美国文学选读TheGreatGatsby分析

1、F. Scott Fitzgerald (1890 - 1940)II. His masterpiece: The Great Gatsby1.The story summary:The entire story takes place in one summer in 1922.The novel describes the life and death of Jay Gatsby, as seen through the eyes of a narrator who does not share the same point of view as the fashionable peopl

2、e around him.The narrator learns that Gatsby became rich by breaking the law. Gatsby pretends to be a well-educated war hero, which he is not, yet the narrator portrays (描绘) him as being far more noble than the rich, cruel, stupid people among whom he and Gatsby live.Gatsby s character is purified b

3、y a deep, unselfish love for Daisy, a beautiful, silly woman who, earlier, married a rich husband instead of Gatsby and moved into high society.Gatsby has never lost his love for her and, in an era when divorce has become easy, he tries to win her back by becoming rich himself. He does not succeed,

4、and in the end he is killed by accident because of his determination to shield Daisy from disgrace.None of Gatsby s upper class friends come to his funeral. The narrator is so disgusted that he leaves New York and returns to his original home.Chapter NineNick makes plans for the funeral.Gatsbys Fune

5、ral, three people show up.Nick returns to the west.Nick meets with Tom BuchananNick gets a last view of Gatsbys house.小说表面上是一个爱情故事，但实际却是对社会现状的讽刺批判。比如，小说真实再现了盖茨比挥霍的晚会场面，客人们空虚元聊的生活方式，以及盖茨比经营非法买卖敛取财富的背景，这些都是那寻欢作乐和价值沦丧的时代的典型写照。另一方面，自移民时期开始，美国人一直梦想在这片民主、平等、自由、富饶的土地上，通过个人奋斗获得财富和幸福。但是 物质富裕带来的却是精神堕落和理想的破灭，财

6、富的增加也没有消除社会贫困和社会各阶层的狭隘偏见。 Fitzgeralds America is not a place where anything is possible: just as America has failed to transcend its European origins, Gatsby, too, cannot overcome the circumstances of his upbringing.在盖茨比身上可以清楚看到英国式的理想和精神追求，他的了不起”就在于他对理想的执着。但他的理想在与时代现实的冲突中却又显得天真、虚幻。他将奋斗和生命的意义仅仅建立在理想化

7、的黛西和她代表的财富之上，而当现实元情地将这个梦幻击碎后，他的奋斗和生命便丧失了存在的患义，他其实是被他自己的梦想所杀死的。小说的结构和主题天然合一。小说突出比较了盖茨比与黛西夫妇和他们所代表的社会阶 层各自不同的价值观。小说通过第一人称叙事者尼克的视角，在第一章就将两组人并列展示在读者面前，在前四章，通过故事结构的安排使两组人交替登场。这一方法使读者能够客观比较两组人之间的差异，从第五章开始两组人的交往与冲突交织发展，使两组人之间的差异进一步明晰，直到他们之间的冲突将故事推向高潮，最终矛盾的解决以悲剧告终。同时，小说的叙述视角也起到了强化主题的作用。1SymbolismThe Green L

8、ight （00: 03: 10, 00: 18: 20, 00:31:48 ）Its most obvious interpretation is that the light is symbolic of Gatsbys longingfor Daisy, but that is too simplistic.Daisy is part of it, but the green light means much more. Gatsby has spent his whole life longing for something better. Money, success, accept

9、ance, and Daisy.And no matter how much he has, he never feels complete. Even when he has his large house full of interesting people and all of their attention, he still longs for Daisy.So the green light stands for all of Gatsby slongings and wants. And when Nick talks about the green light at the e

10、nd of the book he says“Iteluded （躲避） us then, but thats no matter- tomorrow we will run faster,stretch our arms out farther.它从前逃脱了我们的追求，不过那没关系一一明天我们跑得更快一点，把胳臂伸 得更远一点He connects the green light to all people. Everyone has something that they long and search for that is just off in the distance. That

11、is the green light.The eyes of T.J. Eckleburg （00： 09: 00, 01: 10: 16）These eyes are from a billboard（ 广告板）that looks over Wilsons garage.The eyes are always mentioned whenever Nick is there.They look over the situation, objectively, but offer a kind of judgment on the characters and their actions.T

12、hey are placed near Wilsons because that is where some of the most selfish acts take place: Myrtles death, Toms affair. All of these crimes go unpunished.So the eyes look on and remind the characters of the guilt that they forget to have for what they have done.East and West EggOne of the most impor

13、tant themes in the novel is class and social standing.Tom and Daisy live on the East which is far more refined（有教养的）and wellbred.Nick and Gatsby are on the West which is for people who dont have any real standing, even if they have money.The green light shines from the East Egg enticing （弓 I诱）Gatsby

14、 towards what he has always wanted.And Daisy, the woman that Gatsby has always wanted but never gets, lives onEast Egg.The barrier （障碍） that the water creates between these worlds in symbolic of the barrier that keeps these people apart from one another and from much of what they want.了不起的盖茨比中提及了几个重

