"The Adjuster" is a short story written by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. The story appears in Fitzgerald's third collection of short stories All the Sad Young Men , published by Scribners in February 1926. The story depicts the troubled relationship of married couple Luella and Charles Hemple, living in New York City in 1925.
"The Adjuster" is the sixth story in the collection. All the Sad Young Men was published a year after his third and most celebrated novel, The Great Gatsby , and contains 9 stories.
Fitzgerald wrote "The Adjuster" writing at the height of his career but also during a time of disillusionment. He was in financial difficulty, his wife Zelda Fitzgerald was sick and he believed her romantically involved with another man. His play The Vegetable, or From President to Postman had been a failure. [1]
One author states that All the Sad Young Men contained some of his most profound, if not most widely known, short stories, stating that "'The Adjuster' looks at the ramifications of a woman's decision to marry for money and what happens when her husband and child fall ill and she has to assume responsibility she never imagined." [2]
Many of the stories praised in Fitzgerald's lifetime for their artistic brilliance have shown to be more carefully conceived and artfully crafted than they had been thought by Fitzgerald's contemporaries to be. [3] Alice Petry highlights layers of complexity in "The Adjuster", which she describes as well known, but less often examined. [3]
Under the headline "Stories by Scott Fitzgerald, Some Good, Others Please Remit", the reviewer of All The Sad Young Men on 13 March 1926 approved of three of them, including "The Adjuster". [4]
"The Adjuster" centers around themes of dissatisfaction and disillusionment, the difficulties of marriage, and the weight of psychological and emotional pressure. "The Adjuster" portrays Charles and Luella Hemple, a couple living in New York City in 1920.
"They were of that enormous American class who wander over Europe every summer, sneering rather pathetically and wistfully at the customs and traditions and pastimes of other countries, because they have no customs or tradition or pastimes of their own. It is a class sprung yesterday from fathers and mothers who might just as well have lived two hundred years ago." [5]
These ideas, mirroring Fitzgerald's disillusionment with the American Dream – life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – in the context of the hedonistic Jazz Age, are exhibited through "The Adjuster" and synonymous with Fitzgerald's entire works.
According to Ronald Berman, "Fitzgerald's protagonists are judged by contemporary psychological standards… If we look at Fitzgerald's protagonists in the 1920s, it is fairly plain that they are intensely self-conscious. They try to explain themselves to themselves – and also, without much success, to others. They try to remake themselves." [6] Luella Hample, as the protagonist of "The Adjuster", embodies Fitzgerald's exploration of psychoanalytical and behavioural tendencies.
"She paused, brooding. 'I'm so sorry for him I don’t know what to do, Ede—but if we sat home, I'd just be sorry for myself. And to tell you another true thing, I'd rather that he'd be unhappy than me…Luella was not so much stating a case as thinking aloud. She considered that she was being very fair."
Stories from this collection, including "The Adjuster", explore themes of the decadent lifestyle of the Roaring 20s but also the anxieties and difficulties of relationships and post-war depression. "The Adjuster" portrays themes of disenchantment, responsibility, fulfillment within relationships and marriage and is analogous of Fitzgerald's relationship to his wife Zelda. [7]
The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in the Jazz Age on Long Island, near New York City, the novel depicts first-person narrator Nick Carraway's interactions with mysterious millionaire Jay Gatsby and Gatsby's obsession to reunite with his former lover, Daisy Buchanan.
Zelda Fitzgerald was an American novelist, painter, playwright, and socialite. Born in Montgomery, Alabama, to a wealthy Southern family, she became locally famous for her beauty and high spirits. In 1920, she married writer F. Scott Fitzgerald after the popular success of his debut novel, This Side of Paradise. The novel catapulted the young couple into the public eye, and she became known in the national press as the first American flapper. Due to their wild antics and incessant partying, she and her husband became regarded in the newspapers as the enfants terribles of the Jazz Age. Alleged infidelity and bitter recriminations soon undermined their marriage. After traveling abroad to Europe, Zelda's mental health deteriorated, and she had suicidal and homicidal tendencies which required psychiatric care. Her doctors diagnosed Zelda with schizophrenia, although later posthumous diagnoses posit bipolar disorder.
This Side of Paradise is the debut novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald, published in 1920. It examines the lives and morality of carefree American youth at the dawn of the Jazz Age. Its protagonist, Amory Blaine, is an attractive middle-class student at Princeton University who dabbles in literature and engages in a series of romances with flappers. The novel explores the theme of love warped by greed and status-seeking, and takes its title from a line of Rupert Brooke's poem Tiare Tahiti.
Tender Is the Night is the fourth and final novel completed by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in French Riviera during the twilight of the Jazz Age, the 1934 novel chronicles the rise and fall of Dick Diver, a promising young psychiatrist, and his wife, Nicole, who is one of his patients. The story mirrors events in the lives of the author and his wife Zelda Fitzgerald as Dick starts his descent into alcoholism and Nicole descends into mental illness.
