ANALYSIS: TONE

Take a story's temperature by studying its tone. Is it hopeful? Cynical? Snarky? Playful?
Wistful, Nostalgic
Take a look at this passage, from Section 3, when Dexter finally nabs a date with Judy:
During dinner [Judy] slipped into a moody depression which gave Dexter a feeling of uneasiness. Whatever petulance she uttered in
her throaty voice worried him. Whatever she smiled at at him, at a chicken liver, at nothing it disturbed him that her smile could
have no root in mirth, or even in amusement. (3.7)
The reason for Judy's sadness matters less than Dexter's response to it (though it does tell us something about her character). He can
see that something is wrong. But Dexter cannot for the life of him figure out what it is. The problem is, Dexter can look at Judy all day
long. He just doesn't understand her. That, in and of itself, is pretty darn sad. He longs for a Judy he'll never have.
The language of the passage makes us feel like we don't actually know what's going on ("uneasiness," "worried," "disturbed").
Fitzgerald's use of all of these anxious words makes us anxious as readers. And we'd bet that was intentional. The tone in this passage
helps reinforce the idea that Judy is to be longed for, but never to be had. She's a dream, but she is also an unreachable goal.
How about one more example, with an equally wistful tone:
The dream was gone. Something had been taken from him. In a sort of panic he pushed the palms of his hands into his eyes and tried
to bring up a picture of []her mouth damp to his kisses and her eyes plaintive with melancholy and her freshness like new fine linen
in the morning. Why, these things were no longer in the world! They had existed and they existed no longer. (6.34)
What's going on here? Check out the repeated words of loss: "gone," "taken," "no longer." The narrator practically beats us over the
head with it: Dexter has lostsomething his dream, to be precise. And when he realizes this, he longs for what he's lost downright
desperately. All he has now are memories, of a woman he never really had, and of dreams he never really achieved.
Lush, Straightforward
"Winter Dreams" switches back and forth between beautiful imagery and relatively straightforward dialogue and description. For
every brisk exchange we get between Dexter and his business associates, we also get a passage like this one, as Dexter goes for a
nighttime swim off Sherry Island:
The tune the piano was playing at that moment had been gay and new five years before when Dexter was a sophomore at college.
They had played it at a prom once when he could not afford the luxury of proms, and he had stood outside the gymnasium and
listened. The sound of the tune precipitated in him a sort of ecstasy and it was with that ecstasy he viewed what happened to him now.
It was a mood of intense appreciation, a sense that, for once, he was magnificently attune to life and that everything about him was
radiating a brightness and a glamour he might never know again. (2.28)
There sure is a lot of style packed into that short passage. First of all, we have this strong sense of time passing. As Dexter listens to
the music, he thinks of a prom five years ago, when he had to stand outside the gymnasium to listen to the activity inside. (Sad night,
eh?) In other words, Dexter looks back to a time when he was just on the edge, both physically and symbolically, of financial success.
He was just outside his college's social sphere. Now Dexter is participating actively in the social lives of the local rich. He has even
played golf with oh yes T.A. Hedrick. The music that he hears reminds Dexter of where he was five years ago and of far he has
come today. We can see how the style very nicely contributes to the wistful, nostalgic "Tone."
This passage also reminds us that Dexter associates wealth and social success with artistic appreciation and with beauty. Basically,
whenever he's around rich people, he thinks life is beautiful. Superficial much? As Dexter listens to the music and sits in the darkness,
he feels "magnificently attune to life." Everything on Sherry Island seems to be "radiating a brightness and a glamour he might never
know again." The rich language of this passage, which emphasizes "ecstasy" and "brightness" and "glamour," easily shows us the
beauty that Dexter associates with the rich life. These wordy, descriptive passages give us some taste of the artistry that Dexter wants
out of his fantasies of wealth. He really has high hopes for what living the high life will feel like.
Moments like this contrast strongly with the ordinary conversations that Dexter has with his golfing partners or with Devlin. All of
Dexter's romantic idealism comes from his own imagination, and all of the actual scenes of rich people interacting are strikingly dull.
They lack the lushness of these descriptive moments in "Winter Dreams." Fitzgerald uses these contrasting rich and straightforward
writing styles to emphasize the difference between Dexter's dreams of high society and the humdrum reality of the business world that
he wants to enter. It's not all it's cracked up to be.
You know the saying that in spring, "a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love"? Well, this is a story about a young man
and his thoughts of love, but as the title tells us, it is certainly not set in spring.
All of Dexter's fantasies about a brighter future come to him during the bitter Minnesota winter instead of the spring and summer,
when the poets tell us we are supposed to daydream. Basically, Fitzgerald is slapping us across the face and telling us that he's doing it
differently. So take that. This is a new kind of story about dreams, different from the classic poetic associations between dreaming and
spring.

