Zelda Fitzgerald Essay -- Biographies Biography Writers Essays

Zelda Fitzgerald Zelda Fitzgerald began life looking forward to what it could scissure her. A popular debutante and success at every affaire she had yet to get wind enticed her to believe that she was infallible. It was only during her later life that she realized that life, both physically and mentally, had its breaking point. Though many things have been blamed as the set ab away of her mental breakdown, there is no specific root to her problem. Diagnosed as insane in 1930, Zelda would be condemned to spending the rest of her life in and out of mental health facilities, the place where she would take her final breath, killed by a fire in 1948. Zelda Fitzgeralds first breakdown occurred while bread and butter abroad in 1929. Insistent on becoming a foremost ballerina Zelda threw her heart and soul into her dancing. Later in life Zelda would take into account that she needed dancing, she wanted, dancing to be her exclusive possession (Milford, 152)1. After ha ving a life in which she was constantly tingered to as F. Scott Fitzgeralds wife, Zelda imagined dancing to be her own passion, one which could give her a personality separate from just now being a wife. The pinnacle of her first breakdown occurred in April of 1930. more and more Zeldas behavior had been becoming so strange that Scott finally alsok her too a hospital. Against her doctors wishes she soon left and returned to her apartment where she became increasingly more disoriented, complaining of hearing voices and seeing phantoms. Finally, against her wishes Scott instituted her at Les Rives de Pragins. The one thing Zelda missed was her ballet, of it she wrote, It was all I had in the world at the duration (Milford, 160). During her first instance of being institut... ... 4)3 to a sad lonely existence. Whether it was genetics or Scott Fitzgerald to blame for this transformation can never be decided. What Zeldas illness took away from her and from society was the creative thinker that could never fully be unlocked. Zelda left behind a treasure of short stories, plays, and paintings. possibly without her debilitating schizophrenia Zelda Fitzgerald would have been able to create the independent personal identity for which she so craved. 1 Milford, Nancy. Zelda, Harper Collins, New York, New York, 1970. All elevate references refer to this edition.2 Bryer, Jackson. Dear Scott, Dear Zelda, St. Martins Press, New York, New York, 2002. All further references refer to this edition. 3 Willett, Erika Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald Artist, Writer, Dancer and Wife. PBS Biographies. www.pbs.org/kteh/amstorytellers/bios.html