菲茨杰拉德與蓋茨比的相似之處

1、內(nèi)江師范學(xué)院本科畢業(yè)論文（設(shè)計(jì)）Contents Abstract .1Introduction.2I. Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsby. 2II. The Resemblances Between Fitzgerald and Gatsby.3A. The Similar Family Background.4B. Their Pursuit for Material Wealth.5 C. The Same Attitude to Love.6 D. The Same Tragic Ending.7III. The American Dream of Gat

2、sby and Fitzgerald.8 IV. Inevitability of Their Tragedy.10Conclusion.11 Notes.13Bibliography.14Acknowledgements.15Abstract: Fitzgerald, one of the most outstanding novelists in the 20th century in the United States, is known as the poet laureate of the Jazz Age. The Great Gatsby is one of his master

3、pieces. In the book he perfectly added his own life experiences to the novel plot. He described the hero Gatsby as his self-portrayal in the real life, and delineated the social life of this period in the USA successfully. He reproduced the disillusion of the American dream, and sang a mournful song

4、 for it. To some extent, this book could be a reflection of Fitzgeralds real life. The thesis attempts to analyze the resemblances between Fitzgerald and Gatsby from their life experience, love and marriage, and their tragic endings to draw a conclusion that their tragedy is inevitable.Key Words: Fi

5、tzgerald; The Great Gatsby; resemblances; American dream摘要：菲茨杰拉德是美國20世紀(jì)杰出的小說家，被譽(yù)為美國爵士樂時代的桂冠詩人。了不起的蓋茨比是他的經(jīng)典之作。他將自我生活經(jīng)歷完美地融入到小說故事情節(jié)中，把主人公蓋茨比視為現(xiàn)實(shí)生活中的自畫像加以描繪，成功地描摹了美國20世紀(jì)20年代這一特殊時期的社會生活，真實(shí)地再現(xiàn)了美國夢的幻滅，并為它唱了一曲無盡的哀歌。這部作品在某種程度上可以說是菲茨杰拉德現(xiàn)實(shí)生活的真實(shí)寫照。本文探討了蓋茨比及菲茨杰拉德的生活經(jīng)歷，愛情婚姻觀及其對美國夢的追求，分析了了不起的蓋茨比中蓋茨比和作者菲茨杰拉德的相似之處，

6、并指出他們悲劇命運(yùn)的必然性。關(guān)鍵詞：菲茨杰拉德；了不起的蓋茨比；相似；美國夢15The Resemblance Between Fitzgerald and His Great Gatsby IntroductionThe Great Gatsby was a masterpiece among Fitzgeralds works. It was not only a work with a strong autobiographical feature, but also a masterwork which described dream and hope vividly in the h

7、istory of world literature. First published in 1925, The Great Gatsby met with excellent reviews, with T.S.Eliot being among the first to comment on the book, calling it the first step that American fiction has taken since Henry James. Almost every American writer has touched on the theme of America

8、n dream, but as far as the breadth and depth, no one is equal to F. S. Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby is the model of American dream in the history of American literature. In the novel, Fitzgerald regarded Gatsby as a projection of his self-image, and he adorned and polished it carefully, trying to ma

9、ke the heros image and his own unity perfectly, and played a dirge of the disillusionment of American dream. Once, a researcher pointed out, “Fitzgeralds social role and the image in his novel had been completely merged together.”1 It seems to the reader that Mr. Fitzgerald is a Gatsby in the real w

10、orld.Due to its good fame in the whole world, many writers and authors have studied the Great Gatsby from different perspectives. Some of them focus on the female characters in this novel and analyze the personalities of these women characters in detail. Others pay much attention to the American dre

11、am, giving The American Dream in The Great Gatsby, a comprehensive explanation of American dream, and presenting the development and withering of American Dream of Gatsby and the other people. This thesis intends to analyze the similarities between Fitzgerald and Great Gatsby, and then present the i

12、nevitability of their tragedy. This paper is divided into four parts. In the first part, it simply gives brief introduction to Fitzgerald and the Great Gatsby; and in the second part, the resemblances between Fitzgerald and Gatsby will be stated; in the third chapter will present their American drea

13、m. In the last part, it will mention the inevitability of their tragedy. I. Fitzgerald and The Great GatsbyFitzgerald, a famous American writer, was one of the most important representatives of "jazz age". He made good for deficiency by virtue of his literary talent and thus formed his uni

14、que writing style among the novelists in modern American. In 1920,Fitzgerald published the novel The Side of Paradise, which made him recognized by great critics and was famous in American literature. In 1925 The Great Gatsbys publication established his place in the history of modern American liter

15、ature. He became a spokesman of the “jazz age” in the 20s and one of the representative writers of the “l(fā)ost generation”. F. Scott Fitzgerald was best known for his novels and short stories which chronicled the excesses of America's Jazz Age during the 1920s. He was born in St. Paul, where his f

