梦的寻求与幻灭—论《了不起的盖茨比》的创作主题.doc

第 13 页The Pursuit and the Vanishing of DreamThe Analysis of the Theme in The Great GatsbyI Introduction In 1925, The Great Gatsby was published, which is considered to be the best work, and has been though as a great masterpiece of American fictions until now. The English famous poet and critic T.S. Eliot ever commented that this novel was the first step that American fiction had taken since Henry James. It is true that this fiction reflects an American social style in the Jazz Age and coins for a whole era of American history. 1.1 The Creation Background of The Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby was a monetary success and established his reputation as a promising novelist in the circles of literature. Fitzgerald third novel The Great Gatsby, foresees the doom and failure of the post-war boom years or the “roaring twenties” in the midst of which he lived. The story was a picture of the prohibition era and a masterpiece related with irony and pathos to legendry of the “American dream,” which was considered to be his best novel, was a great success, and received favorable comments from the famous critics. T.S. Eliot, who was never a hasty or extravagant critic, praised the novel was “the first step that American fiction has taken since Henry James.”1.2 The WriterF. Scott FitzgeraldThe authors own life experience helped him to write those novels, which reflected the American social life of that era. As for the writer, F. Scott Fitzgerald, a famous novelist in American, was born on September 24, 1896, in an Irish family in St. Paul, Minnesota, the staid American Middle west. He was regarded as the representative figure of the Jazz Agethe satisfaction of every material desire and the successan “Age” between the end of World War I and the outbreak of the Great Depression. F. Scott Fitzgeralds father was an unsuccessful businessman; his mother was the daughter of an Irish immigrant. In 1913 he went to Princeton University, which was one of the most prestigious and traditional American universities. There he was a leader in theatrical and literary activities, and became a friend of John Peale Bishop, who tutored him in the poems of Keats, Shakespeare, and French poet Paul Verlaine, and collaborated on the shows of the Triangle club, his stage and musical-comedy world, with Edmund Wilson, his fellow student and friend as well as a brilliant literary critic. Fitzgerald, nevertheless, was unhappy at the university, especially when he felt uneasily his inferiority as being what he called “straight 1850 potato famine Irish” to those students who were born rich and born fashionable Easterners. He left college in 1917 because of academic deficiencies and enlisted in the army, serving as a lieutenant at a staff headquarters, at that time the United States enters World War I. In 1919, Fitzgerald went to New York in order to make a fortune. There he worked in an advertising agency but earned not much. In 1920, he quitted his job in New York and returned to St. Paul. In the same year he finished and published his first novel, This side of Paradise，which, under the influence of the works of the English writers, such as the Decadent Oscar Wilde and modern writer James Joyce, was set at his alma mater and expressed a new generation who got “lost” after World War I and the romantic yearnings of its Jazz Age which was applied to the 1920s and was named by Fitzgerald himself. In April 1921 Fitzgerald and Zelda were married and settled on Long Island in October 1922. They threw themselves enthusiastically into a round of parties, dances, drinking and trips to Europe. He supported their extravagant life by doing the job of a hack writer, contributing short stories frequently to the journals, such as the popular Saturday Evening Post and the critical Scribners. His literary fame was further laid down by another novel, The Beautiful and the Damned (1922), and two collections of short stories, Flappers and Philosophers (1920) and Tales of the Jazz Age (1922). Possessed of an excellent prose style, Fitzgerald narrated and studied love, marriage and life of the Jazz Age, reflected a contra dictionary mood, betrayed a sense of failure, and captured his pubic by his second novel. The first two novels established Fitzgerald as the literary spokesman of the Jazz Age. In the spring of 1924, the couple took their journey into Europe, where Zelda encounters a French pilot and had an affair with him. Then the Fitzgeralds often got drunk and spent money without restraint henceforth. For two and a half years after 1924 they lived in Europe among such expatriated American writers called “the Lost Generation” as Gertrude Stein, Hemingway, and Ezra Pound. But the family failed to manage their lives. Living for luxury kept the Fitzgeralds in debt. Fitzgerald became an alcoholic and his wife became mentally unstable. During this time he had a more profound understanding of art and literature and published this novel The Great Gatsby (1925) after many revisions. II The Account of the Novel 2.1 Gatsbys Background The Great Gatsby tells a love story between the poor Gatsby and the wealthy girl, Daisy. This story is narrated mainly by narrators not by host or hostess, but “Nick” is the narrator. In this book, Nick Caraway, a young man from Minnesota, moves to New York in the summer of 1922 to learn about the bond business. He rents a house in the West Egg district of Long Island, a wealthy but unfashionable area populated by the new rich, a group who have made their fortunes too recently to have established social connections and who are prone to garish displays of wealth. Nicks next-door neighbor in West Egg is a mysterious man named Jay Gatsby, who lives in a gigantic Gothic mansion and throws extravagant parties every Saturday night. Nick is unlike the other inhabitants of West Egghe is educated at Yale and has social connections in East Egg, a fashionable