At the age of twenty-four, after being discharged from the army and marrying Zelda Sayre, he became an important literary figure, mostly as his short stories were very popular in magazines. Fitzgerald's fame grew until he died of a heart attack in 1940.
Fitzgerald's literary style was that of Realism, a movement in contrast to Romanticism. Realists "imagined life not only as it could be, but examine(d) life as it actually was lived, and record(ed) what they saw around them as honestly as they could" (Adventures 378). Realistic writers such as Fitzgerald focused on ordinary life, avoiding the unusual, and concentrating on the average, revealing to the reader what they have not yet learned from their own experiences by exploring morals and emotions. Fitzgerald is said to have "managed to include all the hectic charm of the 1920's, that period of "flaming youth" and wild parties, of postwar dissolution with ideals and of obsession with sensations, of defiance of convention and aspiration for personal fulfillment" (Adventures 486).
Such a portrait is seen in one of Fitzgerald's most famous novels, The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald presents the materialism of the time period, mostly through two of the main characters, Tom and Daisy Buchanan. Tom and Daisy Buchanan's self-centered use of wealth causes them to lead empty lives that destroy the lives of those around them.
Tom Buchanan, a wealthy man living in East Egg off of an inheritance, and the husband of Daisy Buchanan, uses his arrogance as an extension of his attempt to isolate himself in his social strata. He is a "crude arrogant man who cares nothing for ideas (and) is not above using the brute force of his physical strength to intimidate and even subdue others" (Peltzer, 85), clearly representing the brutality and moral carelessness of the rich. Tom is also a racist man, as he believes white men are superior to all others. He states, "It's up to us who are the dominant race to watch out or these other races will have control of things" (17).