15、要的地点，这些地点不仅告诉读者故事发生的所在地， 而且包含了特殊的象征意义。西卵是盖茨比的豪宅所在地，它象征了像盖茨比这般诞生于 20世纪初的新兴贵族阶级的耀眼与奢华。东卵象征了以汤姆为代表的富裕、拥有较高社会 地位，并且强有力地继续控制着美国社会的老牌上层阶级，但这切只是一种外在的物质富有，灰谷则是他们内在精神的集中体现一一荒凉、绝望（也可以说是没有任何希望 ），掩藏在奢侈表象下的是美国腐朽的社会道德。而整个纽约则是物质生活膨胀、精神世界畸变的东部地区的缩影。小说中另一个意味深长的象征，是画在厂告牌上的艾克伯格大夫的眼睛。广告牌树立 在灰烬山谷中，是一位眼科医生为招揽生意、扩大业务而立的。艾

16、克伯格大夫的“蓝色、巨 大的”眼睛正透过“遗孀巨大的黄色眼镜”注视着大地。作者也许用这个细节暗示：即便这 双象征上帝的悲天悯人的眼镜也为黄色的喧嚣和黄色的金钱所遮掩。在那个物质主义盛行， 人心浮躁的年代里， 即使上帝也不能不受其影响。在小说中，汤姆与盖茨比在餐馆里发生了激烈的争吵，而黛西本人则面临着重大的选择：是与汤姆离婚，同盖茨比重修旧好，还是继 续和汤姆生活。她在矛盾与歇斯底里中执意自己开车回家，惊慌失措开车撞死了默尔特。这时。艾克 伯格大夫的眼睛再一次出现，其象征意义更加鲜明。 把埃克尔堡大夫的眼睛视为上帝的眼睛也许有些荒诞，但作为一个象征意象，却颇具奇效。Major ThemesDec

17、ayDecay is a word that constantly comes up in The Great Gatsby, which is appropriate in a novel which centers around the death of the American Dream.Decay is most evident in the so-called valley of ashes. Fitzgerald describes a barren wasteland which probably has little to do with the New York lands

18、cape and instead serves to comment on the downfall of American society.It seems that the American dream has been perverted（ 不正当的），Gatsby lives in West Egg and Daisy in East Egg;therefore, Gatsby looks East with yearning （渴望, 向往）,rather than West, the traditional direction of American frontier ambiti

19、ons.Fitzgeralds implication seems to be that society has already decayed enough.ViolenceViolence is a key theme in The Great Gatsby, and is most embodied by the character of Tom.He uses his immense physical strength to intimidate（胁迫） those around him.When Myrtle taunts （嘲弄） him with his wifes name,

20、he strikes her across the face.The other source of violence in the novel besides Tom are cars. A new commodity at the time that The Great Gatsby was published, Fitzgerald uses cars to symbolize the dangers of modernity and the dangers of wealth.The climax of the novel, the accident that kills Myrtle

21、, is foreshadowed by the conversation between Nick and Jordan about how bad driving can cause explosive violence.The end of the novel, of course, consists of violence against Gatsby. The choice of handgun as a weapon suggests Gatsbys shady past, but it is symbolic that it is his love affair, not his

22、 business life, that kills Gatsby in the end.ClassClass is an unusual theme for an American novel.It is more common to find references to it in European, especially British novels. However, the societies of East and West Egg are deeply divided by the difference.Gatsby is aware of the existence of a

23、class structure in America, Gatsby tries desperately to fake status, even buying British shirts and claiming to have attended Oxford in an attempt to justify his position in society.Ultimately, however, it is a class gulf that seperates Gatsby and Daisy, and cements （巩固） the latter in her relationsh

24、ip to her husbad, who is from the same class as she is.The Decline of the American Dream in the 1920sOn the surface, The Great Gatsby is a story of the love between a man and a woman.The Great Gatsby is a highly symbolic meditation on 1920s America as a whole, in particular the disintegration（ 瓦解）of

25、 the American dream in an eraof unprecedented prosperity and material excess.Fitzgerald portrays the 1920s as an era of decayed（腐败的， 衰退的）socialand moral values, greed, and empty pursuit of pleasure.The decadent （颓废）parties and wild jazz music in The Great Gatsby resulted in the corruption of the Ame

26、rican dream, as the unrestrained desire for money and pleasure surpassed more noble goals.When World War I ended in 1918, the generation of young Americans who had fought the war became disillusioned, as the brutal carnage （大屠杀） that they had just faced made the social morality of early-twentieth-ce

27、ntury America seem like stuffy, empty, hypocrisy.A person from any social background could, potentially, make a fortune, but the American aristocracy families with old wealth scorned the newly rich industrialists and speculators （投机者）.American dream was originally about discovery, individualism, and

28、 the pursuit of happiness.In the 1920s depicted in the novel, however, easy money and relaxed social values have corrupted this dream.Gatsby s dream of loving Daisy is ruined by the difference in their respective social statuses, his resorting to crime to make enough money to impress her. Gatsby ins

29、tills Daisy with a kind of idealized perfection that she neither deserves nor possesses.Gatsbys dream is ruined by the unworthiness of its object, just as the American dream in the 1920s is ruined by the unworthiness of its object money and pleasure.Gatsby longs to re-create a vanished past his time

30、 in Louisville with Daisybut is incapable of doing so.When his dream crumbles, all that is left for Gatsby to do is die; all Nick can do is move back to Minnesota, where American values have not decayed.What makes Gatsby “great ” ？Nick considers Gatsby as a great figure. He sees both the extraordinary quality of hope that Gatsby possesses and his idealistic dream of loving Daisy in a perfect world.Though Nick recognizes Gatsbys flaws the first time he me