Fitzgerald—inspired by the parties he had attended while visiting Long Island's north shore—began planning the novel in 1923, desiring to produce, in his words, "something new—something extraordinary and beautiful and simple and intricately patterned."Progress was slow, with Fitzgerald completing his first draft following a move to the French Riviera in 1924. His editor, Maxwell Perkins, felt the book was vague and persuaded the author to revise over the next winter. Fitzgerald was repeatedly ambivalent about the book's title and he considered a variety of alternatives, including titles that referenced the Roman character Trimalchio; the title he was last documented to have desired was Under the Red, White, and Blue.文献综述

1.2 New Historicism and the Prohibition

Prohibition in the United States was a nationwide constitutional ban on the sale, production, importation, and transportation of alcoholic beverages that remained in place from 1920 to 1933. It was promoted by the "dry" crusaders, a movement led by rural Protestants and social Progressives in the Democratic and Republican parties, and was coordinated by the Anti-Saloon League, and the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Prohibition was mandated under the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Enabling legislation, known as the Volstead Act, set down the rules for enforcing the ban and defined the types of alcoholic beverages that were prohibited. For example, religious uses of wine were allowed. Private ownership and consumption of alcohol was not made illegal under federal law; however, in many areas local laws were more strict, with some states banning possession outright. Nationwide, Prohibition ended with the ratification of the Twenty-first Amendment, which repealed the Eighteenth Amendment, on December 5, 1933.

New Historicism is a school of literary theory which first developed in the 1980s, primarily through the work of the critic and Harvard English Professor Stephen Greenblatt, and gained widespread influence in the 1990s. New Historicists aim simultaneously to understand the work through its cultural context and to understand intellectual history through literature, which follows the 1950s discipline of history of Ideas and refers to itself as a form of "Cultural Poetics."

The paper aims to analyze the relationship between the prohibition in United State and The Great Gatsby by using the method of New Historicism. At the same time, by combination of these three elements, we can also get a more deeply understanding and find a new way to comprehensive The Great Gatsby, the New Historicism, the Prohibition, the nineteenth century in America, the America Dream and so on. 源:自*优尔~·论,文'网·www.youerw.com/

1.3 Literature Review

The Great Gatsby which is written by American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) has an important status in American novel history. It was described as “the first step going out of America since Henry James”, and was widely concerned by critics since 1925 when it was published. According to statistics, from 1940 when Fitzgerald died to 1980 when Fitzgerald’ s research album was published, there are more than 50 researches and nearly 1,000 papers about Fitzgerald from abroad. According to incomplete statistics, from 1951, American literary critic Professor Arthur Mizene published his first monograph about Fitzgerald The Far Side of Paradise to Professor Harold Bruce published The Great Gatsby’s research thesis of Fitzgerald’ s The Great Gatsby in 2004, there are 14 research monographs, 12 thesis of The Great Gatsby and thousands of papers were published. Before the 1970s, foreign critics consider The Great Gatsby as "the Masterpiece of Age", and study it by using biographical criticism and literature critical method. Since the 1970s, critics begin to believe it is not only a “Masterpiece of Age”, but a classic literary, and to study the literary feature of it as a classic literary by using literary criticism method. If we count it from 1945 when Fitzgerald’ s best friend and American literary critic , professor Edmund Wilson edited and published Fitzgerald’ s posthumous work as the name of The Crack-Up which caused “Resurrection of Fitzgerald”, The Great Gatsby critics has booming developed more than 60 years in abroad. By contrast, The Great Gatsby critics has a short history in domestic. In 1980, the publishing of  Fitzgerald Study(Twentieth Century Literature) pushed The Great Gatsby critic in abroad to a climax, from then on readers in home begin to turn their attention on the literary classic. Although, the critic of The Great Gatsby in domestic starts late, the speed of its development is quiet exciting. Domestic readers has made an amazing achievement in the study of The Great Gatsby over the 20 years. Since 1980, many foreign language academic journal or other kind of journal have published over 200 papers, such as Foreign Literary Critic, Foreign Literature, Foreign Literary Study, Foreign Language Teaching, Foreign Language and Foreign Language Teaching, Sichuan Foreign Language Institute Journal, and so on. These papers critic and explain The Great Gatsby in different level and from different perspective, which not only promote its critic standard in domestic, gradually shorten the gap between domestic and overseas, but also enhance its understanding and accepting of domestic readers.