Publisher's Synopsis
Diploma Thesis from the year 2015 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1, course: 20th Century Literature, language: English, abstract: The present paper tries to capture the very essence of the 20th century in Fitzgerald's universe of fiction, mainly the short one. The first chapter, "20th Century American Short Fiction", picks up three of the best short story writers of the 20th century and their career as professional writers. The aim was to reveal the way the relationship between the reader and the text establishes, how the text is received and what the reader brings to the reading. The second chapter, "The Modern World as Reflected in F. Scott Fitzgerald's Short Stories", introduces the rich context of the Jazz Age (a name Fitzgerald himself invented), a period of wild economic prosperity, cultural flowering and a shaking up of social mores. It was also the defining era of Fitzgerald's life as a writer with jazz playing a significant part in wider cultural changes. Subsections 2.2 to 2.4 are dedicated to the best part of Fitzgerald's career as a writer of most remarkable tales. The final chapter, "Themes in and Critical Views of Fitzgerald's Most Popular Short Stories", closes the research with the analysis of the main themes and critical views about this category of Fitzgerald's fiction, with a particular focus on my own vision on "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button", in fact a paper that I presented at a round table named "Literature and life Critical Chatting: F. S. Fitzgerald's "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"; H. Melville's "Bartleby, the Scrivener. A Story of Wall Street", at the Students' Scientific Session on 27 May 2015, organized by the Faculty of Letters.
