First Blood (short story)

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"First Blood"
Short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Genre short story
Publication
Published in The Saturday Evening Post
Publication type Magazine
Publisher Curtis Publishing Company
Media typePrint
Publication dateApril 5, 1930 [1]

"First Blood" is a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald, originally published in the April 5, 1930 issue of The Saturday Evening Post , illustrated by Harry Russell Ballinger. [2] [1] It was later included in his 1935 short story collection Taps at Reveille . [3]

Contents

Plot

The story is about teen rebellion and centers on the Perrys, a wealthy family living in Chicago. The young Josephine Perry joins her friend for a trip to see their boyfriends under the guise of seeing a movie. Her love interest is Travis de Coppet, another young WASP. During the course of the evening Travis makes advances towards Josephine and is subsequently rejected. She rejoices at the power she has over men.

Throughout the short story she is characterized as beautiful yet jealous. At the close of the story she laments the fact a man she has interest in is out with another girl, all the while she cannot reciprocate another's feelings because she is emotionally truncated. It is the first of the five part "Josephine Perry" stories. [3]

History

Written in January 1930, [4] the story was published while Zelda Fitzgerald's mental health was in a palpable decline. Thus, Fitzgerald began to use the profits from short stories to pay for medical bills. This story was published the same month Zelda Fitzgerald was hospitalized. The title may refer to the breaking of a girl's hymen. [5]

References

  1. 1 2 Bruccoli 2002, p. 552.
  2. ↑ Fitzgerald 1930, p. 8.
  3. 1 2 Fitzgerald 1998, p. 546.
  4. ↑ Bruccoli 2002, p. 289.
  5. ↑ The price was high: the last uncollected stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald. F. Scott Fitzgerald, MJ Bruccoli - 1979 - Harcourt Press

Sources

  • Bruccoli, Matthew J. (2002) [1981]. Some Sort of Epic Grandeur: The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald (2nd revised ed.). Columbia, South Carolina: University of South Carolina Press. ISBN   1-57003-455-9.
  • Fitzgerald, F. Scott (April 5, 1930). "First Blood". The Saturday Evening Post . Vol. 202, no. 40. Philadelphia, Pa.: The Curtis Publishing Company. pp. 8–9, 81, 84.
  • Fitzgerald, F. Scott (1979). Bruccoli, Matthew J. (ed.). The Price Was High: The Last Uncollected Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald . New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. ISBN   978-0-7043-2233-2 – via Internet Archive.
  • Fitzgerald, F. Scott (1998) [1989]. Bruccoli, Matthew J. (ed.). The Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald . New York: Scribner's. ISBN   0-684-84250-5 – via Internet Archive.


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