美国文学选读 The Great Gatsby 分析

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1890 - 1940)

II. His masterpiece: The Great Gatsby

story summary:

The entire story takes place in one summer in 1922.

The novel describes the life and death of Jay Gatsby, as seen through the eyes

of a narrator who does not share the same point of view as the fashionable people

around him.

The narrator learns that Gatsby became rich by breaking the law. Gatsby

pretends to be a well-educated war hero, which he is not, yet the narrator portrays

（描绘） him as being far more noble than the rich, cruel, stupid people among

whom he and Gatsby live.

Gatsby’s character is purified by a deep, unselfish love for Daisy, a beautiful,

silly woman who, earlier, married a rich husband instead of Gatsby and moved into

high society.

Gatsby has never lost his love for her and, in an era when divorce has become

easy, he tries to win her back by becoming rich himself. He does not succeed, and

in the end he is killed by accident because of his determination to shield Daisy

from disgrace.

None of Gatsby’s upper class friends come to his funeral. The narrator is so

disgusted that he leaves New York and returns to his original home.

Chapter Nine

Nick makes plans for the funeral.

Gatsby's Funeral, three people show up.

Nick returns to the west.

Nick meets with Tom Buchanan

Nick gets a last view of Gatsby's house.

小说表面上是一个爱情故事，但实际却是对社会现状的讽刺批判。比如，小说真实再

现了盖茨比挥霍的晚会场面，客人们空虚元聊的生活方式，以及盖茨比经营非法买卖敛取

财富的背景，这些都是那寻欢作乐和价值沦丧的时代的典型写照。另一方面，自移民时期

开始，美国人一直梦想在这片民主、平等、自由、富饶的土地上，通过个人奋斗获得财富

和幸福。但是物质富裕带来的却是精神堕落和理想的破灭，财富的增加也没有消除社会贫

困和社会各阶层的狭隘偏见。Fitzgerald's America is not a place where anything is

possible: just as America has failed to transcend its European origins, Gatsby, too,

cannot overcome the circumstances of his upbringing.

在盖茨比身上可以清楚看到英国式的理想和精神追求，他的“了不起”就在于他对理

想的执着。但他的理想在与时代现实的冲突中却又显得天真、虚幻。他将奋斗和生命的意

义仅仅建立在理想化的黛西和她代表的财富之上，而当现实元情地将这个梦幻击碎后，他

的奋斗和生命便丧失了存在的患义，他其实是被他自己的梦想所杀死的。

小说的结构和主题天然合一。小说突出比较了盖茨比与黛西夫妇和他们所代表的社会

阶层各自不同的价值观。小说通过第一人称叙事者尼克的视角，在第一章 就将两组人并列

展示在读者面前，在前四章，通过故事结构的安排使两组人交替登场。这一方法使读者能

够客观比较两组人之间的差异，从第五章 开始两组人的交往与冲突交织发展，使两组人之

间的差异进一步明晰，直到他们之间的冲突将故事推向高潮，最终矛盾的解决以悲剧告终。

同时，小说的叙述视角也起到了强化主题的作用。

Symbolism

The Green Light（00：03：10，00：18：20, 00:31:48）

It's most obvious interpretation is that the light is symbolic of Gatsby's longing

for Daisy, but that is too simplistic.

Daisy is part of it, but the green light means much more. Gatsby has spent his

whole life longing for something better. Money, success, acceptance, and Daisy.

And no matter how much he has, he never feels complete. Even when he has

his large house full of interesting people and all of their attention, he still longs for

Daisy.

So the green light stands for all of Gatsby‘s longings and wants. And

when Nick talks about the green light at the end of the book he says “It

eluded（躲避） us then, but that's no matter- tomorrow we will run faster,

stretch our arms " .

它从前逃脱了我们的追求，不过那没关系——明天我们跑得更快一点，把胳臂伸得更

远一点……

He connects the green light to all people. Everyone has something that they

long and search for that is just off in the distance. That is the green light.

