Fairy World To His Daughter example essay topic

AN ESSAY EXPLORING PLOT STRUCTURING DEVICES IN FRANCIS SCOTT FITZGERALD'S "OUTSIDE THE CABINET-MAKER'S" Francis Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in a conventional middle-western Irish family. Educated in several Catholic schools and at Princeton University he decided to seek perfection in writing and became famous overnight with his first novel "This Side of Paradise" (1920). Latter he married Zelda Say ress, a Southern belle. So she became Scott's both beloved wife and the "raw material" for his writings.

A decade of their married life spent in traveling, grand parties and big spending. They are seen as representatives of the "Jazz Age", that period enjoyed by rich young Americans in the 1920's. His most famous novels "The Beautiful and the Damned" (1922), and "The Great Gatsby" (1925) are set in this atmosphere, where fragility and unhappiness are always just below the glittering surface. "Tender is the Night" (1934) earned him the stature of the first chronicler of the "Jazz Age". After a nervous breakdown Fitzgerald spent his last few years working as a scriptwriter in Hollywood, where he died of a heart attack. In his short stories "Flappers and Philosophers" (1920), "Tales of the Jazz Age" (1922), "All the Sad Young Men" (1925), "Taps at Reveille" (1935) Fitzgerald is a realist and one of the finest postwar American novelist of manners too.

At first, Fitzgerald's "Outside the Cabinet-Maker's" plot structuring devices seem not being so simply. Though the narrative is easy to follow and events are arranged chronological. The main character is "a man". He is making up a story for his little six year old daughter in order not to be bored of waiting for "the lady" outside the cabinet-maker's. Everything takes place in just an hours or less.

This waiting outside is only a frame for a skillful and powerful plot. The masterly control of structure is shown through an interesting effect coming from the way Fitzgerald makes reality and fiction co-operate with each other. Actually, we may say that the structure of the story and plot are inseparable related. The chosen structure of the whole story helps to reveal the plot and, vice verse, the plot of the story is revealed by the chosen structure. The beginning of a climax (or the rising action) of this story coincidence with the man's decision to make up and tell the fairy tale to his daughter. In other words, we may divide the main plot into a smaller subplot, which is very clear: the fight between good ("Princess") and evil ("Ogre").

Though the climax is introduced at the end of the subplot and in a form of the man's inner conflict between aspiring to enter the fairy world and bitter understanding of impossibility to do that. The man's returning into the real world with real dreams is perhaps expected and logical way in which the climax is resolved. So, the main plot consists of inner man's conflict between the ability to look into the real world through the eyes of a child and the impossibility to enter this world. The qualities that help the man to make up a "mystery playing before the child's eyes" are strong love of the daughter, rich spiritual inner world, his knowing of children psychology, being him a good story teller and ability to improvise. His strong love of the daughter is shown several times in the story when the man, while making up a fairy tale, declares, "I love you" to his daughter. Though the little girl doesn't feel any particular strong emotion at that time.

She answers him either "politely" or "abstractedly". Such nice relationship between the father and the daughter is actually pretty rare nowadays and usually you can hear such words from the mother, but not from the father. His rich spiritual world and knowing child's psychology are evident in the rising action of the story, when the man in order not to be bored starts creating a fairy tale to his daughter using outside material. He absolutely knows how and what evokes interest of a child.

That's why he makes up a fairy tale, but not an adventure or a detective story, though they both evoke interest too. It should also be noticeable that the man himself isn't so interested in the story he makes up (as he yawns several times while telling the story). Another qualities that help the man to create fairy world out of reality is that the man is a good story - teller and is perfect at improvising. He is able to fit what happens in reality into the story he is making up.

We can see this in a place where the man notices that the room is obscured by curtains and shutters. After this observation he builds up the idea that something mysterious is going on in the room. The same ability he applies to convent what is happening in the street into events or characters in the story. All these qualities help him to open the fairy world to his daughter where good fights with evil and always win "good fairies". But despite the man's ability to amuse his child, he himself isn't anymore able to enter this fairy world with her.

And perhaps one of the strongest and the saddest point in all the plot is that inner understanding of the man that it's impossible to return to the child's world, believe in fairy tales and the overcoming fight of good. There are no more princesses, fairies, ogres, kings and queens in the world of grown-ups. This brief description of the elements of plot structuring devices can only hint at the power and effect of the story. The man is a sensitive, intelligent, rational protagonist, who deeply inside his heart understands impossibility of seeing and living in the fairy world. It is a touching description of his attempt to share his daughter's world (though ultimately he cannot) and to express his love. Besides, the story is a reflection of Fitzgerald's love for his own little girl, Scottie Fitzgerald.

Other stories that feature the father - daughter relationship include "Babylon Revisited" (1931) and "On Schedule" (1933), but "Outside the Cabinet-Maker's" most economically captures the emotion.