I believe she unquestionably missed her true calling in life as an
illustrator, since her entire oeuvre is as eye-catching and lively as
these examples. There's a Gaugin-esque surety in her wack perspective as well. Instead, post-Southern Belledom she dilettanted around writing dense novels and dancing the ballet a bit too late in the game to have developed proper musculature. Non-competition with her husband F. Scott could have saved her
life (she died in an insane asylum fire, locked in.) Two works by Zelda
Fitzgerald, The Lobster Quadrille and The Circus.
Despite acknowledging universal consensus that alcoholism led to both Scott's and Zelda's separate demises, I
do wonder about the non-competition issue, since (according to the
three Zelda biographies I read) this was considered her main malady by the psychiatric
experts of that era, even more so than her extreme behavior in acting
out. They wanted her to be content as a homebody and satellite of her
husband. In contrast, many male writers of that era were proud of their
wives' talents and published works.
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