For more on the symbolism of the title "Winter Dreams," check out our section on "Symbols, Imagery, Allegory."
Throughout "Winter Dreams," we are under the impression that this is the story of Dexter Green's love for Judy Jones. But at the end
of the story, once Dexter finds out that Judy has lost her charms and settled into a bad marriage, we begin to wonder if this story is
about something else entirely. Dexter does not weep for Judy. He weepsfor himself, for the young man he once was and for the
illusions he once held. Deep stuff.
Dexter thinks, "Long ago [] long ago, there was something in me, but now that thing is gone" (6.36). We can't be totally sure what
Dexter means by "that thing," but we'll take a stab at it. Dexter falls in love with Judy the same day that he quits the Sherry Island Golf
Club. It's at that moment that he decides he is going to be one of the rich and famous men who go to golf courses, and not the kid who
helps them.
Our guy associates Judy with that dream of a rich and fabulous future. So once she loses her looks and falls into a marriage with a
cheating alcoholic, Dexter loses the last of his illusions about the romantic life of the upper class.
And as for Dexter, he realizes that his pursuit of those dreams at all costs have left him with a big fat nothing. He has given up the
idealistic feelings of his youth in favor of his hard-minded business sense. And now he can't recapture "the richness of life" (6.35) that
he appreciated as a younger man. Not a very uplifting ending, to say the least.
Initial Situation
A Kid With a Dream
At the start of "Winter Dreams," Dexter Green is a fourteen-year-old Minnesotan kid. He spends every winter waiting for the sun to
melt the snow on the Sherry Island Golf Course so that he can caddy for the summer. Dexter has a natural attraction to the world of the
wealthy. We know that he is better at mingling with the upper class than the other caddies because, when he quits his caddying job,
Mr. Mortimer Jones says that Dexter is "The best caddy I ever saw" (1.10).
Conflict
Get Rich Quick
The main conflict of "Winter Dreams" is that Dexter dreams of joining the ranks of the rich. But when he sees Judy Jones the lovely
daughter of one of Sherry Island Golf Club's members on the golf course, he realizes that he has been going about it all wrong. He
cannot become rich by earning extra pocket money here and there. He decides to remake himself entirely, so that he will be worthy of
someone as lovely as Judy. Once Dexter sees Judy for the first time, his "winter dreams" of fame and fortune become definite
ambitions that he will give anything to achieve.
Complication
It's Complicated with Judy Jones
Dexter Green has been busy remaking himself. It's been nine years since he quit his job at the golf course, he has gone to college on
the East Coast, and he has come back to Minnesota to make some smart investments in the laundry business. Dexter is already an upand-coming rich guy. He now plays golf with the men he used to caddy for back in the day. Just as it seems as though all of Dexter's
dreams are coming true, Judy Jones comes back into his life. He meets Judy on a swimming platform in the middle of Black Bear
Lake, near the Sherry Island Golf Club. Dexter realizes that he has always wanted Judy but Judy doesn't want Dexter back in the
same way. So even though Dexter's business life is running smoothly, his romantic dream of Judy Jones remains out of his reach.
Climax
Judy's Back
We know that the introduction of Irene Scheerer into Dexter's life probably isn't going to alter Dexter's feelings for Judy. After all, the
adjectives that Fitzgerald uses to describe Irene "sturdily popular" (4.18) and "solid" (4.18) are not the stuff of romance. We are
just waiting for Judy to come back on the scene. And indeed, before we know it, Judy reappears and Dexter's on-again-off-again affair
with her starts up once more.
Suspense
Do Dreams Really Come True?
We know that Dexter's relationship with Judy is doomed to failure (since she just is not that into him). How is this going to jive with
the big dreams he has? What will happen next?

