The Other Fitzgerald: Art as women's weapon for independence in Zelda Fitzgerald's Save Me the Waltz

F. S. Fitzgerald wrote Tender is the Night in 1934, but two years before, his wife, Zelda Fitzgerald wrote Save Me the Waltz, her first and only novel. Both novels are a portrayal of America’s first popular married couple, the Fitzgeralds but from two different perspectives, a male and a female. Historically, these novels have been treated as complementary since they recount mostly the same story. The purpose of this paper is to justify Zelda’s work and highlight its uniqueness of her persona as an artist, and not simply as Fitzgerald’s wife. Although women’s situation had improved by the 1920s, there was still some struggle to be recognized in some fields such as the arts. In her novel, Zelda portrays a woman whose liberation is achieved by means of talent, in contrast with Fitzgerald’s woman, whose liberation is achieved by means of betrayal.I will undertake a close textual analysis of Save Me the Waltz and Tender is the Night. To begin with I will set the historical context regarding women as an artist, and secondly I will look for biographical connections between texts, paying special attention to the representation of women in Fitzgerald’s novels.