从历史评论角度分析《了不起的盖茨比》

从历史评论角度分析《了不起的盖茨比》

An Analysis of The Great Gatsby from the Perspective of Historical Criticism

Abstract:The Great Gatsby is one of the twentieth century's brilliant works, and also

F. Scott Fitzgerald's most outstanding work. This novel wins the writer a

great deal of acclaim from a substantial number of researchers and

scholars. This thesis is to make a tentative study and exploration of the

writer's own life experiences and its reflections in this novel, which is

analyzed from three perspectives. The thesis begins with the background

of the 1920s, including historical background and literature background,

which can help us know much better about the writer and the work. Then

there is a brief summary of the general academic achievements made by

many scholars and researchers. After that, detailed and specific analysis

will be made on the similarities between Fitzgerald’s and Gatsby’s life

experiences: Fitzgerald’s dream and Gatsby’s dream, The East and the

West v.s. the East Egg and the West Egg, New York and the “Ash Valley”.

Based on the above analysis, we can see that there are some similarities

hidden in Fitzgerald’s world and Gatsby’s world.

Key words: F. Scott Fitzgerald; The Great Gatsby; historical criticism; similarities

摘要：《了不起的盖茨比》是二十世纪最优秀的小说之一，也是司各特·菲茨杰拉德最具代表的作品。这部小说赢得了众多研究家与学者的普遍关注。本篇论文探究的是作者人生经历和它在这部作品中的反映。本文将从以下三个方面进行分析此观点。首先，本文介绍了十九世纪二十年代的背景，包括当时的历史背景与文学背景。这些能够帮助我们更好的了解作家与该作品。然后是对菲茨杰拉德的学者和研究者的学术成果的概述。这之后将详细展开菲茨杰拉德与盖茨比人生经历的相似之处的分析与研究:菲茨杰拉德和盖茨比的梦想，东西部和东西卵以及纽约市和“灰谷”。根据以上分析，我们可以发现菲茨杰拉德的世界与盖茨比的世界之间隐藏着一些相似之处。

关键字：菲茨杰拉德；盖茨比；历史批评；相似之处

I.Introduction (1)

A. Historical background and the definition of historical criticism (1)

B. Literature background (1)

C. Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsb y (2)

II. Literature Review (3)

A. Theme (3)

B. Narrative techniques (4)

C. Cultural studies and feminist studies (4)

D. Morality studies (5)

III. The Similarities between the Reality and the Story (5)

A. Fitzgerald’s dream and Gatsby’s dream (5)

1. Fitzgerald’s dream (5)

2. Gatsby’s dream (6)

B. The East and the West v.s. the East Egg and the West Egg (7)

1. The East and the West (7)

2. The East Egg and theWest Egg (8)

C. New York and the “Ash Valley” (8)

IV. Conclusion (9)

Works Cited (10)

I. Introduction

A. Historical background and the definition of historical criticism

The 1920s in the United States has been described as a period of material success and spiritual frustration. First, the United States made a great deal of money in the war and became, as a whole, a lot richer, so that there appeared an economic boom, a deceptive affluence, when the war was over. All of sudden automobiles and radios appeared which helped to widen the horizon of the people and increase their knowledge. The movie revolution and the music, notably Jazz, now becoming available to everybody, enriched and impacted the way of popular thinking. The country became urban in these years; a new tape of industrial economy developed. Mass production, mass consumption, and mass leisure became essential to economic and cultur al life and were soon to dominate the nation’s culture and institutions.

Unfortunately, also because of the First World War, the heroism, patriotism and the zeal for democracy that the romantic notion of war had inspired now proved to be false and tasteless to a generation who had faith in them. Excitement and enthusiasm subsided to make way for disillusionment. It was as if the party was over and an anti-climax of disillusionment and restlessness and disgust followed. What’s more, modern science destroyed man’s ability to believe unquestioningly. At the same time, there was a general feeling among many who were living through it, that this was “a sad period, the dream had failed, and the country was building up economic troubles all along and heading direc t toward disaster” (Chang 154-56).

