The Princess in the Tower: Zelda Fitzgerald's Creative Impasse

Abstract

Gifted women often find it difficult to integrate an acceptable social image with an autonomous artistic identity. This paper explores the ambitions and conflicts of Zelda Fitzgerald, who aspired to be an artist in several fields, but whose fame is largely contingent on the role she played in the life of her husband, F. Scott Fitzgerald. Zelda's flamboyant public pose, which served as a model for many of her husband's literary characters, is interpreted as an attempt to organize a consistent identity configuration by means of constant appeals for applause from an admiring audience. But although this configuration provided some stability and cohesion for her during her twenties, it was a superficial and vulnerable structure which failed to support her serious artistic aspirations. An examination of the separation conflicts and difficulties in internalization which contributed to Zelda's dilemma leads to a consideration of the role of the father in the organization of differentiated female achievements. Although Zelda Fitzgerald's pathology was extreme, her struggles suggest useful insights into the intrapsychic and social barriers commonly confronting creative women.