Denouement
Giving up on the Dream
Failing in both his relationships with steady Irene and fickle Judy, Dexter gives up on women all together. He registers for the Army
when the U.S. joins World War I in 1917. And then he moves to New York to make even more money. Dexter dedicates himself to
becoming as rich as he possibly can and he leaves behind his romantic illusions of Judy Jones for good.
Conclusion
Winter Nightmares
By the end of the story, Dexter has apparently achieved all of his goals: he is rich and successful. In fact, he is so well off that "there
were no barriers too high for him" (6.2) to overcome. At this point, Dexter has not been back to the Midwest for seven years. Those
years pining after Judy Jones are long past. But it is not until his business associate, Devlin, mentions in passing that he knows an
unhappily married woman named Judy Simms (maiden name Jones) that Dexter realizes how far he has come from the romantic boy
he was in Black Bear, Minnesota. In his pursuit of money, Dexter has forgotten the ideals of romance and grace that led him to try to
become wealthy in the first place. He has grown hard-minded and unemotional. Not even the news that Judy has ruined her life with a
bad marriage can truly move him. Dexter weeps when he realizes there is nothing left of the boy he once was. Weirdly, Dexter's
success has killed off his winter dreams.

PG
There are no actual descriptions of sex in this story, but the whole thing is pretty much about sexual attraction. It's Dexter's helpless
physical attraction to Judy that makes everything happen in "Winter Dreams." Judy's sex appeal echoes throughout the story: her
"physical splendor" (5.6) attracts all men. Still, even though the story is all about sex, Fitzgerald tactfully withholds the juicy details.

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 December 21, 1940) was an American author of novels and short stories, whose
works are the paradigmatic writings of the Jazz Age. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.
[1]
Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost Generation" of the 1920s. He finished four novels: This Side of Paradise, The
Beautiful and Damned, The Great Gatsby (his best known), and Tender Is the Night. A fifth, unfinished novel, The Love of the Last
Tycoon, was published posthumously. Fitzgerald also wrote many short stories that treat themes of youth and promise along with age
and despair.

Early life
Born in 1896 in Saint Paul, Minnesota, to an upper-middle-class family, Fitzgerald was named after his famous second cousin, three
times removed, Francis Scott Key,[2] but was referred to by the familiar moniker Scott Fitzgerald. He was also named after his
deceased sister, Louise Scott,[3] one of two sisters who died shortly before his birth. "Well, three months before I was born," he wrote as
an adult, "my mother lost her other two children ... I think I started then to be a writer."[4] His parents were Mollie (McQuillan) and Edward
Fitzgerald.[5] His mother was of Irish descent, and his father had Irish and English ancestry.[6][7] Fitzgerald is the first cousin once
removed of Mary Surratt, hanged in 1865 for conspiring to assassinate Abraham Lincoln.[8]
Fitzgerald spent the first decade of his childhood primarily in Buffalo, New York (18981901 and 19031908, with a short interlude
in Syracuse, New York between January 1901 and September 1903).[9] His parents, both Catholic, sent Fitzgerald to two Catholic
schools on the West Side of Buffalo, first Holy Angels Convent (19031904, now disused) and then Nardin Academy (19051908). His
formative years in Buffalo revealed him to be a boy of unusual intelligence and drive with a keen early interest in literature. His doting
mother ensured that her son had all the advantages of an upper-middle-class upbringing.[10] In a rather unconventional style of

parenting, Fitzgerald attended Holy Angels with the peculiar arrangement that he go for only half a dayand was allowed to choose
which half.[9]
In 1908, his father was fired from Procter & Gamble, and the family returned to Minnesota, where Fitzgerald attended St. Paul
Academy in St. Paul from 1908 to 1911.[11] When he was 13 he saw his first piece of writing appear in printa detective story published
in the school newspaper. In 1911, when Fitzgerald was 15 years old, his parents sent him to the Newman School, a prestigious
Catholic prep school in Hackensack, New Jersey. Fitzgerald played on the 1912 Newman football team.[12] At Newman, he met Father
Sigourney Fay, who noticed his incipient talent with the written word and encouraged him to pursue his literary ambitions.
After graduating from the Newman School in 1913, Fitzgerald decided to stay in New Jersey to continue his artistic development
at Princeton University. Fitzgerald tried out for the college football team, but was cut the first day of practice. [12] At Princeton, he firmly
dedicated himself to honing his craft as a writer. There he became friends with future critics and writers Edmund Wilson (Class of 1916)
and John Peale Bishop (Class of 1917), and wrote for the Princeton Triangle Club, the Nassau Lit,[13] and the Princeton Tiger. He also
was involved in the American Whig-Cliosophic Society, which ran the Nassau Lit.[14] His absorption in the Trianglea kind of musicalcomedy societyled to his submission of a novel to Charles Scribner's Sons where the editor praised the writing but ultimately rejected
the book. He was a member of the University Cottage Club, which still displays Fitzgerald's desk and writing materials in its library.
Fitzgerald's writing pursuits at Princeton came at the expense of his coursework. He was placed on academic probation, and in 1917 he
dropped out of school to join the U.S. Army. Afraid that he might die in World War I with his literary dreams unfulfilled, in the weeks
before reporting for duty Fitzgerald hastily wrote a novel called The Romantic Egotist. Although the publisher Charles Scribner's Sons
rejected the novel, the reviewer noted its originality and encouraged Fitzgerald to submit more work in the future.[