Historical criticism means getting more information by reading related histories of the time-period that the story is written in. This doesn’t only make readers get the idea of the things they didn’t understand but also h elps them get a deeper understanding of the theme and details of the story. And by analyzing the evidence of the story, readers can see that there are always a lot the author inferred but didn’t tell. These are surprises left for readers to search which from these they can learn a lot more about the story.

B．Literature background

In the age of fast-paced and “roaring” change, American fiction of the 1920s registered a sense of purposelessness, decadence and cultural emptiness. It also

captured both “an excitement about the new and an anxiety about the historical loss”(Toming 239). Many masterpieces are based on writers’ own experiences of the First World War, the main characters changed deeply; they were no longer the nobody who was from a small town. These so called “the Lost Generation” writers declaimed the war on value outlook, the old heroism and life style and morality in the present time, such as T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land, Faulkner’s Soldier’s pay, Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises as well as The Great Gatsby of Fitzgerald. “The protagonists are all soldiers back into the new world, they find the human nature has been distorted, and there appeared a gap between the past and present living situation. Why? It’s because the present life became decadent and dispirited” (Yang 214-15).

Yet in the decade of 1920s American literature achieved a new diversity and reached a new diversity and reached its greatest heights. In 1920, F. Scott Fitzgerald said “An author ought to write for the youth of his generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters of ever afterwards.” Fitzgerald wrote about what he saw during the 1920s, which he dabbled the Jazz Age, and The Great Gatsby is considered a correct depiction of that era.

C. Fitzgerald and his The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940), a famous American writer. He is often acclaimed the spokesman of Jazz Age. He is so central to the American that it would be difficult to picture that time fully if he had not existed. Part of his central role has to do with the style with which he responded to his experience, which made him see certain aspects of the life of the twenties more clearly and deeper than his contemporaries. In his novels, Fitzgerald unfolds before us the fashion, the luxury, the deceit and the emptiness of social life of 1920s. One of the distinguishing features of his works, like the others writers in his age, is parallel between his characters and his own experiences. Written on 1925, The Great Gatsby is one of the greatest literary documents of this period, which wins many favorable praises. And it is also the central to the literature of the twenties, and it is in the mainstream of American realism as it emerged after World War I.

Fitzgerald’s greatness lies in the fact that he found intuitively in his personal experience the embodiment of the nation and created a myth out of American life. The story of The Great Gatsby is a good illustration. Gatsby is a young guy from the Midwest. He falls in love with Daisy, a wealthy girl, but is too poor to marry her. The

girl is then married to a rich man, Tom Buchanan. Determined to win back his lost love, Gatsby engages himself in bootlegging and other “shady” activities, thus earning enough money to buy a magnificent house. Then he spreads dazzling parties every weekend, hoping one day the Buchanans will come. They finally come and Gatsby meets Daisy again. But the woman before him is not quite the ideal over of his dream and they can never repeat the past. Then Daisy kills a woman (Tom’s mistress) in an accident and plots with Tom to shift the blame on Gatsby. Finally, Gatsby was shot and the Buchanans escape.

The Great Gatsby caught superbly the spirit of a decade, and was classified as a book about the Roaring Twenties. It is one of those novels that richly evoke the texture of their time and become literary classics; they become a supplementary or even substitute from of history. Gatsby and the novel in which he lives have become firmly fixed in the popular culture, in academic evaluation of literary achievement. Now people keep reading it. Ever since its publication, the novel has received warm discussion from critics. They analyzed the novel from different perspectives.

II. Literature Review

The researches and studies on Fitzgerald have been carried on both at home and abroad. He enjoys both national and international fame. Ever since the 1950s, Fitzgerald has been drawing attention from scholars and critics from many countries.

