了不起的盖茨比读书笔记 英文版

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The Mirror of the Social Morality

——The Females in The Great Gatsby As an unreplaceable part of the society, females are often considered to be in an unequal status and act a different role from males. By now, they are gaining more and more attention. It’s interesting to analyze their words, their behaviors and their thoughts, because they are usually more sensitive to the changeable society and more likely to react to the change. Therefore, to some extent, they are a mirror of the social morality in their times. In F.Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, there are many female characters. They are of various personalities: some of them look pure while some of them seem to be hypocritic. However, all of them play a vital role in developing the fascinating plot and fitting in the large picture of the theme. From these females, we can learn how they reflect the general corruption of the morality at Jazz Age, especially the value of money and the hypocrisy.

One of the most distinctive subject in the novel is the American values, indicated by Myrtle and Daisy especially when they choose between love and money. To begin with, Myrtle, namely Mrs.Wilson, is the wife of a garage owner George B.Wilson. Wilson loves her so much that he even becomes insane after her death.According to this, she should have cherished their marriage. However, she marries him just “because I thought he is a gentleman”(P41), and she has an affair with Tom, a man who even broke her nose. Her choice of husband or lover is not depended on how much he loves her, but merely their status. It is strange, isn’t it? Whether she really loves Tom more than Wilson or not is uncertain, but it is clear that Tom is richer. Although Myrtle lives in lower class of the society, she is always

struggling to go up. Unlike her husband, who is “a blond, spiritless man”(P31) without the desire, she is with “immediately perceptible vitality”(P31). So she tries to improve her status but in a wrong way of having relationship with a “real gentleman” who doesn’t love her.

Compared to Myrtle, Daisy is more god-favored. Born in a relevantly rich family, she marries to a equally rich man, Tom as a matter of course. She loves Gatsby, but could not marry him because he was a man of nothing. She does not accept him later because she has no intention to leave the rather distinguished society to which she and Tom belong. When Daisy and Gatsby reunite five years later, the reason she is moved is not the persistent love from Gatsby, but Gatsby’s lavish shirts. How absurd it is!

Evidently, no matter from upper or lower class, both of Myrtle and Daisy worth status and wealthy much more than true love as many people do. At that luxury roaring 20th, Americans treasure money most. Therefore it’s no t difficult to understand why people often trade for some materials at the expense of sacrifying their love, their healthy, or something else valuable. Nowadays, some women still prefer to marry a man with large possessions rather than the one she really love, owing to the appetite of material.

Moreover, another distinctively perceivable character should be hypocrisy. Firstly, it could be noticed from Daisy. She likes to dress herself and her daughter in white, a color that symbolizes purity. In contrary, she talks to Nick with absolute smirk and insincerity, she praises at party while she dislik es West Egg, she ignores Gatsby’s profound affection, shirk responsibility onto Gatsby after she killed Myrtle and so on. Since all of these behaviors have no thing to do with pure spirit, the white dress becomes an ironic satire on her. In no way can she be as pure as she seems, neither can she perceive what purity is. She even sees

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