Illness and death

Fitzgerald had been an alcoholic since his college days, and became notorious during the 1920s for his extraordinarily heavy drinking,
leaving him in poor health by the late 1930s. According to Zelda's biographer, Nancy Milford, Fitzgerald claimed that he had
contracted tuberculosis, but Milford dismisses it as a pretext to cover his drinking problems. However, Fitzgerald scholar Matthew J.
Bruccoli contends that Fitzgerald did in fact have recurring tuberculosis, and according to Nancy Milford, Fitzgerald biographer Arthur
Mizener said that Fitzgerald suffered a mild attack of tuberculosis in 1919, and in 1929 he had "what proved to be a tubercular
hemorrhage". It has been said that the hemorrhage was caused by bleeding from esophageal varices.[citation needed]
Fitzgerald suffered two heart attacks in the late 1930s. After the first, in Schwab's Drug Store, he was ordered by his doctor to avoid
strenuous exertion. He moved in with Sheilah Graham, who lived in Hollywood on North Hayworth Avenue, one block east of
Fitzgerald's apartment on North Laurel Avenue. [25] Fitzgerald had two flights of stairs to climb to his apartment; Graham's was on the
ground floor. On the night of December 20, 1940, Fitzgerald and Sheilah Graham attended the premiere of This Thing Called
Love starringRosalind Russell and Melvyn Douglas. As the two were leaving the Pantages Theater, Fitzgerald experienced a dizzy spell
and had trouble leaving the theater; upset, he said to Graham, "They think I am drunk, don't they?" [25]
The following day, as Fitzgerald ate a candy bar and made notes in his newly arrived Princeton Alumni Weekly,[26] Graham saw him
jump from his armchair, grab the mantelpiece, gasp, and fall to the floor. She ran to the manager of the building, Harry Culver, founder
of Culver City. Upon entering the apartment to assist Fitzgerald, he stated, "I'm afraid he's dead." Fitzgerald had died of a heart attack.
His body was moved to the Pierce Brothers Mortuary.
Zelda and Fitzgerald's grave inRockville, Maryland, inscribed with the final sentence of The Great Gatsby

Among the attendants at a visitation held at a funeral home was Dorothy Parker, who reportedly cried and murmured "the poor son-ofa-bitch", a line from Jay Gatsby's funeral in Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.[27][28][29] His body was transported to Maryland, where his
funeral was attended by twenty or thirty people in Bethesda; among the attendants were his only child, Frances "Scottie" Fitzgerald
Lanahan Smith (then age 19), and his editor, Maxwell Perkins. Fitzgerald was originally buried in Rockville Union Cemetery. Zelda died
in 1948, in a fire at the Highland Mental Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina. Scottie Smith worked to overturn the Archdiocese of
Baltimore's ruling that Fitzgerald died a non-practicing Catholic, so that he could be buried at the Roman Catholic Saint Mary's
Cemetery where his father's family was interred; this involved "re-Catholicizing" Fitzgerald after his death. Both of the Fitzgeralds'
remains were moved to the family plot in the cemetery of Saint Mary's Church,[30] in Rockville, Maryland, in 1975.[31]
Fitzgerald died before he could complete The Love of the Last Tycoon.[32][33] His manuscript, which included extensive notes for the
unwritten part of the novel's story, was edited by his friend, the literary critic Edmund Wilson, and published in 1941 as The Last
Tycoon. In 1994 the book was reissued under the original title The Love of the Last Tycoon, which is now agreed to have been
Fitzgerald's preferred title.[34]

