They say that art imitates life… or that life imitates art. Either one is somewhat difficult to believe. A few brushstrokes on a canvas, a mirror image on camera film, or even a particular combination of the 26 letters of the alphabet on a page, imitating life? Of course, people can paint life, take photos of life, and even write about life. It's a little more obvious that the concept of a life imitating art is a little harder to believe. But you can learn from art, especially literary art. Books are the teachers you can become. When you create art, you put a little bit of yourself into it – it becomes a little bit of you, and you become a little bit of him. You may read about characters, fictional or otherwise, and want to embody them. You put yourself in their shoes and learn from their mistakes and you inevitably become them for a little while. When art imitates life, life in turn imitates art. Art imitating life is so common; we almost never report it. We notice quite clearly some lives through a self-portrait, a song or even a book. Sometimes it's not as intentional as the artist intended. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses events from his life so elaborately in his novel, The Great Gatsby, leading us to believe that he wrote the novel as a sort of autobiography focusing on his interesting life and his relationship with his wife . Fitzgerald was ambitious from a young age. , and always seemed to know that he would have his place in the world. As described in the PBS biography of Fitzgerald, Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, on September 24, 1896, his father was a failed wicker furniture salesman and his mother an Irish immigrant named Mary (Mollie) McQuillan with an important legacy (PBS). In St. Paul, the family lived comfortably off Mollie's inheritance...... middle of paper ......ing romance and their early years as newlyweds immortalized in the pages of one of Fitzgerald's most iconic novels. Fitzgerald's unique writing style of fictionalizing real events from his past gives his writing more enthusiasm and flavor than some writers. Works Cited Baughman, Judith S. "Art Imitating Life in Fitzgerald's Novels." Art imitating life in Fitzgerald's novels. University of South Carolina Board of Trustees, December 4, 2003. Web. February 24, 2014. Bruccoli, Matthew J. “A Brief Life of Fitzgerald.” Biography of F. Scott Fitzgerald. The F. Scott Fitzgerald Society, 2009. Web. February 25, 2014. Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner, 2004. Print.PBS. “F. Scott Fitzgerald and the American Dream and Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald, artist, writer, dancer and wife.” PBS. The Public Broadcasting System, nd Web. February 23. 2014.