16、amily was considered socially prominent and relatively poor. Fitzgerald was both a victim and a keen onlooker of the extravagant gaudy of the Jazz Age. His fictional world in which he showed a particular interest in the upper class was the best embodiment of the spirit of the American society. The G

17、reat Gatsby was a material success and established his reputation as one of the promising novelists in the circles of literature. It foresaw the doom and failure of the post-war boom years or the “roaring twenties” in the midst of which he lived. The story was a picture of the prohibition era and a

18、masterpiece related with irony and pathos to legendry of the “American dream”.In the book, Gatsby was a son of farmers. He was ordinary but hardworking. When he was in the army, he met and loved a rich and beautiful girl, whose name was Daisy. After the outbreak of World War I, Gatsby had to serve o

19、n the front, while Daisy married Tom because of her vanity, superficial desire for money. Some years later, Gatsby still loved Daisy and he tried to win back his sweet heart by the means of money. He did many things to remind her of their past loving affairs, so that they could be together again. On

20、e day, Daisy drove a car and killed her husbands lover by accident. Later, she and her husband planted this murder case on poor Gatsby, indirectly letting him die under the gun. To the readers anger, the vicious couple continued to enjoy their rich and comfortable life, completely forgetting Gatsby.

21、 The colorful dreams Gatsby made every effort to create, was swallowed up by the cruel and messy world, and all of this was just like a piece of dirge circling around in the sky of the Jazz Age. II. The Resemblances Between Fitzgerald and GatsbyOn September 24th, 1896, Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald w

22、as born in st. Paul, Minnesota. He was named after his ancestor Francis Scott Key, the author of The Star-Spangled Banner. Fitzgerald was raised and grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota. Intelligent child as he was, he did poorly in school and was sent to a New Jersey boarding school in 1911. In spite of

23、being an ordinary student there, he was admitted to Princeton in 1913. It was the academic troubles that plagued him throughout his time at college, so he never graduated. Instead, he was enlisted in the army in 1917, as World War I was closed to be terminated.Fitzgerald became a second lieutenant i

24、n the army, and he was stationed at Camp Sheridan, in Montgomery, Alabama. There he got acquaintance and fell in love with a wild seventeen-year-old beautiful girl whose name was Zelda Sayre. The later finally agreed to marry him, but her overwhelming desires for wealth, fun, and leisure led her pos

25、tpone their wedding until he could make a fortune. In 1920, with the publication of The Side of Paradise, Fitzgerald became a sensation in the literary world, earning a hot fame and enough money to convince Zelda to marry him. After they got married, Zelda suffered a nervous breakdown and Fitzgerald

26、 battled alcoholism, which hampered his writing. He published Tender Is the Night in 1934, and sold short stories to The Saturday Evening Post to support his lavish lifestyle. In 1937, he left for Hollywood to write screenplays, and in 1940, while working on his novel The Love of the Last Tycoon, di

27、ed of a heart attack at the age of forty-four. Many of these events happened in Fitzgeralds early life were re-existed in his most famous novel, The Great Gatsby, which was published in 1925. Like Fitzgerald, Jay Gatsby was a sensitive young man who idolized wealth and luxury and who fell in love wi

28、th a beautiful young woman while stationed at a military camp in the South. Having become a celebrity, Fitzgerald fell into a wild, reckless life-style of parties and decadence, while desperately trying to please Zelda by writing to earn money. Similarly, Gatsby amassed a great deal of wealth at a r

29、elatively young age, and devoted himself to acquiring possessions and throwing parties that he believed will enable him to win Daisys love. A. The Similar Family Background Jay Gatsby, whose former name was James Gatsby, was born in a poor peasant family in West American. He had a character of elega

30、nce and honesty and held a strong desire to live a better life. In America, it was hard to get into the rank of the upper class from the bottom of society. However, Gatsby dreamed to get into the high society when he was at a young age. He even made a lot of rules for himself when he was young, such

31、 as “to take showers every two days; not to waste time to drop around, to read a useful book or journal every week, to refuse smoking, to honor parents more, and so on.”2 He changed his name into Jay Gatsby, attempting to get rid of the environment and status which his fathers lived in. “Gatsby come

32、s from his Platonic conception. He is a son of God”3 Like Gatsby, Fitzgerald also lived a humble life. He was a little bit luckier than Gatsby. Although Fitzgeralds fathers side did not have a good background, his mothers side had some middle class background. In his early years, he lived in a relat

33、ively poor house with his family in the upper block in St. Paul, so he always thought himself as “an outsider among the rich people”. Since childhood Fitzgerald realized that one should not only be rich but also with higher social status. He developed double interiority complex. He loved to play wit

34、h the children of wealthy families and those who were destined to make fortunes. As a boy, he had once prayed that his fathers dismissal would not send the family to the poor house. As a man, he bitterly recalled, having been “one of the poorest boys in a rich boys school”.（燈紅酒綠 135）With a thin pret

35、ense of irony, Fitzgerald attributed his own views to the young John Unger in The Diamond as Big as the Ritz: “I like rich people. The richer a fella is, the better I like him.”4He had learned in school that virtue was rewarded with money and vice punished by the loss of money. Apparently, his one a