In 2015, an editor of The Strand Magazine discovered and published for the first time an 8,000-word manuscript, dated July 1939, of a
Fitzgerald short-story entitled "Temperature".Long thought lost, Fitzgerald's manuscript for the story was found in the rare books and
manuscript archives at Princeton University, Fitzgerald's alma mater. As described by Strand, "Temperature", set in Los Angeles, tells
the story of the failure, illness and decline of a once successful writer and his life among Hollywood idols, while suffering lingering
fevers and indulging in light-hearted romance.[35] The protagonist is a 31-year-old self-destructive, alcoholic named Emmet Monsen,
whom Fitzgerald describes in his story as "notably photogenic, slender and darkly handsome". It tells of his personal relationships as
his health declines with various doctors, personal assistants, and a Hollywood actress who is his lover. "As for that current dodge 'No
reference to any living character is intended' no use even trying that," Fitzgerald writes at the beginning of the story. Fitzgerald
bibliographies have previously listed the story, sometimes referred to as "The Women in the House", as "unpublished", or as "Lost mentioned in correspondence, but no surviving transcript or manuscript".

Students Copy

WINTER DREAMS
F. Scott Fitzgerald
In winter, Dexter Green, son of the owner of the second-best grocery store in Black Bear, Minnesota, skis across
the snowed-in golf course where he caddies in the warmer months to earn his pocket money. In April, the spring
thaw begins and the first golfers brave the course. Unlike the dismal spring, the autumn and winter empower
Dexter and stimulate his imagination. Dexter imagines beating the golf clubs most esteemed members. At
work, he crosses paths with Judy Jones, who, attended by her nurse, asks Dexter to carry her clubs. Dexter cant
leave his post, and Judy throws a tantrum and tries to strike her nurse with her clubs. When the caddy-master
promptly returns and Dexter is free to be Judys caddy, he quits. Hastily ending his employment as a caddie is
the first in a lifelong series of impetuous acts that would be dictated to Dexter by his so-called winter dreams,
which drive him to desire material success.
Dexter foregoes state school for a more esteemed eastern university, where his financial resources are stretched.
He still longs for luxury, but his desires are often denied. After college, Dexter, articulate and confident,
borrows $1,000 off the strength of his degree and buys a partnership in a laundry. By age twenty-seven, he owns
the largest chain of laundries in the upper Midwest. He sells the business and moves to New York.
We learn more about a period of time during Dexters rise to success. At age twenty-three, Dexter is given a
weekend pass to the Sherry Island Golf Club by Mr. Hart, for whom Dexter used to caddy. Dexter feels superior
to the other competitors but also that he does not belong in this world. At the fifteenth green, while the group
searches for a lost ball, Mr. Hedrick is struck in the stomach by Miss Jones, who wishes to play through and