A. Theme

A great part of the critical attention has been focused on the theme. Many believe that the theme of The Great Gatsby is the American dream. “The theme of The Great Gatsby is the pursuit of American dream and the desertion of American dream,” Diao Keli argued in “On the Theme of The Great Gatsby” (Diao 82-88). To Zhang Lilong, “The Great Gather is actually a recall and summary of the process of the involvement of the American dream from historical and realistic perspectives” (Chang 108-109). Some others pointed out that Gatsby’s tragedy could represent that of all the Americans at that period of time. “The tragedy of Gatsby is also the tragedy of Fitzgerald. The tragedy is of all the pursuers of American dream.” Wang Yujuan says in “The Reasons of Great Gatsby and ‘American Dream’”, and argues “the dream of Gatsby is also the dream of all typical Americans. The defeat of Gatsby is in fact the

loss of all the Americans” (Wang 28).

Critics abroad have paid much attention to the theme of The Great Gatsby as well. They regard its theme as the failure of the American dream through Gatsby's personal experien ce. “The Great Gatsby is an exploration of the American dream as it exists in a corrupt period”“critics from several different generations have noted how Fitzgerald used his conflicts to explore the origins and fate of the American dream and the related i dea of the nation” (Callahan 48).

B. Narrative techniques

The unique narrative techniques also receive much attention. Cheng Aiming in his “The narrative Technique of The Great Gatsby analyzes the narrative technique of the novel from three aspects: the narrator, point of view, and writer, narrator, character, and reader. He concludes that the writer makes the character in this novel the narrator to develop the story skillfully” (Cheng 130). This unique technique creates aesthetic distance between the writer, the narrator, the characters and the readers, producing original artistic effect. Toming points out, “With this narrative point of view in place, the novel achieves a balance between involvement and distance, romantic passion and critical irony” (Toming 241).

C. Cultural studies and feminist studies

In the 1970s, the study of literature was influenced by cultural studies and feminist studies. The novel's representation of women, race and sexual identity were interrogated. Some critics argued that Daisy was considered a person in her own right and not just an object of Gatsby's desire. Some noted a homosexual dimension in Nick's relationship to the men in the novel, and most recently the conclusion that Gatsby is black has been made. From th e author’s aspect, some critics point out great similarities between Fitzgerald and Gatsby. Like Fitzgerald, what Gatsby schemes for, and ultimately does, is not for money itself but for the fact that it will take him near to his beloved. “In The Great Gatsby，Fitzgerald exactly and beautifully canalized the various stands of his own temperament一his essential ‘Westernness’, his sensibility beyond the sensibility of the class he clung to” (Clarke 129). A comparison between Fitzgerald and Hemingway also arouses critics' great interest.

D. Morality studies

Some researchers and critics attached importance to Fitzgerald’s morality. In recent years, some critics such as Henry Dan Piper and Frederick J. Hofman, are beginning to be conscious of the writer’s moral sense which is pervasive in almost all of his major works, and The Great Gatsby is no exception. The awareness of this, as a matter of fact, helps to push a little forward the study of Fitzgerald, because this is also an essential and indispensable part of Fitzgerald's character and personality.

III. The Similarities between the Reality and the Story

Viewed above from all researches both domestic and abroad, Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is actually a great novel that everyone can have different interpretations from different perspectives. This paper is intended to have a try to analyze the theme of The Great Gatsby in terms of historical criticism. In achieving this, the following three aspects will be explored to find the similarities between the reality and the story.

A. Fitzgerald’s dream and Gatsby’s dream

1. Fitzgerald’s dream

The novel deals with Gatsby, an idealist’s mythological tragedy of pursuing his dream, reflecting the disillusion of the “American drea m.”The “American dream”refers to the common belief held by the Americans that everyone can achieve success by means of intelligence and hard work. The original mythology of the “American dream”mirrors people’s wish es to build “this side of Paradise”on the American Continent, because in the Europeans’ eyes, this land was rich in opportunities since the first immigrant. In his literary works, Fitzgerald was concerned on the other aspect of the “American dream,”namely, the degenerated American heroes who have experienced the splendid summit of their lives under the pen of such outstanding writers, as Henry James, Hemingway and Faulkner, but finally perish after the ruin of their illusions.

