The Crack-Up

This essay was primarily about the mental breakdowns that occur in adults when they reach a certain breaking point. The author, F. Scott Fitzgerald is considered one of the greatest American writers of the 20^th century. Fitzgerald has composed many novels and short stories including the novel The Great Gatsby. In this essay Fitzgerald addresses his own personal mental “crack” experiences, using a several different personal anecdotes, he expresses the events that led to and followed his breaking points in life.  Throughout the essay, Fitzgerald utilizes several metaphors to express the severity of the repercussions of cracking. He presents how drinking and depression were two outcomes of his breakdown and explores how one’s conception of the world plays a big part. His “list making phase” is presented and he uses several different categories of “cracks” to show the possible outcomes.

            The Crack-Up was written by F. Scott Fitzgerald to express how when the Great Depression hit it was the end of an era and all the good parts of his life came to an end. Directly following his wife’s series of mental breakdowns, Fitzgerald began breaking down himself. The essay is essentially complaints about how his life went down hill and he couldn’t turn it around for the better. The intended audience of this piece would most likely be F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel readers. This would be his way to explain how he fell from grace and stopped his writing, to give a reason for his sudden halt to his writing. Fitzgerald did a well thought out portrayal of how life can be lavish one day, and full of depression the next. He successfully produces an array of examples as to how one cracks and what to expect fully through his own life experience.

This cartoon is a representation of how the mental breakdowns Fitzgerald addresses in the essay can pull you away from life and the realities of it.

(Cartoon by Leigh Tauss)