Conclusion

Abstract

If F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novels might serve to illustrate the tendencies in fiction toward saturation on the one hand and toward selection on the other, his development as a writer might serve as the prototype in the “evolution” of fictional technique. From This Side of Paradise in 1920 to The Great Gatsby in 1925, Fitzgerald’s growth in awareness of the artistic possibilities in the writing of fiction is a reflection in miniature of the historical development of such an awareness involving numerous writers over a long period of time. One is tempted to see in the relationship of the development of Fitzgerald as an artist to the development of fiction as an art form a parallel to the biological theory — ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny, or the life cycle of the individual organism reflects the evolutionary cycle of the species. No doubt many writers have followed the pattern of Fitzgerald’s development, but seldom has the detail of the pattern emerged so clearly in so concentrated a period.