The eyes of T.J. Eckleburg（00：09：00，01：10：16）

These eyes are from a billboard(广告板） that looks over Wilson's garage.

The eyes are always mentioned whenever Nick is there.

They look over the situation, objectively, but offer a kind of judgment on the

characters and their actions.

They are placed near Wilson's because that is where some of the most selfish

acts take place: Myrtle's death, Tom's affair. All of these crimes go unpunished.

So the eyes look on and remind the characters of the guilt that they forget to

have for what they have done.

East and West Egg

One of the most important themes in the novel is class and social standing.

Tom and Daisy live on the East which is far more refined（有教养的） and well

bred.

Nick and Gatsby are on the West which is for people who don't have any real

standing, even if they have money.

The green light shines from the East Egg enticing（引诱） Gatsby towards what

he has always wanted.

And Daisy, the woman that Gatsby has always wanted but never gets, lives on

East Egg.

The barrier（障碍） that the water creates between these worlds in symbolic of

the barrier that keeps these people apart from one another and from much of

what they want.

《了不起的盖茨比》中提及了几个重要的地点，这些地点不仅告诉读者故事发生的所

在地，而且包含了特殊的象征意义。西卵是盖茨比的豪宅所在地，它象征了像盖茨比这般

诞生于20世纪初的新兴贵族阶级的耀眼与奢华。东卵象征了以汤姆为代表的富裕、拥有

较高社会地位，并且强有力地继续控制着美国社会的老牌上层阶级，但这切只是一种外在

的物质富有，灰谷则是他们内在精神的集中体现— — 荒凉、绝望(也可以说是没有任何希

望)，掩藏在奢侈表象下的是美国腐朽的社会道德。而整个纽约则是物质生活膨胀、精神世

界畸变的东部地区的缩影。

小说中另一个意味深长的象征，是画在厂告牌上的艾克伯格大夫的眼睛。广告牌树立

在灰烬山谷中，是一位眼科医生为招揽生意、扩大业务而立的。艾克伯格大夫的“蓝色、

巨大的”眼睛正透过“遗孀巨大的黄色眼镜”注视着大地。作者也许用这个细节暗示：即

便这双象征上帝的悲天悯人的眼镜也为黄色的喧嚣和黄色的金钱所遮掩。在那个物质主义

盛行，人心浮躁的年代里，即使上帝也不能不受其影响。在小说中，汤姆与盖茨比在餐馆

里发生了激烈的争吵，而黛西本人则面临着重大的选择：是与汤姆离婚，同盖茨比重修旧

好，还是继续和汤姆生活。

她在矛盾与歇斯底里中执意自己开车回家，惊慌失措开车撞死了默尔特。这时。艾克

伯格大夫的眼睛再一次出现，其象征意义更加鲜明。把埃克尔堡大夫的眼睛视为上帝的眼

睛也许有些荒诞，但作为一个象征意象，却颇具奇效。

Major Themes

Decay

Decay is a word that constantly comes up in The Great Gatsby, which is

appropriate in a novel which centers around the death of the American Dream.

Decay is most evident in the so-called "valley of ashes." Fitzgerald describes a

barren wasteland which probably has little to do with the New York landscape and

instead serves to comment on the downfall of American society.

It seems that the American dream has been perverted(不正当的）, Gatsby lives

in West Egg and Daisy in East Egg;

therefore, Gatsby looks East with yearning（渴望，向往）, rather than West, the

traditional direction of American frontier ambitions.

Fitzgerald's implication seems to be that society has already decayed enough.

Violence

Violence is a key theme in The Great Gatsby, and is most embodied by the

character of Tom.

He uses his immense physical strength to intimidate（胁迫） those around him.

When Myrtle taunts（嘲弄） him with his wife's name, he strikes her across the

face.

The other source of violence in the novel besides Tom are cars. A new

commodity at the time that The Great Gatsby was published,

Fitzgerald uses cars to symbolize the dangers of modernity and the dangers of

wealth.

