3. BiographicalInformation:
● Zelda was born on July
24th, 1900 in
Montgomery, Alabama.
● She was the sixth child to
an elite Southern family.
● Zelda married Scott in
1920.
● Her daughter, Scottie,
was born in 1921.
● She had her first
psychological collapse in
1930.
● Her novel, Save Me the
Waltz, was published in
1932.
● She died in 1948.
4. Highland Hospital
Asheville, North Carolina
A fire broke out the
evening of March 10th,
1948 and took the lives of
nine women - one
including Zelda Fitzgerald.
5. WritingtheNovel
Phipps Clinic at Johns Hopkins Hospital
Baltimore, Maryland
● The outline
of the novel
was formed
in three
weeks.
● Zelda wrote
for two
hours a
day,
finishing it
in six
weeks.
6. OriginalReviews
Forum and Century:
Zelda “weaves words, words,
words” and her prose “fails to do
anything but clog the action of the
plot and the reader’s understanding
of the characters.”
(December 1932)
The New York Times Book Review:
The novel has “atrocious style” and
“unwieldy metaphors” that makes
this literary piece a difficult one to
read.
(October 16th, 1932)
Saturday Review of Literature:
“Her book rivals the cross-word
puzzle page in point of obscurity.”
(October 22nd, 1932)
Bookman:
“It is not only that her publishers
have not seen fit to curb an almost
ludicrous lushness of her writing…
but they also have not given the
book the elementary services of a
literate proofreader.”
(November 1932)
7. Judge Anthony Dickinson Sayre
“A living fortress”
Minerva Buckner Machen Sayre
“[A] part of masculine tradition”
TheRoleofZelda’sParents
9. WomenandTechnology
● Social status and
superiority/authority
are portrayed
through
transportation.
● Only men operate
vehicles.
● Joan, Alabama’s
sister, is put on a
train by a male to be
delivered to a male.
● Through ballet,
Zelda owns and
objectifies herself.
10. TheEffectsofMarriage
Dancing frees and
also destroys her.
Does the novel end
in death or
marriage?
Both.
It’s a form of death
through her
marriage.
She feels that her
life has no
significance.
11. AsylumWriting
● Zelda didn’t want anybody
using her mental illnesses
(schizophrenia, gastrointestinal
ailments, depression, and
eczema) in literary plots that
referenced her.
● She wasn’t allowed to write
another novel.
● She was worried that
treatments would hinder her
creativity.
● Her body becomes “the Other:”
a force outside of her own self
that needs to be controlled.
12. ModernWorksaboutZelda
Zelda - “Maybe my stories and essays aren’t as
fine as Scott’s, but who says I have to be just like
him? I’m not him. No writer should be the same as
another, that’s not art. My articles and stories
have been published in lots of places. Ask him,
he’ll tell you I’ve succeeded on my own” (326).
This novel is from the perspective of Zelda Fitzgerald herself.
It captures Zelda’s original fascination with Scott, their
courtship, and her optimistic feelings about their future
together. Zelda looks the part of a famous author’s wife, and
they often engage in the glamorous life of celebrities, along
with individuals like Ernest Hemingway and Gertrude Stein.
However, this type of life takes a toll on Zelda, and she
struggles to find her own identity.
13. ModernWorksaboutZelda
“You started well,” I said. “The
beautiful young debutante. The handsome soldier.
You understood each other immediately.”
“Immediately,” she echoed. “It’s almost
as if we share a soul, except there’s not room for
both of us. We’re forever nudging each other out
of the space allotted to us and it wears us out.”
(66)
Anna Howard, a psychiatric nurse in Baltimore, is favored by
Zelda Fitzgerald.These two women are drawn together, as
they are both experiencing loneliness from things that are
outside of their control. This novel explores friendship and the
desire of companionship.
14. ModernWorksaboutZelda
Zelda - “It is far better to be dead than to be a
princess in a tower, for you can never get out once
they put you up there, you’ll see. You’ll see. You
must live on earth and mix with the hoi polloi”
(33).
This novel is from the point of view of a young girl named
Evalina. She is residing at Highland Hospital in Asheville,
North Carolina, where she and Zelda Fitzgerald have a
special connection through music and theatre. This novel
offers a solution of the unsolved mystery of the cause of the
fire at Highland that resulted in the death of Zelda and eight
other patients.
15. InConclusion…
Zelda Fitzgerald was not just a pretty
face or a wild flapper wife of one of
America’s favorite writers.
She, herself, was a writer and an artist
who desired to express her own
creativity and individualism.