doesnt realize that she has struck another player. She hits her ball and continues on, as the men alternately
praise or criticize her beauty and forward behavior. Later that evening, Dexter swims out to the raft in the clubs
lake, stretching out on the springboard and listening to a distant piano. The sound of the tune fills him with
delight at his present situation. The peaceful scene is disturbed by the roar of Judys motorboat. She has
abandoned a date who believes that she is his ideal, and she asks Dexter to drive the boat so that she can waterski.
Waiting for Judy to arrive for their date the next evening, Dexter imagines all the successful men from esteemed
backgrounds who had once loved her. He has acquired polish and sophistication despite his humble origins.
Judy arrives in modest clothes, tells the maid that dinner can be served, and informs Dexter that her parents will
not be in attendance, which is a relief for Dexter. After dinner, on the sun porch, Judy asks Dexter whether it is
all right if she cries. A man she was dating has confessed he is poor. When she asks Dexter what his financial
standing is, he tells her that he is most likely the richest young man in the entire region. They kiss, and Dexters
passion for her increases. Dexter continues his pursuit of Judy, but during a picnic she leaves with another man.
She claims that nothing has happened between her and the other man, which Dexter doesnt believe.
Judy toys with the various men who seek her affections. The summer ends, and Dexter takes up residence at a
club in town, showing up at the dances when Judy is in attendance. He still desires her and dreams of taking her
to New York to live. He eventually forces himself to accept the fact that he will never possess her in the way he
wants. He throws himself into work and becomes engaged to Irene. One night, just before the engagement is to
be announced, Irenes headache forces her to cancel her plans with Dexter. He return to the University Club,
where Judy, back from her travels, approaches him. They go for a drive. Judy flirts with him, telling him he
should marry her, and they discuss their former passion. She asks to be taken home and begins to cry quietly.
She repeats her desire to marry him. She asks him in, and he relents. Later, he does not regret that Judys ardor
cools after a month, that Irene and her family were deeply hurt by his betrayal, or that his reputation in the city
has been compromised. He loves Judy above all. Leaving for the East with the intention of selling his laundries
and settling in New York, the outbreak of World War I calls him back west, where he transfers management of
his business to a partner. He enters basic training, welcoming the distraction of combat.
In New York seven years later, when Dexter is thirty-two, he is more successful than ever. Devlin, a business
associate, informs Dexter that Judy married a friend of his, a man who cheats on her and drinks heavily while
Judy stays at home with the children. She has also, according to Devlin, lost her looks. Dexter feels the loss of
her beauty and spark personally, because his illusions of Judy are finally and irreparably shattered. He cries,
mourning the past and his lost youth, which he will never be able to reclaim.
Character List
Dexter Green - A successful businessman and the storys protagonist. Dexter grew up in Keeble, a small Minnesota village, the son
of a grocer and Bohemian mother. Ambitious and eager, he works hard to gain the trappings of wealth and status. Dexter both
celebrates and denies his humble working-class origins. He feels like a trespasser in the halls of the affluent, but at the same time he
feels superior for having worked his way into the upper ranks, a group comprising people for whom he has little respect.
Judy Jones - The daughter of the affluent Mortimer Jones. Glowing with vitality, Judy is aloof, charming, and irresistible to many
men, including Dexter. She is alluring, unattainable, and whimsical, concerned only with the gratification of her desires. Judy does not
seem to be fully aware of how manipulative she is toward the various suitors who pursue heror if she is aware, she doesnt care.
Mortimer Jones - A wealthy member of the Sherry Island Gold Club and Judys father. In one of Dexters fantasies, Mr. Jones
watches Dexter amaze the club members with his mastery of the springboard. The real Mr. Jones approaches Dexter one day, with
tears in his eyes, proclaiming him the best caddy and exhorting him not to quit.
T. A. Hedrick - A pillar of the community. Mr. Hedrick is the man Dexter trounces in his imaginary golf tournaments. Dexter does
eventually golf with Mr. Hedrick, who emerges as a bore with few skills as a player. On the course, Mr. Hedrick is hit in the stomach
by an errant ball struck by Judy Jones.
Irene Scheerer - Dexters fiance. Irene is light-haired, sweet, and honorable. Dexter breaks her heart by cheating on her with Judy.
Mrs. Scheerer - Irenes mother. A kind presence, Mrs. Scheerer likes Dexter and the idea of him becoming her son-in-law. Dexters
betrayal of Irene hurts her deeply.
Mr. Hart - A successful man who admires young Dexters drive and work ethic. Mr. Hart gives Dexter a weekend guest pass to the
Sherry Island Golf Club.
Mr. Sandwood - A member of the Sherry Island Golf Club who golfs one day with the twenty-three-year-old Dexter. Mr. Sandwood
is captivated by Judy Joness beauty.
Devlin - A businessman from Detroit who visits Dexter in New York. Devlin informs Dexter that Judy married one of Devlins best
friends, the couple is unhappily married, and Judy has lost her legendary good looks.

