英语论文.docx

1、英语论文The American Dream in “The Great Gatsby”I. IntroductionIn 1925, The Great Gatsby was published and hailed as an artistic and material success for its young author, F. Scott Fitzgerald. It is considered a vastly more mature and artistically masterful treatment of Fitzgeralds themes than his earli

2、er fiction. When I first know this book in one of American literature classes, I become interested in it.This book mainly told us as a story that the hero-Jay Gatsby fell in love with girl called Daisy in order to gain acceptance into the sophisticated, money world of the women he loves, he tried al

3、l means to get money. Fitzgeralds dominant theme in the Great Gatsby focuses on the corruption of the American Dream had the assumption that each person could succeed in his life if he can try all means to get money, and also if getting enough money, then he can live happily. This novel examined the

4、 results of the Jazz age generations adherence to false material values. In my paper, I illustrate the American Dream which revealed through the life of the main characters. Through learning this book, I firm the correct conception of wealth, especially in todays china, the development of market eco

5、nomy and modernization construction misleads some peoples attitude towards money, I hope my paper can make people know further that wealth is not the name of happiness.II. American Dream and The Great Gatsby A. The connotation of the American DreamThe American Dream, arose in the Colonial period and

6、 developed in the nineteenth century, had the assumption that each person could succeed in his life if he can try all means to get money, and also if getting enough money, then he can live happily.The Great Gatsby is a novel about what happened to the American dream in the 1920s. In this period, eve

7、rybody had the dream to change their own life, but what a pity that all their dreams, for example, to achieve fame, success, glamour, and excitement, had been crushed by the vulgar pursuit of wealth as the result. This book is a primary example of American culture. Who wish to succeed in everything

8、we do, and get caught up in a life with little substance; it becomes plain, like the white dresses Daisy likes to wear. We look far ahead without seeing what should be cherished. The Great Gatsby has fully demonstrated the effects of the American Dream, and drives home the reality that life is not s

9、omething that can be bought, but made through lasting relationships and the love of extraordinary human beings .The Great Gatsby mirrors our culture in such a way that not reading it would be misunderstanding the very themes that characterize us as human beings. By looking at each character in The G

10、reat Gatsby, we can easily found in that period American Dream was nation wide phenomenon.In Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby, all the characters were, in one way or another, attempting to achieve a state of success and happiness in their lives. The main characters were divided into two groups: the rich

11、 upper class and the poorer lower class, which struggled to attain a higher position. Though the major players sought only to change their lives for the better, the idealism and spiritualism of the American Dream was eventually crushed beneath the harsh reality of life, leaving their lives without a

12、ny meaning or purpose.B. The Great Gatsby1.The author of the Great Gatsby As the protagonist Jay Gatsbys story in some aspects are based on the writers own experience, here I will give a brief introduction about the author.F.S Fitzgeraldthe writer of the Great Gatsby , played an important role in th

13、e American literature during the 1920s and 1930s. He was the representative writer in the “Lost generation” and also the most successful poet in the “Jazz Age”! He was born in St.Paul, Minnesota. His family was considered socially prominent and genteelly poor. With the financial aid of relatives he

14、was sent to prep school and to Princeton. In 1917, in his senior year, he left Princeton to serve in World War I. In Alabama, where he was sent for military training, he fell hopelessly in love with Zelda Sayre, an embodiment of his romantic notions of a Southern Belle. Discharged from the army to w

15、in success, fame, and Zelda. He took a job with an advertising agency and worked on short stories and a novel at night. Eventually his first novel, This Side of Paradise, was accepted for publication. The book appeared in March 1920. A week later Fitzgerald and Zelda were married. From then on, he p

16、ublished The Beautiful and Damned(1922),Tales of the Jazz Age(1922) ,The vegetable(1923),The Great Gatsby(1925) and Tender Is Night(1934) etc. The Great Gatsby is one of his famous novels. Many of the characters in his novels are based on people from his life. Within the characters of Nick Carraway

17、and Jay Gatsby we can see the dueling parts of Fitzgeralds own personality. “Gatsby and Fitzgerald are alike by both being self-made men who have achieved financial success. Similarly, they both achieved their financial success for the love of a woman”(Wu Weiren,215). Gatsby felt that he needed weal

