About Fitzgerald - Class discussion about similarities with Edgar Allan Poe

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The Similarities between Edgar Allan Poe and F.Scott Fitzgerald - by: Jonathan 8T

These two great writers had many similarities. Let's start with the exterior. Both of them had the same height and weight. They also both had a 'crush' on alcohol and got drunk after a few glasses. This in the end killed both of them because they couldn't metabolize it due to a common illness they both had, hypoglycemia.

They also associated themselves with the gentility and courtly manners of the South. The two writers also wasted their talents on writing for magazines, just to make quick money and frequently found themselves in debt because of their poor ability to manage finances.

Both Poe and Fitzgerald descended from important people. Their fathers however were failures and as a result, Poe and Fitzgerald always had uncertain social status and insecurity. As grim as it may sound they both made proposals to their wives in a cemetery. In both cases their marriages were tragic. Poe's wife died when she was very young and Fitzgerald's became mentally ill before she was thirty. She spent many years in a mental asylum.

Neither of the two writers were capable in military action and they avoided any such experience. They were both buried in the State of Maryland. Both writers achieved fame after their deaths.

Fitzgerald had always been proud of their similarities.

The similarities between the lives of Poe and Fitzgerald are very evident. They were both the same height and weight and their fathers were both failures. Poe's father was an alcoholic actor and Fitzgerald's father was a total failure. Both Poe and Fitzgerald left university before graduating. They were alcoholics and became drunk after two glasses. In fact they even got put in jail for being drunk. Both of them had tragic marriages. Poe's wife died when she was twenty-four, and Fitzgerald's wife became insane an twenty-nine. Although these two writers had great talent they mismanaged their finances and lost most of the money they earned. It was not until after their deaths that they gained recognition for their great contribution to American literature.

- same height and weight

- both had eminent ancestors

- were attracted to old families

- envied solid wealth

- both emphasised the dark side of their character by falsely claiming to be

descended from the revolutionary war traitor, Benedict Arnold

- they associated themselves with the Southern gentility and courtly

manner of Virginia

- they left university without graduating

- Poe was expelled from West Point, Fitzgerald had an undistinguished

career in American military corps

- they were self-destructive American writers

- they were alcoholics who became drunk after just two or three glasses

- they often lost control of themselves

- both were jailed for drunkenness

- both proposed to their beloved in a cemetery and had tragic marriages

- Poe's wife Virginia died of Tuberculosis aged 24; Fitzgerald's wife Zelda

became insane at age 29

- they both tutored to make extra money

- they wasted their artistic talent writing for popular magazines

- they often borrowed money from friends

- Poe insulted influential literary editors as Scot did with producers

- both of them attempted suicide

- Poe and Fitzgerald suffered from hypoglycemia and after their deaths

were buried in Maryland

- their reckless personal lives damaged their literary reputations while they

were alive

- their work was not revived and acclaimed until many years after their

deaths