The Great Gatsby, as F. Scott Fitzgerald's finest novel, is a sensitive and symbolic treatment of themes of contemporary life related with irony and paths to the legendary of the American Dream. The author identifies himself with his writing of the Jazz Age in 1920s and the corruptible American Dream; in The Great Gatsby he admires Gatsby's obsession in his incorruptible dream, although he still feels the

essential loss in the perverted dream simultaneously. The certain vision again affects the author's own life. He will be inevitably trapped in his own complex conflicts between his illusion and reality: He is either realizing the uncertainty in his vision or making his dream come true. Meanwhile, by structuring his book with the dual heroes interwoven in, Fitzgerald exposes the tension out of his own double vision. Like Jay Gatsby, Fitzgerald experienced his ow n “Crack- Up” in longing for his success. The parallel between Fitzgerald and Gatsby reveals the same subject. Fitzgerald himself illustrated the paradox. That is, a worship of success so intense that it virtually insures a conviction of personal failure. Given that Fitzgerald was so completely a man of his own time and his own culture, we must admit that he could have identified himself with Jay Gatsby.

2. Gatsby’s dream

Being born of low extraction, what Gatsby can do at the age of seventeen is to change his legal name “James Gatz”to “Jay Gatsby”which sounds like “son of Jesus”(Fitzgerald 81), as his first step to break away from his mediocre family and seek business success. Like Huckleberry Fin, an American hero created by Mark Twain, Gatsby begins h is adventure from the water: at first “for over a year he had been beating his way along the South shore of Lake Superior as a clam-digger and a salmon-fisher or in any other capacity that brought him food and bed” (Fitzgerald 81), and later he met his Savior---Dan Cody, and began his career on the sea as a mate, skipper, secretary and even jailor, and won Dan Cody’s trust from which he got singularly appropriate education; and during the five years, “the vague contour of Jay Gatsby had filled out to the su bstantiality of a man” (Fitzgerald 83).

After he fell in love with Daisy, Gatsby begins his arduous love adventure which finally turned out to be a fatal strike on him: Daisy married a rich upper-class man who could sustain her abundant life and meet her vanity. From then on, Gatsby had been always holding up Daisy as his beautiful dream for which he sworn to reach at all costs. He went abroad and made a big fortune through bootlegging, and ascended into the rich class, realizing his dream of extricating himself from poverty. However, Gatsby failed to be really adopted by the upper class: the guests invited to his banquet wagged tongues at great length, wondering the host’s origin and true identity; he was framed up by his lover, Daisy and her husband; and except for his humble father who was the only person took pride in him, as well as his neighbor, Nick, no one attended

Gatsby’s funeral. Till then, Gatsby’s dream was completely shattered.

Gatsby is great because he has his pursuit. Inspired by the individualism, he thought he could get what he desires: money and love. Born with poverty, he has his own disciplines to be talent. He rises from the poverty and realizes his dream of being rich. He has the freedom to pursue his happiness as he is taught to. He devotes all his effort to win his lover’s heart. Though he is loyal to his love and is considerate to others, he is doomed to fail at the end. It is not Gatsby’s inner personality defects that cause his ruins but the society that creates his greatness and then again ruins it completely.

In conclusion, Gatsby’s dream stands for Fitzgerald’s dream, for his time’s dream, and his wretched fate implies the whole nation’s tragedy; and thus, the “Gatsby” has transcended himself as an individual, and becomes the extension of the archetypal heroes.

B. The East and the West vs. The East Egg and the West Egg

1. The East and the West

For a long period of time, the divergence and conflict between the East and the West have been serious. The early American culture prospered from the eastern colonies where the national culture had not been well developed. After the Independent War, though breaking off the political relations with British, the young America still interrelated with the suzerain on culture and ideology. With the advancement of American civilization to the Middle West, the vigorous spirit of the early explorers and immigrants was brought to this area; and the easterners who turned to more ardently to the European culture, reinforced their relationship with the traditional culture, and thus, the gentle conservation was formed. During the course of pioneering, the western civilization presented new vitality, bringing more freedom and opportunities. Therefore, the sharp contrast between the East and the West came down: the former symbolizing complication and the latter simplicity. Fitzgerald’s diligent arrangement highlights Gatsby and Tom’s opposite on their class origin, experience and morality, and deepens the theme. In addition, Nick’s pilgrimage from the West to the East and then returning to the West would show his spiritual tracing and seeking for his own “civilization”rather than the special shift. Coming from a prominent and well-to-do family in the West whose prosperity benefits from the

