From the dusk of humanity to its imminent demise, there will never be a soul more beautiful to the artist than that of his muse. The immortalisation of the soul, in words, in music, or in art, is as old as the earth itself. However, as in the case of the lovely Zelda Fitzgerald, being Melpomene can often be a tragedy in its own right.
Zelda Fitzgerald, born Sayre, was one of the first flappers of the jazz age. Her bold ways and startling knees caught the attention of none other than the future writer, F. Scott Fitzgerald, while he penned his first novel, This Side of Paradise. He was so enamoured by the young flapper, that he would eventually partly rewrite the novel to base one of the characters on his newfound muse.
This was initially a source of great pride and joy for young Zelda, but such profuse displays of undying love are not often without their own unique sets of tribulations.
Zelda, being one of the most relevant young women of her time, thought it amusing to write a rather slyly scathing review of F. Scott’s second book, The Beautiful and Damned. In her article, she explained in scintillating detail, how she happened to recognise a page of the novel from an old diary of hers, which she had misplaced soon after her marriage. In an act of sardonic jest, she wrote “Mr Fitzgerald (I believe that is how he spells his name) seems to believe that plagiarism begins at home.”
This comment was ill-received by the prideful writer, who began to resent his bride’s sharp wit and growing popularity. The review was perhaps the first drop in the downpour that precipitated the tragic ruination of their relationship.
Their turbulent marriage became the talk of the town, as they aired their dirty laundry for all to see. Therefore, it came as a surprise to no one when F. Scott, so absorbed in his work in Hollywood, left his wife standing at her father’s deathbed all by herself.
The loss of her father was the cause of her grave emotional distress, and Zelda would find herself in and out of psychiatric hospitals over the next few years, as her mental state began to deteriorate.
Nevertheless, Zelda Fitzgerald was a fighter and an artist above all else. She let her predicament impede neither her zeal, nor her creativity, and went on to write the semi-autobiographical novel, Save Me The Waltz.
Unfortunately, Zelda’s hardships were not yet behind her, as her husband would go on to forbid her from using the draft, as it was based on the same material he intended to use in his novel Tender Is the Night - which would not be finished for another 2 years.
After a great deal of editing, her novel was finally published, but with little success. It received a plethora of miserable reviews, the most noteworthy of which was written by F. Scott himself, in which he accused his muse - ironically enough - of “plagiarism”.
It would be a long time before Zelda would decide to take up writing again. She would only begin penning her second novel, Caesar’s Things while undergoing treatment in a psychiatric ward, many years after the failure of her first novel. However, the novel would remain forever unfinished due to the author’s untimely demise. Whilst awaiting electroshock therapy in a locked room, Zelda was unable to escape the fire that nearly burned the entire ward to the ground.
While Zelda’s story may seem like no more than the tragic tale of a woman done in by the simple misfortune of her circumstances, it is not without hope. She had a pilfering fraud for a husband, and suffered the trials of mental illness in a time where just being a woman was punishment enough. Thus, it is no surprise that, after the birth of her daughter, she uttered the fateful words, for which her husband would take the fame. Words he stole from her lips and placed on the tongue of Daisy Buchanan. And perhaps Zelda was right, when she said that she hoped her daughter would “be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”