南开大学 外国语学院 美国文学课件FitzgeraldThe Great Gatsby.docx

1、南开大学 外国语学院 美国文学课件Fitzgerald The Great GatsbyF. Scott Fitzgerald (18961940) Born in a middle-class family，Fitzgerald had an expensive educationfirst in private schools， and then at Princeton （普林斯顿大学）where he developed a reputation A membership in the Triangle C1ub and an acquaintance with Edmund Wils

2、on (Wilson :有影响的作家和文学评论家) aroused his great enthusiasm for writingHe wrote for the shows of the club and began his dreams for the upper class lifeHowever，in 1917，he had to leave PrincetonThe reason probably lies in the fact that his academic difficulties humiliated him and the World War I offered hi

3、m a good excuse to stay away for a while。After a years absence from university he came back to Princeton only to stay for another year in which he finished the draft of his first novel, This Side of Paradise (人间天堂，1920) Fitzgerald then had a period of 15 months of military serviceDuring his military

4、 training in Alabama，he fell hopelessly in love with Zelda Sayre，a beautiful social girlTheir meeting later appeared in The Great Gatsby with the names of Gatsby and DaisyDischarged from the army early in 1919，Fitzgerald found himself in a financial trap. Zelda soon broke their engagement，but Fitzge

5、rald didnt give upHe was determined to win success，fame，and ZeldaHe went back to his fathers home to rewrite his novelEventually his first novel, This Side of Paradise，appeared in March，1920In it，a young man named Amory Blaine who is trying to seek inner peace seems to catch the tone of the age afte

6、r World War I：a sense of failureIt was an immediate commercial success, and he won the expensive hand of Zelda The Fitzgeralds soon made their fame by living an extravagant lifeTheir need for money was tremendousFitzgerald had to write at a rapid speed and made an incredible amount of money to suppo

7、rt their cocktail-party lifeMore than 150 short stories made him popular and richBut the money went out as quickly as it came inOut of his stories came two collections，Flappers and Philosophers （轻佻女郎与哲学家，1920) and Tales of the Jazz Age ( 爵士时代的故事，1922) (The use of both “flapper” and “the JazzAge” bec

8、ame widespread henceforward) In 1922, Fitzgerald published his second novel, The Beautiful and the Damned （美丽与毁灭,又名：漂亮冤家）. It was essentially autobiographical, for he wrote a good deal of himself and Zelda into it. Pervading (充满着) their imprudent （不检点）and reckless （肆无忌惮的）merry-making life, anxiety a

9、nd a sense of failure haunt the whole book. The Beautiful and the Damned is regarded as an initial attempt at writing The Great Gatsby. In 1925 Fitzgerald published his masterpiece, The Great Gatsby, which took the literarycircle by storm, but didnt sell well. All the Sad Young Men （一代悲哀的年轻人）, a col

10、lection of short stories, came out in 1926. Over the next two years Fitzgerald wrote little. He began to fell a decline in his writing power. Desperately he went to Hollywood in 1927 to act as a screen writer. Life was extremely hard for the Fitzgeralds in the 1930s. Zelda suffered a nervous breakdo

11、wn; Fitzgerald was anxious about money, his talent, his reputation, and his health. Gloomy, depressed and lonely, he turned to alcohol toseek solace （安慰）. He even attempted suicide twice. During this period, he wrote another important novel, Tender is the Night (夜色温柔，1934), which is, to some extent,

12、 an embodiment （体现） of his real life. It is mainly about Dick Diver, a young American psychiatrist （精神病医生）, and his intricate emotional life, spiritual sterility （精神空虚）, and complete disillusionment regarding love and money. In 1937, Fitzgerald improved and returned to Hollywood, where he had a love

13、 affair with Sheilah Graham. In 1938, he was dismissed from his work and thereafter never regained his confidence or health. A heart attack took his life in 1940 and he left an unfinished novel, The Last Tycoon （最后的巨头，该书揭露了好莱坞好莱坞电影业的腐败）. After his death, his friend Edmund Wilson helped to publish th

14、e novel in 1940 along with a collection of essays, letters, and notes under the title of The Crack-Up in 1945. Fitzgerald was regarded as the spokesman of his time, especially of the reckless 1920s: fast cars, illicit drinking, wild merry-making （纵情狂欢）, jazz music, popular fads （风尚）, and new wealth.

15、 He lived in it, yet he retained a certain distance to observe it. His works reveal the emptiness of the American worship of wealth and the unending American dream of love, splendor （名声显赫，业绩辉煌）, and fulfilled desires. Money and love are the two themes portrayed most often in his works. His life expe

16、rience strengthened his belief that money can corrupt everything, including love. As a sober （冷静，清醒）observer, Fitzgerald saw decadence and corruption in the so-called American Dream and put them in his works. Fitzgerald won the acclaim of one of the great stylists （风格出色）in American literature. T.S.

