《了不起的盖茨比》中盖茨比的梦想及其悲剧成因 (1).docx

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1、 四川师范大学学位论文独创性声明 本人声明：所早、 y 学位论文 。沐兑二苯择冰 ” 盔 rn 二暫 丨今嘀 是本人在导师 &旨导下，独立进行研究工作所取得的成果。除文中已经注 明引用的内容外，本论文不含任何其他个人或集体已经发表或撰写过的作品或 成果。对本文的研究做出重要贡献的个人和集体，均已在文中以明确方式标明。 本声明的法律结果由本人承担。 本人承诺：己提交的学位论文电子版与论文纸本的内容一致。如因不符而 引起的学术声誉上的损失由本人自负。 学 位 论 文 作 者 签 字 曰 期 ： /丨年 , Her eyes flashed around her in a. defiant way,

2、 rather like Toms， and she laughed with thrilling scorn. SophisticatedGod, Im sophisticated!” (Fitzgerald 17) Apparently, Toms mannerism has already become hers. But Gatsbys conception of goodness and beauty is fixed, and he eternally yearns for that beauty. When he kisses her, 4she blossomed for hi

3、m like a flower and the incarnation was complete”（ 110). But Gatsbys disillusionment of love lies in the fact that Daisy fails to play the role assigned to her. Daisy is a young, beautifiil charming girl who attracts young men and becomes the social butterfly. Just as the white flower suggests, she

4、is perishable as well as otherworldly. When Gatsby points to her the scene of an actress and her director in one of his parties, Daisy is fond of the moving-picture actress because she has no substance in herself as well. The actress is such a gesture that is committed to her own image on the silver

5、 screen and is divorced from the awfulness of human reality. Daisys offering in such a human relationship shows her confession of faith. It is her announcement of her understanding of human emotion and conduct. Readers can easily see her emptiness curdle into the viciousness of moral indifference as

6、 the story unfolds. Although Daisys marriage assures her a lavish life， this kind of life is also vacant and aimless. She never knows how to make the best of her time. When she is in her house she says to Nick: “Whatll we plan?” she turned to me helplessly: Svhat do people plan?”（ 18) When they are

7、in Plaza Hotel， she says: “Whatll we do with ourselves this afternoon,” cried Daisy， “and the day after that， and the next 30 years?”（ 119) Once coming into Daisys drawing room, Nick humorously expresses his slight awareness of their difference: “you make me feel uncivilized， Daisy.” Her 36 Causes o

8、f Gatsbys Tragedy words about the rise of the colored races are as silly as that of Toms. After Daisy talks to Nick that she was unhappy with Tom, Nick feels more strongly the insincerity of her words. t4She is, to be sure, victimized by Tom, but she also embodies the world of which he is a part5 (L

9、ehan 76). Gatsby imagination and his will are arrested by an idealized concept of beauty and love. The loss of his beloved girl creates an eternal striving and expectation keeps the world beautifully alive. When discussing Daisys role in Gatsbys life, Marius Bewley argues, The true question is not w

10、hat Gatsby sees in Daisy, but the direction he takes from her, what he sees beyond her; and that has, despite the immaturity intrinsic in Gatsby5s vision, an element of grandeur in it. For Gatsby, Daisy does not exist in herself. She is the green light that signals him into the heart of his ultimate

11、 vision. (Bewley 39-40) There is a dialogue between Gatsby and Nick which shows Gatsbys suggestive awareness of Daisys dimmed lustre after five years interval when they are not with each other: “And she doesnt understand/ he Gatsby said. “She used to be able to understand. Wed sit for hours” He brok

12、e off and began to walk up and down a desolate path of fruit rinds and discarded favors and crushed flowers. “I wouldnt ask too much of her， I ventured. “You cant repeat the past.” “Cant repeat the past?” he cried incredulously. “Why of course you can!” He looked around him wildly, as if the past we

13、re lurking here in the shadow of his house just out of reach of his hand. “I am going to fix everything just the way it was before， ” he said， nodding determinately. “Shell see.”（ Fitzgerald 133) Daisy lives on a less idealized plane and is more humanly adult than Gatsby. 37 Gatsby fails to see what

14、 she is in reality. Wholly involved in the material-orientated world， she demands unquestionable practicality.” By contrast， Daisy becomes Gatsby5s legend, a part of his private past which he will bring to the future. As a product of romantic vision, Gatsby lacks proper realistic values. His own val