The Beautiful and Damned is a 1922 novel by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. Set in New York City, the novel's plot follows a young artist Anthony Patch and his flapper wife Gloria Gilbert who become "wrecked on the shoals of dissipation" while excessively partying at the dawn of the hedonistic Jazz Age. As Fitzgerald's second novel, the work focuses upon the swinish behavior and glittering excesses of the American social elite in the heyday of New York's café society.
"Head and Shoulders" is a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It was his first story to be published in the Saturday Evening Post, with the help of Fitzgerald's agent, Harold Ober. The story appeared in the February 21, 1920 issue and was illustrated by Charles D. Mitchell. It later appeared in his short story collection Flappers and Philosophers.
"Benediction" is a short story by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald, first published in 1920 in the February 1920 issue of The Smart Set. It was republished shortly thereafter in Fitzgerald's short story collection Flappers and Philosophers.
Jay Gatsby is the titular fictional character of F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel The Great Gatsby. The character is an enigmatic nouveau riche millionaire who lives in a luxurious mansion on Long Island where he often hosts extravagant parties and who allegedly gained his vast fortune by illicit bootlegging during prohibition in the United States. Fitzgerald based many details about the fictional character on Max Gerlach, a mysterious neighbor and World War I veteran whom the author met while living in New York City during the raucous Jazz Age. Like Gatsby, Gerlach threw lavish parties, never wore the same shirt twice, used the phrase "old sport", claimed to be educated at Oxford University, and fostered myths about himself, including that he was a relation of the German Kaiser.
"Winter Dreams" is a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald that was first published in Metropolitan magazine in December 1922 and later collected in All the Sad Young Men in 1926. The plot concerns the attempts by a young man to win the affections of an upper-class woman. The story, frequently anthologized, is regarded as one of Fitzgerald's finest works "for poignantly portraying the loss of youthful illusions."
Daisy Fay Buchanan is a fictional character in F. Scott Fitzgerald's 1925 novel The Great Gatsby. The character is a wealthy socialite from Louisville, Kentucky who resides in the fashionable town of East Egg on Long Island during the Jazz Age. She is narrator Nick Carraway's second cousin, once removed, and the wife of polo player Tom Buchanan, by whom she has a daughter. Before marrying Tom, Daisy had a romantic relationship with Jay Gatsby. Her choice between Gatsby and Tom is one of the novel's central conflicts. Described by Fitzgerald as a "golden girl", she is the target of both Tom's callous domination and Gatsby's dehumanizing adoration. The ensuing contest of wills between Tom and Gatsby reduces Daisy to a trophy wife whose sole existence is to augment her possessor's socioeconomic success.
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American novelist, essayist, and short story writer. He is best known for his novels depicting the flamboyance and excess of the Jazz Age—a term he popularized in his short story collection Tales of the Jazz Age. During his lifetime, he published four novels, four story collections, and 164 short stories. Although he achieved temporary popular success and fortune in the 1920s, Fitzgerald received critical acclaim only after his death and is now widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.
Ginevra King Pirie was an American socialite and heiress. As one of Chicago's "Big Four" debutantes during World War I, she inspired many characters in the novels and stories of writer F. Scott Fitzgerald; in particular, the character of Daisy Buchanan in The Great Gatsby. A 16-year-old King met an 18-year-old Fitzgerald at a sledding party in Saint Paul, Minnesota, and they shared a passionate romance from 1915 to 1917.
All the Sad Young Men is the third collection of short stories written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, published by Scribners in February 1926.
The Bridal Party is a short story written by F. Scott Fitzgerald featured in the Saturday Evening Post on August 9, 1930. The story is based on Ludlow Fowler's brother's, Powell Fowler, May 1930 Paris wedding. It is Fitzgerald's first story dealing with the stock market crash, and celebrates the end of the period when wealthy Americans colonized Paris.
"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. It was later included in his 1935 short story collection Taps at Reveille.
"The Rich Boy" is a short story by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. It was included in his 1926 collection All the Sad Young Men. "The Rich Boy" originally appeared in two parts, in the January and February 1926 issues of Redbook. In the January installment, the story is described on the front cover as: "A great story of today's youth by F. Scott Fitzgerald".
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigmatic writings of the Jazz Age. 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, and Tender Is the Night. A fifth, unfinished novel, The Last Tycoon, was published posthumously. Fitzgerald also wrote many short stories that treat themes of youth and promise along with age and despair.
"Absolution" is a short story by American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald. It was included in his 1926 collection All the Sad Young Men.
Writers in Paris in the 1920s refer to the American expatriate writers in Paris in the 1920s. They created literary works and movements that influence the global literary landscape to date. During the 1920s, political, economic, and social issues shaped the inspiration behind many of the writers in Paris. The American writers in Paris in the 1920s are referred to as the Lost Generation.
Z: A Novel of Zelda Fitzgerald is a 2013 biographical novel by Therese Fowler about Zelda Fitzgerald. It follows her through her marriage to F. Scott Fitzgerald, the pair's writing careers, their relationship to Ernest Hemingway, the upbringing of their daughter Frances Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda's declining mental health and death. It was adapted into a television series, Z: The Beginning of Everything, which aired in 2017 after a 2015 pilot episode.