In a society that encouraged
patriarchal control and influence,
Zelda strived to find freedom through
having control of her own self.
Save Me the Waltz gives scholars a
personal look into the post-WWI life of
a woman that is seeking to make her
own name for herself.
17. PictureCitations
Ballet: Happy Zelda. Encyclopedia of Alabama. Web. 28 March 2016.
Ballet: Serious Zelda. Behind Ballet. Web. 27 March 2016.
“Call Me Zelda” Cover. Goodreads. Web. 26 March 2016.
Fitzgerald Couple: Happy. Zelda and F. Scott. Web. 26 March 2016.
Fitzgerald Couple: Sitting. Zelda and F. Scott. Web. 26 March 2016.
Fitzgerald Couple: Standing Candid. Zelda and F. Scott. Web. 26 March 2016.
Fitzgerald Family in Car. The Australian. Web. 27 March 2016.
Fitzgerald Family Portrait. Jezebel. Web. 27 March 2016.
Fitzgerald Christmas. Scott and Zelda. Web. 28 March 2016.
Fitzgerald Museum House, The. The Fitzgerald Museum. Web. 28 March 2016.
“Guests on Earth” Cover. Amazon. Web. 28 March 2016.
18. PictureCitationsContinued
Highland Hospital Building. Fine Art America. Web. 28 March 2016.
Highland Hospital Burning. Asheville and Buncombe County. Web. 28 March 2016.
Johns Hopkins Hospital. Johns Hopkins Medicine. Web. 28 March 2016.
Judge Anthony Dickinson Sayre. Chess. Web. 27 March 2016.
Mayo, Brooke. Letter from Zelda: From the Museum. 15 June 2014. Photograph. The Fitzgerald
Museum, Montgomery.
Minerva Buckner “Minnie” Machen Sayre. Find a Grave. Web. 27 March 2016.
Pictorial Parade. Getty Images. Chicago Tribune. Web. 26 March 2016.
“Save Me the Waltz” Cover. Flavor Wire. Web. 27 March 2016.
Young Zelda. Encyclopedia of Alabama. Web. 28 March 2016.
“Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald” Cover. Amazon. Web. 28 March 2016.
19. Citations
Brande, Dorothea. “Seven Novels of the Month.” Bookman 75 (Nov. 1932): 735. Print.
Brownstein, Rachel M. Becoming a Heroine. New York: Viking, 1982. Print.
Davis, Simone Weil. “’The Burden of Reflecting’: Efforts And Desire In Zelda Fitzgerald’s Save
Me The Waltz.” Modern Language Quarterly 56.3 (1995): 327-361. Academic Search Premier. Web. 20 Apr. 2015.
Fitzgerald, Zelda. Save Me the Waltz. London: Vintage, 2001. Print.
Fowler, Therese Anne. Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald. New York: St. Martin’s, 2013. Print.
Fryer, Sarah Beebe. “Nicole Warren Driver and Alabama Beggs Knight: Women On The
Threshold Of Freedom.” Modern Fiction Studies 31.2 (1985): 318-26. Print.
Hellman, Geoffrey. “Beautiful and Damned.” Saturday Review of Literature. 22 Oct. 22 1932:
190. Print.
Leach, Henry Goddard. “Books in Brief.” Forum and Century 30 Nov. 1932: 11. Print.
20. CitationsContinued
Mainiero, Lina, ed. “Zelda Fitzgerald.” American Women’s Writers. 2nd ed. New York: Ungar,
1980. 41-43. Print.
Miliford, Nancy. Zelda: A Biography. New York: Harper & Row, 1970. Print.
“Of the Jazz Age.” The New York Times Book Review 16 Oct. 1932: 9. Print.
Robuck, Erika. Call Me Zelda. New York: Penguin, 2013. Print.
Salvey, Courtney. ‘“A Backseat Driver About Life’: Technology, Gender, And Subjectivity In
Zelda Fitzgerald’s Save Me The Waltz.” LIT: Literature Interpretation Theory 23.4 (2012): 350-72. Print.
Smith, Lee. Guests on Earth. New York: Workman, 2013. Print.
Tate, Mary Jo. F. Scott Fitzgerald A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New
York: Checkmark, 1998. Print.
21. CitationsContinued
Taylor, Kendall. Sometimes Madness is Wisdom. New York, Ballantine, 2001. 252-265. Print.
Wood, Mary E. “A Wizard Cultivator: Zelda Fitzgerald’s Save Me The Waltz As Asylum
Autobiography.” Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature 11.2 (1992): 247-264. Print.