15、ues has been left in the backwash of time and are arrived at nostalgically. More importantly, Gatsby has not realized that Daisy fails to constitute the objective correlative of his vision. Fitzgerald maintains it with sureness on a symbolic level where it is identified with and reflects the failure

16、 of Gatsbys decadent American world. (Bewley 40) 4.1.2 Illegal Means to Get Rich Material possession becomes one of the most respected standards to judge one success and social status. Gatsby learns the important role money plays in creating and supporting a way of life from his experience of workin

17、g with Dan Cody and that of losing his beloved girl. When Gatsby meets Daisy in Louisville for the first time, he knows clearly that he has “no real right to touch her hand”（ Fitzgerald 156) because they are in quite different social positions: Daisy is rich while he is poor. He cannot even conceal

18、his poverty and court Daisy without his military uniform. This kind of situation makes him regard money as a requisite to love without the slightest consideration of the means to earn money or the ways to throw off his money. lGatsby struggles to overcome his poverty and then to be extremely rich in

19、 order to marry the girl of his dreams (Lathbury 57). The most urgent thing for him is to amass enough money. Then Gatsby meets Meyer Wolfsheim, who introduces him to the criminal career. It brings him a big fortune from the sale of fraudulent bonds as well as in the management of bootlegging operat

20、ions. Like many critics, Roger Lathbury is also fascinated much by the symbol of money. Commenting on Gatsby5s understanding of money, he says, 4If money is necessary of the life Gatsby envisions, understanding money is equally important, and this understanding Gatsby, in spite of his apparent abili

21、ty to make a fortune, does 38 Causes of Gatsbys Tragedy not have5 (65). For Gatsby, he cannot choose money or love. They are so closely related to each other that he may get both or neither. Their inseparability becomes the defining characteristic of the romantic figure. tlHis struggle to overcome h

22、is impoverished circumstances and to fulfill himself gives him force and attractiveness to Daisy and Nick, and to the reader as well, and all are drawn into consideration love and money as interdependent”（ 59). Considering this linkage, Gatsby is both right and naive at the same time. People marry t

23、hose who makes them feel happy and in the same social position. It is not possible for such a poor boy like Gatsby to marry his beloved rich girl. Gatsby is right in thinking that Daisy will most probably marry into money. Thoroughly social, Daisy has been raised up in a surrounding where a large am

24、ount of money is taken for granted. When Gatsby becomes rich, he uses his money to hold parties in the hope that Daisy will join in them. His rival, Tom asks his friend to investigate Gatsbys business in detail. Gatsby is so naive as to think that all money is the same. Money and love are linked, bu

25、t not as Gatsby thinks. Wliat Daisy wants is not just money but old money. In Daisys eyes, old money is superior to new. It is not because there will be more of it or it can buy more although such is often the case. More importantly, it is because old money has fashioned the attitudes, values, taste

26、s and even manners of its possessors. Having been in the same hands longer, it is easy to settle into the lives of its owners. They are used to live such a comfortable life with privileges. Toms money is old; he serves “impressive” wine. He has stables rather than a garage. He is not attempted by th

27、e frivolous and gaudy things at the risk of making money illegally like Gatsby. He even scorns Gatsbys flashy car as a “circus wagon (128). It is the power of his money that gives him both arrogance and self-assurance. Consequently, everything Gatsby values, including his life, is totally destroyed

28、by those people who are used to the power of higher social position and class. His 39 dreams are crushed under the weight of the reality. Compared with the works of other writers in America， Scott Fitzgeralds novels are based more obviously on the concept of class. He realizes the important part mon

29、ey plays in creating and supporting a certain way of life. However, there is a radical difference between coveting a tony life which can only be supported by money and being morally unable to assess the means through which the money can be acquired or its ultimate effects on characters. Gatsby think

30、s if he has enough money, he could buy everything, including love. It is this false connection between money and love that destroys him. Admittedly, Gatsby is “great” as a prosperous young man， but he fails to understand the essential difference between new money and old money. More importantly, his

31、 blind belief that wealth can buy everything and is everything is morally degrading and the means he takes to get rich is immoral. 4.2 Social Causes Apart from personal causes, the misleading American social values and the intrinsic unfairness in the society also contributes greatly to Gatsby traged

32、y. More than that, Gatsby is too innocent to understand those differences between the American East and the American West. Even though he gets rich, there lies an essential difference between his wealth and the old money. 4*2.1 Misleading American Social Values Peoples behavior is deeply influenced

