system of beliefs established and
becomes part of “cultural norm”
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Race, class, and gender are constructs; we created race through language (real but
manmade)
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Carole Vance writes, “Sexuality is simultaneously a domain of restriction,
repression, and danger as well as a domain of exploration, pleasure, and agency”
(qtd. in McDowell xiv).
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Ideas of pleasure and danger in both texts
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19th century ideas about sexuality but flirtation with “female sexual desire”
connects them to the liberation of the 1920s (McDowell xiv).
Emancipation Acts
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Passing as “a device for encoding the complexities of human personality, for
veiling women’s homoerotic desires, and for subverting simplistic notions of
female self-actualization” (Thadious M. Davis 253)
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Female sexuality—ideas about domestic sphere in relation to a “woman’s quest for
satisfaction and completion” (Davis 253).
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Passing ends with “irreparable breakdown of illusions about emancipatory
strategies or possible futures for women” (Davis 253).