《伟大的盖茨比》中的宴会看爵士时代的精神(2)
3. Alienated Spirit of the Jazz Age at Gatsby’s parties 8
3.1 Alienation between Man and His Mind 8
3.2 Alienation between Man and Society 8
3.3 Alienation between Man and Man 9
4. Self-salvation of the Jazz Age's Spirit at Gatsby’s parties 12
4.1 Gatsby's Spiritual Pursuit 12
4.2 Model of Morality: Nick Carraway 13
Conclusion 14
Works Cited 15
Introduction
1. Literature Review
It’s well known that F. Scott Fitzgerald is the spokesman of the “Jazz Age” in the 1920s. And his masterpiece The Great Gatsby is a good illustration of the mood of the “Jazz Age”.
Although relatively few copies had been sold before Fitzgerald’s death in 1940, The Great Gatsby began to attract various criticisms after a revival of his works in the 1950s. Some early reviews of The Great Gatsby focused on the biographical and cultural influence on the novel, the structure or the plot of the novel, language features, etc. The novel was highly praised by many critics, who have written many critical essays on discussion and research on its exploration of the American Dream. American Dream was first expressed by James Truslow Adam in 1931 and it means that citizens of every rank feel that they can achieve a “better, richer, and happier life”. (Cullen, Jim 121) Over the course of American history, it has wide indications including life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In “F. Scott Fitzgerald’s evolving American Dream: The ‘Pursuit of Happiness’ in Gatsby, Tender is the Night, and The Last Tycoon”, Callahan, John F. pointed out that “The Great Gatsby is an exploration of the American Dream as it exists in a corrupt period”, and “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 idea of the nation”. Many critics think that the American Dream consists of two complementary aspects, respectively the material and the spiritual. And Gatsby is a typical representative of the American Dream in terms of both two aspects. In the novel, Gatsby is a seeker of wealth and love. Roger Lewis explored the relationship between money, love and aspiration in his thesis “Money, Love, and Aspiration in The Great Gatsby” in New Essays on The Great Gatsby. He considered The Great Gatsby as the most complicate and seminal work during that transitional period. “In this respect the 1920s bridge the gap between the older, simpler, more naive and idealistic America and the bewildering, disparate, rootless, cynical America of the present.” (Roger Lewis 42). About the relationship between money and love, the conclusion was that possession of one did not lead to possession of the other.
Meanwhile many other critics pay attention to the significance of Nick Cararway, the narrator in The Great Gatsby. Nick plays an important role in the story of The Great Gatsby, just as Perkins says to Fitzgerald, “You adopted exactly the right method of employing a narrator who is more of a spectator than an actor: this puts the reader upon a point of observation on a higher level than that on which the characters stand and at a distance that gives perspective”.
Besides the excellent technique and style in narrative form, Fitzgerald’s successful use of symbolism in the novel is also one important reason of bringing the themes of the novel to a new height and contributing to its popularity. In recent years, we can find further research on this novel in feminist and cultural aspects. The novel’s representation of women, race and sexual identity are noted.
In China the articles relating to The Great Gatsby published in the past two decades in the academic journals can be grouped into two perspectives: one is related to the theme, the significance in depicting the society and history; the other deals with literary style—— the ironic and poetically imaginative language of the novel, the abundant use of metaphors and symbols, the narrative technique, etc.
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