33、by the culture they live in. The social and economical conditions help shape peoples consciousness and beliefs. It is also true in Gatsby*s case. His actions are greatly influenced by the society in which he gets his education and his moral values. Money talks in such a capital society. People who a

34、re wealthy possess everything and control everything. The rich become richer and the poor become poorer. This bourgeois ideology works effectively to sustain the system upon which 40 Causes of Gatsbys Tragedy it is founded. The ruling class irons their values and norms into the working class. This i

35、deology justifies whatever they do to others. The oppressed have no alternatives except to accept them. The United States is advocated as a promising land with opportunities and miracles, so a swarm of immigrants go there with their American Dreams. Any cultural practice that is not coherent with su

36、ch social values will hinder peopled success and endanger their harmony with the rest of the community. Material wealth becomes the most widely accepted form of self-improvement in America. It is a highly valued measure of social status. America is believed to be a country which worships money. Amer

37、icans firmly believe in the maxim that money makes mare go. They think money will give them whatever they want. Gatsby, who has a strong desire of being wealthy, is of no exception. Misled by such ideology in a capital society, Gatsby is doomed to fail and to be ruined. The way through which Gatsby

38、gets his fortune is illegal. His blind belief in the power of money turns out to be ineffective. His death is the result of uncompromising social conflicts. In the whole process of his pursuit of his dream, what he is familiar with becomes unfamiliar to him; what he redeems true proves to be untrue;

39、 what he thinks he can manage is out of control. All he pursues is contrary to what he tries to get. American belief assumes that people could have the right to pursue his fortune, his love, and his happiness. Gatsby does it accordingly, but the result is beyond his expectation. On a lager scale, it

40、 is the corrupting influence of American society that preys on its dreamers. Compared to his grip of powerful illusions, Gatsby is apparently too powerless to realize his dream and even to survive in such social surroundings. 4.2.2 Difference between the East and the West The geographic symbols are

41、applied skillfully in this novel. An obvious and profound one should be the separation between the East Egg and the West Egg, where most events take place* Although identical in contour and separated only by a 41 courtesy bay， ” the two Eggs bear “dissimilarity in every particular except shape and s

42、izen (5). The established rich live on the East Egg who are better bred and far more refined while those self-made men who are materialistically rich without social background live on the West Egg. Gatsby, the protagonist, lives on the West Egg. Daisy lives on the East Egg with her husband Tom. The

43、social barrier keeps people of the two worlds apart from one another as embodied by the “courtesy bay” between the two Eggs. The East-West conflict is primarily about different social values. Gatsby is usually regarded as an integrated embodiment of traditional American values and the material-orien

44、tated and pleasure-seeking conception which is popular in the East. In the East, people are accustomed to an aimless and careless way of life. What they are concerned about is material wealth and entertainment. After settling down there, Gatsby is quickly assimilated by the values in the East and th

45、e Middle West seems like the raged edge of the universe for him. The difference between the American East and the American West is exactly the discrepancy between materialistic concerns and spiritual promises of life. Instead of bringing a kind of Jeffersonian idealism East, he Gatsby brings with hi

46、m the last vestiges of frontier rowdyism. Instead of challenging the open land in the name of self, Gatsby challenges the city in the name of self5 (Lehan 47). It is this difference that gives Gatsby a fatal blow. When Gatsby is about to win his love of Daisy, he is confronted by Tom Buchanan in the

47、 Plaza Hotel. The conflict between Gatsby and Buchanan is seemingly a romantic one. But to a larger extent, it is the social conflict between the West and the East. Gatsby loses this game in the end. Tom is the representative of the East Eggers in the novel. Bom in a socially solid wealthy family， h

48、e despises the newly rich people like Gatsby. Tom embodies everything that Gatsby does not. Tom and his wealth are from a world of power. He is a selfish, hypocritical bully. He takes it for granted that others should follow the moral values which he himself can ignore as he likes. Compared with Tom

49、, Gatsby is powerless. No matter what vicious deficiencies Tom has, he understands and uses 42 Causes of Gatsbys Tragedy power well. Daisys charm lies in the lifetime wealth she enjoys and it cannot be simply duplicated by Gatsbys new wealth. Whafs worse, it reinforces her habit of retreating with Tom whenever she should take her own responsibilities. Daisy and Tom belong to a distinguished corrupted society which gives their life a mysterious and charming air for outsiders like G