area of Long Island home to the established upper class. Nick drives out to East Egg one evening for dinner with his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her husband, Tom, an erstwhile classmate of Nick at Yale. Daisy and Tom introduce Nick to Jordan Baker, a romantic relationship. Nick also learns a bit about Daisy and Toms marriage. Jordan tells him that Tom has a lover, Myrtle Wilson, who lives in the valley of ashes, a gray industrial dumping ground between West Egg and New York City. Not long after this revelation, Nick travels to New York City with Tom and Myrtle. At a vulgar, gaudy party in the apartment that Tom keeps for the affair, Myrtle begins to taunt Tom about Daisy, and Tom responds by breaking her nose.2.2 The Pursuit of Gatsbys Dream As the summer progresses, Nick eventually garners a invitation to one of Gatsbys legendary parties. He encounters Jordan Baker at the party, and they meet Gatsby himself, a surprisingly young man who affects an English accent, has a remarkable smile, and calls everyone “old sport.” Gatsby asks to speak to Jordan alone, and, through Jordan, Nick later learns more about his mysterious neighbor. Gatsby tells Jordan that he knows Daisy in Louisville in 1917 and is deeply love with her. He spends many nights staring at the green light at the end of her dock, across the bay from his mansion. Gatsbys extravagant lifestyle and wild parties are simply an attempt to impress Daisy. Gatsby now wants Nick to arrange a reunion between himself and Daisy, but he is afraid that Daisy will refuse to see him if she knows that he still loves her. Nick invites Daisy to have tea at his house, without telling her that Gatsby will also be there. After an initially awkward reunion, Gatsby and Daisy reestablish their connection. Their love rekindle, they begin an affair. After a short time, Tom grows increasingly suspicious of his wifes relationship with Gatsby. At the luncheon in the Buchanans house, Gatsby stares at Daisy with such undisguised passion that Tom realizes Gatsby is in love with her. Though Tom himself is involved in an extramarital affair, he is deeply outraged by the thought that his wife could be unfaithful to him. He forces the group to drive into New York City, where he confronts Gatsby in a suite at the Plaza Hotel. Tom asserts that he and Daisy have a history that Gatsby never understand, and he announces to his wife that Gatsby is a criminalhis fortune comes from bootlegging alcohol and other illegal activities. Daisy realizes that her allegiance is to Tom, and Tom contemptuously sends her back to East Egg with Gatsby, attempting to prove that Gatsby cannot hurt him. 2.3 The Loss of Gatsbys Dream When Nick, Jordan, and Tom drive through the valley of ashes, however, they discover that Gatsbys car has struck and killed Myrtle, Toms lover. They rush back to Long Island, where Nick learns from Gatsby that Daisy is driving the car when it struck Myrtle, but that Gatsby intends to take the blame. The next day, Tom tells Myrtles husband, George, that Gatsby is the driver of the car. George, who has leapt to the conclusion that the driver of the car that killed Myrtle must have been her lover, finds Gatsby in the pool at his mansion and shoots him dead. He then fatally shoots himself. Nick stages a small funeral for Gatsby, ends his relationship with Jordan, and moves back to the Midwest to escapes the disgust he feels for the people surrounding Gatsbys life and for the emptiness and moral decay of life among the wealthy on the East Coast. Nick reflects that just as Gatsbys dream of Daisy is corrupted by money and dishonesty, the American dream of happiness and individualism has disintegrated into the mere pursuit of wealth. Though Gatsbys power to transform his dreams into reality is what makes him “great,” Nick reflects that the era of dreamingboth Gatsbys dream and the American dreamis over.III The Analysis of Gatsbys Tragedy3.1 American Dream F. Scott Fitzgerald was the spokesman for young people who were wildly searching for a perfecting which never exist. Therefore, in many of his stories and novels, he expressed the disillusionment of the young generation towards American Dream. The Great Gatsby gained the great success both in contents and in writing skills for the author, which runs through the whole book. At the end of this novel Gatsby is dead, his dream is lost, but he is still great in that material welfare and only perishing money society. In order to realize ones own dream, he has the high sense of responsibility and can undertake all consequences. These cause Gatsby to stand proudly above other people. So the title of this novel is “The Great Gatsby”. In this novel, Gatsby is great, but till, it is a tragedy in the end. The author described Gatsbys tragedy according to the relation between Gatsby and other people, thereby described the thin human feelings that time in American society. At the beginning of the book, the author wrote about Gatsbys luxurious mansion and his parties. Gatsby is generous to people, his parties are full of champagne, flowers, fruits, musiceverything everyone wants. He offers his luxurious car to carry the guests, let them dive from the tower of his raft, and take the sun on the hot sands of his beach. He orders the famous orchestra for them various people crowded to his parties, most of them without invitation. But at his parties, drinking his champagne, enjoying his expenses, people gossips him as “he killed a man once,” “he is a German spy during the war,” This is the time when Gatsby is rich and has a fair social position. On the contrast, at the ending of the book, when Gatsby is dead, the whole mansion is like a dead place, except Nick, and no one cares about him, no one would like to take part in his funeral. Mr.Wolfshiem, who is made rich business by Gatsby, denies Gatsbys help, and claims that he finds Gatsby and starts with him in business. When