The Pining Love of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Sayre

 "Look closer, 

and you'll see something extraordinary, mystifying, 

something real and true. 

We have never been what we seemed."

I write this essay after having read some of ‘A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald’ by Therese Anne Fowler, thus my allegations in this essay are mere allegations and personal opinions, nothing more. In the duration of my reading of this novel, I have pondered the life and love of both Zelda and Scott, and despite never having met the two, came to a conclusion.      

I believe that F. Scott Fitzgerald elated Zelda Sayre with his mind, and she his muse for his mind’s work. Scott struggled to write novels at the time he met Zelda. He was an aspiring novelist, and it was apparent that she pushed him to become a writer in order for him to be able financially secure her and himself in the possibility of their future marriage. And that, he did. In fact, his career peaked as Zelda’s personality evolved and intensified that way Scott had wanted it to. I believe that he was slightly ashamed in her Southern background, especially as Scott became a published author in the glamorous New York, after being exposed to several famous and rich people and their lifestyles. Thus, Scott had badgered and sent implications towards Zelda asking for her to adapt, per se, to the ‘flapper’ norms. And that, she did. She hence transformed into both an acceptable, in Scott’s and his peers’ eyes, and lost muse. Lost in the sense that she was later diagnosed with schizophrenia, which seemed more like bipolar.

Zelda possibly developed a sense of bipolar because of her torn state of mind – torn between being a Southerner or a New York flapper. Should she continue to impress the love of her life and the people in which he consumed himself and her in, or should she return to her arrogant father’s hometown and continue thriving as a wealthy Southern girl? At the time, this would have been a difficult decision, especially having been married at the age of just twenty. Zelda would have still been ripening into the young woman that she was meant to be, however the look in Scott’s eyes when they first met that night at a club dance in her hometown would be the determinant to her future. A future of love and hardships and false personalities harbored for acceptance by the status quo.

I can relate to Zelda in this manner. I know that I personally do change my personality to adapt to that of the person I lust every so often, in order to keep them attracted to me. The personality I create for them soon falters, and when my own is revealed, I suppose they become disinterested. I think a lot of women do this to amount to all they can when seeking the heart of a potential lover. It is a form of yearning for acceptance, and a form of seeking mutuality, or a sense of requited love.