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3.1 Interpersonal Indifference Arising from Alienation between Man and Man 11
3.2 Spiritual Vacancy Arising from Alienation between Man and His Inner World 12
Conclusion 14
References 15
Introduction
1. The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby, one of Fitzgerald’s greatest novels, is a specific depiction of American society during the Roaring Twenties, telling the failure of Jay Gatsby, the protagonist in the novel, chasing the American Dream. It reveals the tragedy of American society in 1920s which is paradoxically mixed with the economic boom and spiritual collapse.
On the surface, The Great Gatsby is a romantic love story between Gatsby and Daisy. However, Daisy is not just the girl loved by Gatsby, rather a symbol of youth, money and status chased by Gatsby. In order to win Daisy back, Gatsby makes up his mind to seek after immense wealth at any cost, even by illegal transactions. Despite Gatsby’s naïve devotion to love for Daisy, he is still dumped by Daisy and deserted by the society. In his pursuit of pure love, he is distorted by the deteriorating values of the materialized society, resorting to great wealth possession by any kind of means, whereas he is still cheated by the society and dies with his ruined American dream.
Gatsby is a typical American young person in the 1920s and his miserable experience is just the portrayal of The Jazz Age.
2. A Literature Review of The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby, written by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald, is acknowledged as a vivid description of the 1920s, as it triggers people’s nostalgia of the special past life. This novel is not only regarded as the essence of American literature but a historical works which can help to remember and understand the past events happened in 1920s. The Great Gatsby was first published by Scribner’s in April 1925. However, the novel did not attract much attention receiving mixed review and being sold poorly. Nevertheless, due to the death of F.Scott. Fitzgerald in 1940, the novel experienced a revival during WWI. Some critics at that time set a high value on this novel for the reason that it caught the mainstream and essence of the times; other even regarded it as the most excellent novel that had been written in the western literature. In 1950s, the new criticism became very popular in literary filed which result in the fact that the academic works and essays on this novel had been in sprout from then on although the emphasis was given to the reinterpretation of the theme and the significance of this novel. By the 1980s, some critics have continued to explore biographical influences or make a comparison with other authors, or to use new critical analysis. And at the same time, more and more critics have tried to explore the hidden meaning of this novel in a new way, applying the techniques of deconstruction, feminist criticism and discourse analysis, etc.
In China, this novel was once regarded as a negative book to insinuate western capitalist’s idea to influence our people. However, in 1983 when the novel was translated into Chinese by Wu Kingpin with his statements on this novel in the preface of the translation version, Chinese people’s wrong idea to F.Scott.Fitzgerald. had been changed and since then Chinese literary circle began to interpret this novel from the new perspectives. Almost at the same year, professor Dong Hengyi published his literary works of A Brief History of American Literature where he first provided Chinese academic circle the just and complete assessment on Fitzgerald’s works, especially this novel. The substantial emergency of the research papers on this novel mainly focused on the narrative style, the symbolism and its theme and so on. Among these academic achievements, Wang Ning, a famous researcher on American literature in Peking University and Cheng Aiming, a famous professor on American literature in Nanjing Normal University, make a certain contribution to the development of the research on The Great Gatsby in China. Since the late of 1980s, Chinese academic circle have explored more valuable meaning embodied in this novel. For F. Scott Fitzgerald, they have reached such an agreement that the author is not only the representative of the times after WWI but