Nick asks him to come to Gatsbys funeral, he refuses with the reason that “I cannot get mixed up in it.” Their “friendship” for years dies with Gatsbys death, because it is useless for Wolfshiem. Another man who takes part in Gatsbys parties often calls up after his death just for a pair of shoes he has left there before, and refuses to be present at the funeral. Gatsbys funerals gloomy and miserable, in a thick drizzle, only his father the minister, Nick participated, in addition to several servants and a postman. At the process of the funeral, one person who used to drink at Gatsbys parties comes to the graveyard. He is very surprised and angry at the scene. Because only three months. Compared Gatsbys parties with his funeral, everything changes from heaven to hell. People who used to come to parties by hundreds disappeared silently. They make best use of Gatsby when he is useful and forgets him as soon as he is useless. The big contrast the author gives to the readers eyes developed Gatsby tragedy. Except for the descriptions of Gatsbys miserable fate there is another tragedy in this book. That is the tragic achievements of the Wilsons. Mr. Wilson works earnestly in his small garage, living a quiet, satisfactory life. Tom seduces his wife Myrtle. Buchanan, and then becomes Toms mistress. Since then, she lives an unconventional life from time to time. When Mr. Wilson finds the relation between Tom and his wife, the faithful person is very angry. This is a common feeling of human being, but it is the beginning of their tragedy. He locks his wife in the house, sitting at the door to wait his enemyTom. Then Daisy drives Gatsbys car coming along, Myrtle takes her as Tom and rushes from the house, she waves and shouts to the car, intending to say something to Tom, but Daisy knocks her down and drives away, Myrtle died with the trust of Tom, but in fact, Tom does not take serious of her, what he does before is just for fun, once the accident happened, he does not consider others, even Myrtles death. What he considers is just how to get rid of the whole thing, and how to do would be useful to him. When he sees Mr. Wilson is boiled in rage by the accident, he grasps this opportunity and makes the false charge against his rival in love. Gatsby, Mr. Wilson, losing his sense now, believes Toms lie, and kills Gatsby and kills himself. The author describes the miserable fates of the Wilsons to show the sadness of ordinary people. They are honest and hard working, but they cannot master their own fates. A sudden variation or accident may change their lives; even bring them to death. The Wilsons tragic achievements are the tragedy of human. Fitzgerald shows the sadness of the human being by this.3.2 The Tragedy of that AgeThe Great Gatsby is a complete tragedy. Reading the book, readers would sink into a deep sorrow, which is not only because of the tragic fate of the leading character, Gatsby, but also a series of tragedies. In the story, the author described the tragedy of that age. The story was written in 1922, when the First World War was just over, and American economy was prosperous, but on the other hand, the post-war young generation realized that the war, which they had believed to fight for democracy was only a swindle. It brought enormous profits to the rich of the Wall Street, but it really brought death and sadness to most American families. In fact, what they had done was wrong, so they thought what they would do was meaningless. To them, everything was not real, and they did not know what tomorrow would be, so let alone future. This was a sorrow to the youth, to their families, to the society, and to that age. They felt they were deceived and became depressed and lost. Under such circumstances, the prosperous economy and empty spirit made the young generation to live in a peculiar living style. They resisted all the traditional ideas, lived in an unconventional and unrestrained way. Fitzgerald was one of them, who sincerely had this kind of feeling. So he was able to make Gatsby to be a successful character in the book. He recorded the characteristic of that age, reflecting the living atmosphere of that age，and the sadness of the young generation, which were the representatives of the age, thereby he described the tragedy of that age. Under such a time background, he portrayed many tragic characters in details in the book.The author described Gatsbys tragedy from two main aspects. One is from the association of Gatsby and Daisy. Gatsby is a good man; he is lenient and understanding to common people, honest and helpful to his friends, faithful and persistent to his love. He does well both in the Army and in business, though his business is unlawful, the only reason is its just a way to achieve his life goal, to win his love. On the other hand, Daisy, the girl Gatsby pursuits all his life, is not worthwhile. She is the representative of money worshipers; even voice “is full of money”. Maybe she loves Gatsby once, but her love is not real, and not persistent. As Gatsby goes to war, she keeps silent for a while, but she becomes active soon. She is again keeping half a dozen dates a day with half a dozen men, because she wants her life shaped now, immediately, and the decision must be made by some forceof love, of money, of unquestionable practicalitythat is close at hand. So naturally, she married wealthy Tom Buchanan. Five years later, she would like to love Gatsby again because at this time Gatsby is wealthy and famous. When she is forced to make a choice between Tom and Gatsby, she does not know who would give her more wealth, more comfortable life. As Tom tells her that Gatsby gets rich out of bootlegger, she knows what kind of future would be like if she chose Gatsby, so she stands by her husbands side naturally. To her, money is the basis, pleasureseeking is her living rule. Daisy has a fair body, wears fair dress, but she is a wicked and selfish wom