Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald’s Artistic Aspirations and FrustrationsAn Analysis of Her Short Stories and Novels

Abstract

This dissertation analyzes a selection of American writer Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald’s (1900-1948) short stories and novels in order to scrutinize her long-life artistic frustrations and aspirations. To do so, trauma and feminist studies have been taken into account as the theoretical foundation to build this study on. Through the examination of the short stories “The Iceberg” (1917), “The Girl with Talent” (1930), “Miss Ella” (1931), and “A Couple of Nuts” (1932), as well as the novels Save Me the Waltz (1932) and Caesar’s Things (unpublished), this dissertation seeks to explore the existing intersections between trauma and feminist studies underlying Zelda’s writings. In this study, special attention is paid to Zelda’s need to narrate her unsayable psychological traumas through the fiction works she creates, notwithstanding the silence and oppression of her writings that deprive her female protagonists of career advancement and personal freedom. It is precisely thanks to the metaphorical descriptions found all along her works that Zelda allows her own writings to speak for herself, and represent the life-long suffering of a woman who strove for her artistic aspirations as a dancer, painter, and writer.