摘要:F. Scott Fitzgerald recorded what he and his generation really thought about, what they pursued and what they lacked in his period. That is to say the novel is intertwined with Fitzgerald’s understanding of himself and his generation. The dilemma that Nick, Gatsby and Fitzgerald face is: whether to pursue one’s dreams and neglect the heart’s moral or to face the reality that such dreams are illusory.
ous man named Jay Gatsby, who lives in a gigantic Gothic mansion and throws extravagant parties every Saturday night.
Nick drives out to East Egg one evening for dinner with his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her husband, Tom. Daisy and Tom introduce Nick to Jordan Baker, a beautiful, cynical young woman with whom Nick begins a romantic relationship. Tom has a lover, Myrtle Wilson, who lives in the valley of ashes, a gray industrial dumping ground between West Egg and New York City.
As the summer progresses, Nick eventually receives an invitation to one of Gatsby’s legendary parties. By talking to Jordan and Gatsby, Nick later learns more about his mysterious neighbor:Gatsby, a poor man, falls in love with a rich girl while he is serving as an officer in the army during World War I. She loves him but marries someone else. She does not know that he is poor. Gatsby becomes rich through bootlegging and other crimes, finds her, and tries to persuade her to leave her husband for him. Gatsby tells Jordan that he is still deep in love with the girl, that he spends many nights staring at the green light at the end of her dock, across the bay from his mansion, and that his extravagant lifestyle and wild parties are simply an attempt to impress Daisy. Nick helps Gatsby to arrange a reunion between Gatsby and Daisy. After an initially awkward reunion, Gatsby and Daisy reestablish their connection. Their love rekindled and they begin an affair.
After a short time, Tom grows increasingly suspicious of his wife’s relationship with Gatsby. He forces the group to drive into New York City, where he confronts Gatsby in a suite. After the event, Tom contemptuously sends Daisy back to East Egg with Gatsby, attempting to prove that Gatsby cannot hurt him.
However, Gatsby’s car strikes and kills Myrtle, Tom’s lover, when Daisy was driving the car. The plot itself is simple. A good way of understanding is to look at the two main characters: Nick and Gatsby, who represent some parts of Fitzgerald’ personality. Gatsby represents a flash celebrity who pursues and glorifies wealth in order to impress the woman he loves, while Nick represents “the quiet, reflective Midwesterner adrift in the lurid East.”4 With the analysis of them, the author’s internal conflicts can be followed and some inner things can be touched.
II. The Controversial Senses Reflected on Nick and the Author’s Introspection of Them
Everything that the readers learn comes from Nick Carraway, either from Nick’s own experience or from what he has learned from others. He lives in the West Egg District of Long Island, next door to Gatsby. He is also Daisy’s cousin, which enables him to observe and assist the resurgent love affair between Daisy and Gatsby. As a result of his relationship with these two characters, Nick is the perfect choice to narrate the novel.
Nick is also well suited to narrating the Great Gatsby because of his dispositions. As he tells the readers in Chapter I, he is a good listener who is tolerant, open-minded, and quiet. So others tend to talk to him and tell him the secrets. As Nick plays a role inside the narrative, he evidences a strongly mixed reaction to life on the East Coast, which creates a powerful internal conflict that he does not resolve until the end of the book. At the same time, Fitzgerald’s heart was upset by Nick’s emotions and thoughts. We see it from the following parts.
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