Date of Award

1-1-1961

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

English

First Advisor

Dr. Robert Harper

Abstract

“Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me.” These famous lines by F. Scott Fitzgerald, made more famous by Ernest Hemingway, succinctly compress Fitzgerald's involved feelings about great wealth into one brief statement and served to identify one of Fitzgerald's major themes. For Fitzgerald was fascinated by the wealthy throughout his life; they were the chief subjects of his fiction. He grew up in awe of the man of inherited wealth, and he dissipated his vitality trying to live according to the same pattern. In his early years he was completely dazzled by wealth, and even later, he had developed a mature judgment that could see through the glitter, he never lost the sense of an enchantment, a glamour, in great riches. To express the feelings he had about wealth required a symbol that in turn was bewitching, dazzling, and glamourous; and so, in his fiction, Fitzgerald chose to embody the sensations in a woman.

Comments

A Thesis Presented to the Graduate Faculty of the Department of English University of Omaha In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts. Copyright 1961 Goldie Gendler Silverman.

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