F. Scott Fitzgerald. the Swimmers. Essay

F. Scott Fitzgerald. The swimmers.

F. Scott Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost Generation" of the 1920s. He finished four novels: This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, The Great Gatsby—his most famous—and Tender Is the Night. His style is very interesting. All his short stories has a construction of novels. “The swimmers” is a fine example of Fitzgerald’s style. It was written in 1927, but was not published for many years. In Fitzgerald’s opinion it was the most difficult story and too large to its form. The narration is third-person. Third-person narration provides the greatest flexibility to the author. Each and every character is referred to by the narrator as "he", "she", "it", or "they". A story in this narrative mode is presented by a narrator with an overarching point of view, seeing and knowing everything that happens within the world of the story, including what each of the characters is thinking and feeling. So this type of narration let us to imagine the full picture of the story and understand every character. The main idea of the story is richness, money and class-division. It is the main problem of the whole American nation. The theme of the story is person’s attitude towards his richness. Is it enough just to have money to go forward? Has the money a real power in every situation or maybe we are to have a real возможности, умения, to save ourselves and continue to go forward. Another theme is misalliance, between expatriate, patrician Virginian, Henry Clay Marston and his French wife Choupette. So the author shows us the victim of all this problems and describes his conflict verses himself. This short story is written for mass-reader. Simple language and волнующая problem not just of American nation, but other countries made “The swimmers” popular all over the world. The title of the story “The swimmers” shows us that the swimmers are every person in our world. The plot of the story is very gripping. The action of the story is laid in Paris. The main character Henry Clay Marston who has enough money but they could not help him to solve his problems. The story consists of exposition, rising action, climax, falling action and resolution. The story told in chronological order which led us to the resolution of main problem. The story is divided into 4 logical parts. Having come back home Henry finds the wife with the friend the man. He gets sick, goes on the sea, there tries to rescue the girl and almost perishes itself as isn't able to float well. Henry gets acquainted with this girl, asks her about the reasons of love to swimming and receives the strange answer: "To be purer". Reflecting on specifics of national consciousness, arrives at idea that traditional "fins" of Americans — it is money.

Henry learns that the wife doesn't love it, she suggests to issue divorce. Chupet and her loved Vayz try to take away blackmail from him children, but Genrn wins a duel thanks to ability to float, after all lessons of the girl didn't pass for it for nothing. In this line of a plot the second semantic bottom — a duel between Henry and Vayz is shown also — it is a spiritual duel. Vayz claims that money is omnipotent: "Money created this country, erected its huge remarkable cities, created the industry, covered it with a network of the railroads. Money bridles the nature, money will create cars and sets them in motion …" Henry's position other: "Americans would have to be born with fins, probably, so it and was — probably, money was such fins" — he thinks in the beginning. But on an action course, in the motor-boat who has broken in the high sea, Henry comprehends other truth: in similar situations money is powerless. Only real abilities of the person, in this case — ability to float, are capable to rescue its future. The wife is compelled to refuse children, which for it — meaning of the life, and for her — only guarantee of decency.