Abstract
While other critics have noted F. Scott Fitzgerald’s affinities with Edgar Allan Poe, this essay will examine in detail how Fitzgerald’s story “A Short Trip Home” is structurally and thematically informed by his reading of Poe’s “William Wilson.” Correspondences between the settings of the two stories, in addition to the treatment of social presentation and consciousness of selfhood, demonstrate the extent to which Fitzgerald read, absorbed, and understood Poe’s method and meaning.
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Notes
- 1.
For examples of Virginia and Maria Clemm using this familiar name, see Silverman (1992, 326, 437).
- 2.
For a recent summary of approaches to “William Wilson,” see Jones (2019, 236–251).
- 3.
Although I believe that Fitzgerald’s use of the maze image in “A Short Trip Home” was mainly inspired by Poe, Fitzgerald is very likely to have seen the collection of Piranesi prints held by the Princeton Library.
- 4.
For a discussion of “A Short Trip Home” in relation to Tender Is the Night, see McMullen (2007, 16–33).
- 5.
Fitzgerald is likely to have received his knowledge about secret societies at Yale from his friend Gerald Murphy, who was a member of the even more prestigious Skull and Bones. The name Scroll and Key, as well as its suggestion of cryptic writing, gave Fitzgerald a chance to sneak in an allusion to his ancestor and namesake, Francis Scott Key.
- 6.
When “Jeb” Stuart was wounded, he fell into the arms of fellow officer Gus W. Dorsey, one of Fitzgerald’s forebears. Like the reference to “Key,” Stuart was a more indirect way to bring Fitzgerald’s family history into the narrative. The Dorsey family was prominent in the history of Maryland from colonial times on and is mentioned in “On Your Own” and Tender Is the Night. Fitzgerald would himself be buried among members of the Dorsey family in Rockville Union Cemetery, Maryland.
- 7.
Other stories by Fitzgerald concern rape or sexual exploitation, including “Tarquin of Cheapside,” “Myra Meets His Family,” and “The Rich Boy.” In “Image on the Heart,” the protagonist suspects a sexual encounter between his fiancée and a man on a train. Incestuous child sexual exploitation is central to Tender Is the Night, which Fitzgerald was working on at this time.
- 8.
For an interpretation of possible political implications of “William Wilson” see Paul Giles (2010, 189–191).
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McMullen, B.S. (2023). Echoes of Poe in the Jazz Age: The Haunting of F. Scott Fitzgerald. In: Ibáñez, J.R.I., Guerrero-Strachan, S.R. (eds) Retrospective Poe. American Literature Readings in the 21st Century. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-09986-1_7
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