The climax of the novel, the accident that kills Myrtle, is foreshadowed by the

conversation between Nick and Jordan about how bad driving can cause explosive

violence.

The end of the novel, of course, consists of violence against Gatsby. The choice

of handgun as a weapon suggests Gatsby's shady past, but it is symbolic that it is

his love affair, not his business life, that kills Gatsby in the end.

Class

Class is an unusual theme for an American novel.

It is more common to find references to it in European, especially British

novels. However, the societies of East and West Egg are deeply divided by the

difference.

Gatsby is aware of the existence of a class structure in America, Gatsby tries

desperately to fake status, even buying British shirts and claiming to have

attended Oxford in an attempt to justify his position in society.

Ultimately, however, it is a class gulf that seperates Gatsby and Daisy, and

cements（巩固） the latter in her relationship to her husbad, who is from the same

class as she is.

The Decline of the American Dream in the 1920s

On the surface, The Great Gatsby is a story of the love between a man and a

woman.

The Great Gatsby is a highly symbolic meditation on 1920s America as a whole,

in particular the disintegration(瓦解） of the American dream in an era of

unprecedented prosperity and material excess.

Fitzgerald portrays the 1920s as an era of decayed（腐败的，衰退的） social and

moral values, greed, and empty pursuit of pleasure.

The decadent（颓废） parties and wild jazz music in The Great Gatsby resulted

in the corruption of the American dream, as the unrestrained desire for money and

pleasure surpassed more noble goals.

When World War I ended in 1918, the generation of young Americans who

had fought the war became disillusioned, as the brutal carnage（大屠杀） that they

had just faced made the social morality of early-twentieth-century America seem

like stuffy, empty, hypocrisy.

A person from any social background could, potentially, make a fortune,

but the American aristocracy—families with old wealth—scorned the newly

rich industrialists and speculators（投机者）.

American dream was originally about discovery, individualism, and the

pursuit of happiness.

In the 1920s depicted in the novel, however, easy money and relaxed

social values have corrupted this dream.

Gatsby‘s dream of loving Daisy is ruined by the difference in their respective

social statuses, his resorting to crime to make enough money to impress her.

Gatsby instills Daisy with a kind of idealized perfection that she neither

deserves nor possesses.

Gatsby's dream is ruined by the unworthiness of its object, just as the

American dream in the 1920s is ruined by the unworthiness of its object—money

and pleasure.

Gatsby longs to re-create a vanished past—his time in Louisville with

Daisy—but is incapable of doing so.

When his dream crumbles, all that is left for Gatsby to do is die; all Nick can do

is move back to Minnesota, where American values have not decayed.

What makes Gatsby “great”?

Nick considers Gatsby as a great figure. He sees both the extraordinary quality

of hope that Gatsby possesses and his idealistic dream of loving Daisy in a perfect

world.

Though Nick recognizes Gatsby's flaws the first time he meets him, he cannot

help but admire Gatsby's brilliant smile, his romantic idealization of Daisy, and his

yearning for the future.

The private Gatsby who stretches his arms out toward the green light on

Daisy's dock seems somehow more real than the vulgar, social Gatsby who wears a

pink suit to his party and calls everyone “old sport.”

That is, Gatsby makes Daisy his dream because his heart demands a dream,

not because Daisy truly deserves the passion that Gatsby feels for her.

Further, Gatsby impresses Nick with his power to make his dreams come

true—as a child he dreamed of wealth and luxury, and he has attained them

through criminal means.

As a man, he dreams of Daisy, and for a while he wins her, too. In a world

without a moral center, in which attempting to fulfill one‘s dreams is like rowing a

boat against the current, Gatsby’s power to dream lifts him above the

meaningless pleasure-seeking of New York society.

In Nick's view, Gatsby's capacity to dream makes him “great” despite his

flaws and eventual undoing.