18、th to win the hand of Daisy, and Fitzgerald felt the same about Zelda. The love of a woman was the motivating factor behind virtually all of Gatsbys actions, and many of the young Fitzgeralds. Fitzgerald would spend the majority of his career struggling to earn as much money as possible to maintain

19、the privileged lifestyle that Zelda desired.2.The protagonist: Jay GatsbyJay Gatsby, the title character of The Great Gatsby is a young man, around thirty years old, who rose from an impoverished childhood in rural North Dakota to become fabulously wealthy. However, he achieved this lofty goal by pa

20、rticipating in organized crime, including distributing illegal alcohol and trading in stolen securities. From his early youth, Gatsby despised poverty and longed for wealth and sophistication-he dropped out of St.Olafs college after only two weeks because he could not bear the janitorial job with wh

21、ich he was paying his tuition. Though Gatsby has always wanted to rich, his main motivation in acquiring his fortune was his love for Daisy Buchanan, whom he met as a young military officer in Louisville before leaving to fight in World War I in 1917. Gatsby immediately fell in love with Daisys aura

22、 of luxury, grace and charm, and lie to her about his own background in order to convince her that he was good enough for her. Daisy promised to wait for him when he left for the war, but married Tom Buchanan in 1919.From that time on ,Gatsby dedicated himself to winning Daisy back,and his acquisiti

23、on of millions of dollars, his purchase of a gaudy mansion on West Egg,and his lavish weekly parties are all merely means to the end. Fitzgerald delays the introduction of most of this information until fairly late in the novel. Gatsbys reputation precedes himGatsby himself does not appear in a spea

24、king role until chapterIII. Fitzgerald initially presents Gatsby as athe aloof, enigmatic host of the unbelievably opulent parties thrown every week at his mansion. He appears surrounded by spectacular luxury, courted by powerful men and beautiful women. He is the subject of a whirlwind of gossip th

25、roughout New York and is already a kind of legendary celebrity before he is ever introduce to the reader. Fitzgerald propels the novel forward through the early chapters by shrouding Gatsbys background and the source of his wealth in mystery. As a result, the readers first, distant impression of Gat

26、sby strike quite a different note from that of the lovesick, nave young man who emerges during the later part of the novel. “Fitzgerald uses this technique of delayed character revelation to emphasize the theatrical quality of Gatsbys approach to life, which is an important part of his personality(C

27、hang Yaoxin, 53). This talent self-invention is what gives Gatsby his quality of “greatness”: indeed, the title “The Great Gatsby” is reminiscent of billings for such vaudeville magicians as “The Great Houdini” and “The Great Blackstone,” suggesting that the person of Jay Gatsby is a masterful illus

28、ion. III. American Dream of Tom and Daisy, Myrtle Wilson, Jay GatsbyBy describing the life of characters: Tom and Daisy, Myrtle Wilson, Jay Gatsby through the eyes of narrator Nick Carraway, Fitzgerald revealed that the American Dream had been transformed into a scheme of materialistic power.“People

29、 in the 1920s, whether they felt the time to be liberating or frightening, very often found themselves flooded with a sense that theirs was a decade in which all was changing, all was new”(Lutz Catherine, 6). A. Tom and Daisys American DreamTom and Daisy Buchanan, the rich socialite couple, seemed t

30、o have everything they could possibly desire; however, though their lives were full of material possessions, they were unsatisfied and sought to change their circumstances. Tom Buchanan: An ex-football star from the same college Nick Carraway attended, Tom was described as a nation figure in a way,

31、one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterwards savours of anti-climax (F.Scott.Fitzgerald, 32). Now thirty, Tom had become enormously wealthy, yet remained physically powerful with his cruel bodyand arrogant eyes (F.Scott.Fitzgerald, 32). Tom, th

32、e arrogant ex-football player, drifted on “forever seeking a little wistfully for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game” (Fitzgerald, 34) and read “deep books with long words in them” (Fitzgerald, 34) in order to have something to talk about. Though he appeared happily married

33、to Daisy, Tom had an affair with Myrtle Wilson and kept an apartment with her in New York. Toms basic nature of unrest prevented him from being satisfied with the life he lead, and so he created another life for himself with Myrtle. He did things that he wanted to do, he did not concern himself with the consequences of his