Hemingway & the Crack-Up Report :: Fitzgerald Hemingway Essays

Hemingway & the disassemble ReportWorks Cited Missing Between 1935 and 1936, F. Scott Fitzgerald suffered a mental breakdown, which would be referred to as the Crack-Up. Many things precipitated this meltdown including tuberculosis, alcoholism, Zeldas deteriorating condition, and his troubled sense of himself as a man (Donaldson 189). During this period, Fitzgerald had been advised by his doctors to take time off work for the sake of his health. Heeding their advice, he decided to relocate to western sandwich North Carolina, most notably, Hendersonville, for some fresh mountain air. His confessional Crack-Up essays were first published in Esquire Magazine in November 1935. The most well known essays were The Crack-Up, Pasting It Together, and Handle with Care, published in February, March and April of 1936 (www.sc.edu/fitzgerald/facts/facts1.html). These essays were touted as being candid, with the intention of exploring Fitzgeralds dark night of the soul (Donald son 194). In fact, much of the truth is omitted Zeldas illness is not mentioned as a possible factor, and the role of drinking is not credited as a part of Fitzgeralds increasingly severe problem. The most powerful and literary part of his essays is his compelling use of metaphor, most markedly in his referral to himself as being a cracked plate (Donaldson 195). Fitzgerald believed that he had no real self, and the Fitzgerald who existed consisted of borrowed personalities. His intellectual conscience was derived from Edmund Wilson, and his artistic conscience, from Ernest Hemingway (Donaldson 195). Hemingway disagreed entirely with the way Fitzgerald handled his breakdown. In a letter to Maxwell Perkins, Fitzgerald, Hemingway observed that Fitzgerald, has a marvellous talents and the thing is to use it- not whine in public (Donaldson 196). Hemingway also cited two of Fitzgeralds other flaws that contributed to his downfall, both mentally and as a writer. First, Fitzger ald was plagued by a lack of courage second, Fitzgerald never grew up and jumped straight from youth to senility without going through manhood (Donaldson 196). Hemingway never directly wrote to Fitzgerald with criticism. Instead, he much publicly humiliated him in his short story, The Snows of Kilimanjaro. Published in Esquire magazine in August 1936, a passage from the story directly implicates Fitzgerald,They were dull and they drank alike much, or they played