36、im should be to earn lots of it fast. Like the man of his college year, he was fascinated with the process of earning and spending money. It was the ambivalence which was caused by money that made him feel out of tone with his surroundings. He was full of envy towards money while he suffered a lot f

37、rom it, which had a great effect on his latter life and works. From all of these statements, it can be concluded that both Gatsby and Fitzgerald were from relatively poor families, but both of them had strong desires to get rich and wanted to stand in the queue of upper society. The poor situations

38、their families gave them were like a horrible reality, letting them eagerly escape from the humble status, at the same time, this kind of background gave them the strength to fight, to achieve, and to succeed. B. Their Pursuit for Material Wealth Rightly because of their hard life in the childhood,

39、they both held a strong expectation towards material wealth, and through several years, they finally achieved success. The success of Gatsby was a mystery. People can know that in his age of 17 he met Dan Codya businessman engaged in illegal trade. Shortly after that, Gatsby became a very wealthy pe

40、rson and lived a rich and luxury life by trading illegally. Fitzgerald was a famous writer. In spite that people cannot evaluate his works from his creation motive, one can never deny that he had some purposes of common custom. Actually he succeeded soon. In 1919, when one of his works named The Sid

41、e of Paradise came out, he made himself a great fortune overnight.Though people cannot choose the family they would be born into, in their latter years they can choose to achieve success through their own effort. Both Gatsby and Fitzgerald made a material success, and thus lived a rich life in the u

42、pper class. Gatsby bought a villa at Long Island, when it was on weekend, “in his blue garden, Men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars On weekends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city between nine in the morning

43、and long past midnight”5While Fitzgerald, because of having a better background than Gatsby, what he need to do is only to live a real high life with his wife in the upper class. They traveled around to join parties and go shopping. After the couple traveled through the Europe, they went back to New

44、 York, and began the next revelry.6C. The Same Attitude to Love To a person, first love is one of the most important experiences in his life, because to a large extent, it can affect him the whole life. On his first arrival at New York, Gatsby was a common gay. He and Daisy loved each other at the f

45、irst sight; it should be admitted that there indeed existed true love in their initial feelings. After that, Gatsby had to leave for overseas as a soldier. However, a year later, Daisy got married and soon she forgot Gatsby. Five years later, after he came back from the battle field, Gatsby found th

46、at Daisy had already got married and had had a daughter. But he did not give up. He thought the reason why Daisy leaft him is that he had no money. Now he had much money. Its time for Daisy to come back to his side. Therefore, he did many things which were so strange and unthinkable. All his actions

47、, including having parties on weekends, keeping all his lights on in the evenings, were to attract Daisy attention. Eventually, they met each other. Facing Gatsbys wealth and his social position, Miss Daisys enthusiasm was aroused, but when she knew his secrets, she left him without hesitation. It s

48、eems to the readers that Gatsby was too addicted to the love from Daisy and he could not survive without Daisy. Gatsby was greatly influenced by the stories of Benjamin·Franklins success, and he swear to realize his American dream. He changed his name, cut his relationship with his fathers, and

49、 flaunted that he was a child of God. His first target was to become a rich man; this dream was realized with the help of Dan Cody. The second target was to get married with a princess in the upper society. When he met Daisy, he was amazed that she had such a combination of beauty and social positio

50、n. From the novel The Great Gatsby, there was a knowledge that Gatsbys American dream was to win Daisys love, and everything he spared no efforts to do was to regain the love of Daisy. In order to make his American dream come true, Gatsby not only got money from illegal trade of alcohol, but he also

51、 did everything Daisy asked him to do, including sacrifice his precious life. In his mind, Daisy represented all beautiful creatures of the upper society in America, and in his memory, the first love between Daisy and him seemed to be a human fairyland. Four years ago, he recognized Daisy and fell i

52、n love with her. This kind of original love was engraved on his mind. In the long time, Gatsby memorized that Daisy became a beautiful miracle story in his mind, a historical event with wonderful experiences.People know little about Fitzgeralds first love. S. Cooperman referred it in his workScott F

53、itzgeralds The Great Gatsby. Shortly after his attending Princeton University, Fitzgerald got to know Geneva. Kinga rich Chicago girl, and he began his first love. However, for the girl, the passion he showed was awkwardness, not happiness. Finally Fitzgerald had to give up this relationship, even b

54、ack to his hometownSt. Paul. This experience influenced the writer greatly. In his later works, some girls of this kind always appeared. They are charming, indifferent, but superficial, just like Geneva King. In his later years, Fitzgerald did not lose interests in such beautiful but superficial gir

55、ls nevertheless he had experienced a failed first love. Then he met Zelda, a daughter of a judge. Shortly after their engagement, Fitzgeralds first book did not get published, Zelda felt not content that he couldnt be successful in a short time, so she terminated the engagement with him. It made Fitzgerald fell so disappointed that he turned to write a book named This Side of Paradise earnestly. In 194