Synopsis
F. Scott Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896, in St. Paul, Minnesota. His first novel's success made him famous and let him
marry the woman he loved, but he later descended into drinking and his wife had a mental breakdown. Following the
unsuccessful Tender is the Night, Fitzgerald moved to Hollywood and became a scriptwriter. He died of a heart attack in 1940, at age
44, his final novel only half completed.
Early Life
F. Scott Fitzgerald was born Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald on September 24, 1896, in St. Paul, Minnesota. His namesake (and second
cousin three times removed on his father's side) was Francis Scott Key, who wrote the lyrics to the "Star-Spangled Banner."
Fitzgerald's mother, Mary McQuillan, was from an Irish-Catholic family that had made a small fortune in Minnesota as wholesale
grocers. His father, Edward Fitzgerald, had opened a wicker furniture business in St. Paul, and, when it failed, he took a job as a
salesman for Procter & Gamble that took his family back and forth between Buffalo and Syracuse in upstate New York during the first
decade of Fitzgerald's life. However, Edward Fitzgerald lost his job with Procter & Gamble in 1908, when F. Scott Fitzgerald was 12,
and the family moved back to St. Paul to live off of his mother's inheritance.
Fitzgerald was a bright, handsome and ambitious boy, the pride and joy of his parents and especially his mother. He attended the St.
Paul Academy, and when he was 13, he saw his first piece of writing appear in print: a detective story published in the school
newspaper. In 1911, when Fitzgerald was 15 years old, his parents sent him to the Newman School, a prestigious Catholic preparatory
school in New Jersey. There, he met Father Sigourney Fay, who noticed his incipient talent with the written word and encouraged him
to pursue his literary ambitions.
After graduating from the Newman School in 1913, Fitzgerald decided to stay in New Jersey to continue his artistic development at
Princeton University. At Princeton, he firmly dedicated himself to honing his craft as a writer, writing scripts for Princeton's famous
Triangle Club musicals as well as frequent articles for the Princeton Tiger humor magazine and stories for the Nassau Literary
Magazine. However, Fitzgerald's writing came at the expense of his coursework. He was placed on academic probation, and, in 1917,
he dropped out of school to join the U.S. Army. Afraid that he might die in World War I with his literary dreams unfulfilled, in the
weeks before reporting to duty, Fitzgerald hastily wrote a novel called The Romantic Egotist. Though the publisher, Charles Scribner's
Sons, rejected the novel, the reviewer noted its originality and encouraged Fitzgerald to submit more work in the future.
Fitzgerald was commissioned a second lieutenant in the infantry and assigned to Camp Sheridan outside of Montgomery, Alabama. It
was there that he met and fell in love with a beautiful 18-year-old girl named Zelda Sayre, the daughter of an Alabama Supreme Court
judge. The war ended in November 1918, before Fitzgerald was ever deployed, and upon his discharge he moved to New York City
hoping to launch a career in advertising lucrative enough to convince Zelda to marry him. He quit his job after only a few months,
however, and returned to St. Paul to rewrite his novel.

Types of Adverbs
Adverb of time
An adverb of time tells us when something is done or happens. We use it at the beginning or at the end of a sentence. We use it as a form of
emphasis when we place it at the beginning. Adverbs of time include afterwards,already, always, immediately, last
month, now, soon, then, and yesterday.

He collapsed and died yesterday.

His factory was burned down a few months ago.

Last week, we were stuck in the lift for an hour.

Adverb of place
An adverb of place tells us where something is done or happens. We use it after the verb, object or at the end of a sentence. Adverbs of place
include words such as above, below, here, outside, over there, there, under,upstairs.

We can stop here for lunch.

The schoolboy was knocked over by a school bus.

They rushed for their lives when fire broke out in the floor below.

Adverb of manner
An adverb of manner tells us how something is done or happens. Most
as badly, happily, sadly, slowly, quickly, and others that include well, hard, fast, etc.

The brothers were badly injured in the fight.

They had to act fast to save the others floating in the water.

At the advanced age of 88, she still sang very well.

adverbs

of

manner

end

in

ly

such

Adverb of degree
An adverb of degree tells us the level or extent
are almost, much, nearly, quite, really,so, too, very, etc.

that

something

is

done

or

It was too dark for us to find our way out of the cave. (Before adjective)

The referee had to stop the match when it began to rain very heavily. (Before adverb)

Her daughter is quite fat for her age.

The accident victim nearly died from his injuries.

After all these years, she is still feeling very sad about her fathers death.

happens.

Words

of

adverb

of

degree

Adverb of frequency
An adverb of frequency tells us how often something is done or happens.
include again, almost, always, ever,frequently, generally, hardly
always, never,occasionally, often, rarely, seldom, sometimes, twice, usually, andweekly.

They were almost fifty when they got married.

He hardly ever say something nice to his wife.

While overseas, he frequently phoned home.

She is not nearly always right although she thinks she is always right.

He complained that she never smiled back.

We only write to each other very occasionally.

Peter seldom reads the Bible.

Sometimes he stays late in the office to complete his work.

Our cat was bitten twice by the same dog.

The man usually proposes marriage.

Words

used

as

adverbs of frequency
ever, nearly, nearly