17、Eliots comment on The Great Gatsby solidified Fitzgeralds literary status: It was the first step that American fiction has taken since Henry James (T. S.Eliot, Letter to Scott Fitzgerald in Fitzgerald, The Crack-up 垮掉的, p. 310). In his brief novels, he employed simple, vivid, graceful, precise, smoo

18、th and sensitive words and metaphors to present the exact picture of that time and to convey his vision. His skillful manipulation of the general and the specific and his excellent use of the narrator put him in the rank of great stylists.Selected Reading I: The Great Gatsby (Chapter Three) There wa

19、s music from my neighbors house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths (飞蛾)among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. At high tide （涨潮）in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft （跳水用的跳台）, or taking the sun on the

20、 hot sand of his beach while his two motor-boats （摩托艇）slit the waters （破浪驰骋）of the Sound （指Long Island Sound,长岛与康涅提格州之间的海岬地区）, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam（摩托艇拖着滑水板，浪花四溅地在波涛中疾速穿行）. On week-ends his Rolls-Royce （名贵轿车品牌）became an omnibus （接送人的通勤车）, bearing parties （大队人马）to and from the ci

21、ty between nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station wagon （大型轿车）scampered (匆忙奔走) like a brisk yellow bug （疾速飞行的黄虫）to meet all trains （迎接乘坐每一班列车来的客人）. And on Mondays eight servants, including an extra （临时雇佣的） gardener, toiled all day with mops and scrubbing-brushes （板刷子）and hamme

22、rs and garden-shears （园艺专用剪刀）, repairing the ravages （修复被损坏的）of the night before. Every Friday five crates （木箱）of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruiterer in New York-every Monday these same oranges and lemons left his back door in a pyramid （堆成小山般的）of pulpless halves （对半切后被榨干果汁）. There was a mac

23、hine in the kitchen which could extract the juice （榨果汁）of two hundred oranges in half an hour if a little button was pressed two hundred times by a butlers （厨师）thumb. At least once a fortnight a corps of caterers （一群承办宴席的人）came down with several hundred feet of canvas （几百英尺长的搭帐篷用的帆布）and enough color

24、ed lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsbys enormous garden. On buffet tables, garnished with glistening hors-doeuvre （摆放着颜色鲜艳的各种冷拼菜肴）, spiced baked hams （切成薄片的咸火腿肉）crowded against salads of harlequin designs （色彩搭配怡人的色拉）and pastry pigs and turkeys （烤猪肉和火鸡）bewitched to a dark gold （烤成诱人的深黄色）. In th

25、e main hall a bar with a real brass rail was set up （用一根货真价实的铜栏杆辟出一间酒吧）, and stocked with gins and liquors （杜松子酒和烈性酒）and with cordials （加香料的烈性甜酒）so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too young to know one from another. By seven oclock the orchestra has arrived, no thin five-piece aff

26、air （并非是由五种乐器组成的简易乐队）, but a whole pitful （演奏员能坐满一个剧院乐池的）of oboes and trombones and saxophones and viols and cornets and piccolos （有双簧管，长号，萨克斯管，中世纪传下来的viols 式提琴，短号和短笛）, and low and high drums （高低音鼓）. The last swimmers have come in from the beach now and are dressing up-stairs; the cars from New York

27、 are parked five deep in the drive （许多轿车排成五行）, and already the halls and salons and verandas （阳台）are gaudy （光彩夺目）with primary colors, and hair shorn （女宾的发型）in strange new ways, and shawls beyond the dreams of Castile （女宾的各种披肩的花样款式，是以善织花边和头巾的西班牙Castile地区的能工巧匠做梦都想象不到的） The bar is in full swing, and fl

28、oating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside (一巡又一巡的鸡尾酒送到花园里，四处洋溢着酒香), until the air is alive with chatter and laughter, and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot （宾客们互相介绍，招呼，但转眼之间就忘记对方）, and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each others names. The lights

29、 grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun （太阳冉冉西下时）, and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music （轻快的鸡尾酒宴乐曲）, and the opera of voices pitches a key higher （园中大合唱般的交谈声又升高了一个八度）. Laughter is easier minute by minute （大笑声越来越频繁）, spilled with prodigality （人们开始肆无忌惮）, tipped out at a

30、 cheerful word（由打趣的话惹起阵阵大笑）. The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath; already there are wanderers, confident girls （到处乱窜，自我感觉良好的姑娘们）who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment the center of a grou

31、p （当她们吸引了人们的目光，成为注视的焦点时，便感到十分愉快）, and then, excited with triumph, glide on through （穿行在）the sea-change of faces and voices and color （海浪般不断变幻的）under the constantly changing light （在变换闪烁的灯光下）.Selected Reading II : The Great Gatsby (Chapter Nine) About five oclock our procession of three cars reached

32、the cemetery （墓地）and stopped in a thick drizzle （细雨迷蒙）beside the gate-first a motor hearse, horribly black and wet （最前面的是黑得恐怖的湿淋淋的灵车）, then Mr. Gatz （Gatsby之父） and the minister and I in the limousine （大型轿车）, and a little later four or five servants and the postman from West Egg, in Gatsbys station w

33、agon （招待会时接客人的专用车上载着佣人和邮差）, all wet to the skin. As we started through the gate into the cemetery I heard a car stop and then the sound of someone splashing （在泥水里噼啪走路的声音）after us over the soggy ground （泥泞的道路）. I looked around. It was the with owl-eyed glasses （戴着猫头鹰眼镜的男人）whom I had found marveling over Gatsb