development of the Western frontier, Nick once proclaimed this land to be “the warm center of the world”(Fitzgerald 2), yet, the war broke his quiet life and spiritual sustenance, and he left for the East, which had finished the Industrial Revolution. The superficial prosperity seems to give Nick the opportunity to start a new career. However, Gatsby’s tragedy smashes Nick’s confidence on his nation’s civilization, and he has to return to the starting point. The cycle of both the place and the conduction constructs a hermetic space which makes people feel stifle and hopeless and urges them to introspect the root of the problems.

2. The East Egg and the West Egg

The contrast and conflict between the East Egg and the West Egg which are both acting place and have been converted into metaphor, deepen further the theme of revealing Gatsby’s tragedy. The two looks like “a pair of enormous eggs, identical in contour and separated only by a courtesy bay,”“They are not perfect ovals---like the egg in the Columbus story, they are both crushed flat at the contact end” (Fitzgerald 4). Then, Nick proclaims that, except shape and size, they have dissimilarity in every particular. The Buchanans who originate from rich and honorable families live in the East Egg; Emerging from poverty and obscurity, Gatsby lives in the West Egg. The green light of the East Egg keeps guiding the latter, and becomes the example of it. Gatsby pursues stubbornly the principle of restraint abided by the early Puritan easterners, and vainly attempts to establish a successful mansion in the Franklin way which has been antiquated for a long time. The American dream fails to find its realization on Gatsby who applies of copy mechanically. What he has really established adhering to the successful model---the East Egg, is nothing but the illusory mirage which disappears with Gatsby’s death.

C. New York and the “Ash Valley”

New York and the “Ash Valley” are pregnant with symbolic meaning. With the completeness of the Industrial Revolution in the East, the New York city became the center of modern civilization. However, the only road from the West Egg to New York passes through an “Ash Valley”on which the writer spared no expense to describe concretely. “This is a valley of ashes---a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of

ash-gray men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air”(Fitzgerald 19).

The modern wasteland, the “Ash Valley”is permeated with the strangled and hopeless atmosphere in which Mr. Wilson and his wife live. Having been cheated from start to the end, Wilson who credulously believes Tom and mismurders Gatsby, is a pitiful character, too. Dreaming of extricating from poverty, Mytle follows Tom to New York where they perform the foul deed of both money and flesh. The Wilson’s’bitter experience and wretched end reflect incisively the darkness and corruption of the center of civilization. Occupying an important position in the narrative texts, the special structure is always connected with the characters’perceptions and becomes the signified language through which the writers acquire a more direct channel to constitute a contrast and thus deepen the theme.

IV. Conclusion

In a word, The Great Gatsby is not only a love tragedy among Americans from the upper class, but also a record of American society of 1920s. Through the fiction people can know the history and social background of that time much more deeply: the cars played an important role in modern society; the life style of entertainment world, such as actors, directors and so on; the modern office lady’s life and love conception; people’s different attitude on moral standard and cultural custom and so on. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald criticized American society in 1920s; Fitzgerald portrays the 1920s as an era of decayed social and moral values, evidenced in its cynicism, greed, and empty pursuit of pleasure.

The greatness of The Great Gatsby rests with the autobiography of Fitzgerald himself, his experience, his reflection, that is to say there are some similarities hidden in Fitzgerald’s world and Gatsby’s world. Fitzgerald used his main character to show his own feelings under the special historical background, which they both had. This thesis aims to call people's attention to the writer’s historical b ackground under which he created this great work, as well as Fitzgerald’s life experience, so that we can reveal much more details about the “myth” --- Gatsby. It may also serve as a key to a wider and deeper understanding and interpretation of Fitzgerald’s works.

What’s more, Fitzgerald，with his unique writing skills and excellent narrative style，left us a record of 1920s——its decaying thoughts-and corruptive society. We

can go back to that “Roaring Age”, and to feel what the author had suffered.

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