英美文学选读 第 24 讲：司格特 · 菲茨杰拉德 主讲教师：王金娥 副教授

I. Life （ ） Born in Minnesota in 1896 upper class; good education tried to be the best; but left Princeton without graduating in 1917 Joined the army in the WWI fell in love with Zelda Sayer

discharged from the army in 1919 went to New York and worked in advertising Zelda broke their engagement went back to finish his novel 6 months later, went back to Zelda Zelda married him when the novel was published This Side of Paradise (1920) * his difficult life of making money to support Zelda

II. Literary Career , This Side of Paradise 《人间天堂》 2.Flappers and Philosophers (1920) 《轻佻女郎与哲学家》 Tales of the Jazz Age （ 1922 ） 《 爵士乐时代的故事》 , The Beautiful and Damned 《漂亮冤家》 , The Great Gatsby 《了不起的盖茨比》 , Tender is the Night 《夜色温柔》

3 things combined to break him down after 1930s: loneliness, alcohol, the awareness that he was wasting his talent , on the brink of despair and disintegration , recovered and accepted a writing contract for Hollywood; dismissed in , began writing The Last Tycoon (unfinished and posthumously published in 1941)

III. Reading The Great Gatsby 1. story Summer of 1922 Long Island, and in New York City Nick Carraway -- narrator

a small house in West Egg on Long Island Jay Gatsby, his neighbor renewed his relationship with Tom Buchanan, and Daisy invitation; met Gatsby for the first time Daisy met Gatsby a quiet party for them

drove to the city; took a room in a hotel a hot day; uncomfortable guests; quarrels on their way back, Daisy, driving Gatsby's car, killed Myrtle Wilson, Tom's mistress George Wilson, Myrtle's husband, went to Gatsby's house and killed the man Nick learned the truth: Tom told George Wilson that Gatsby was his wife's lover and killed his wife Gatsby's funeral

2. CHARACTERS Jay Gatsby a mysterious figure; from dream to disenchantmen Daisy Fay shallow; her voice "full of money" Tom Buchanan wicked; representative of the egocentric, careless rich Nick Carraway showing contempt for them

3. Comments (1) Gatsby's life follows clear pattern: at first, a dream, then a disenchantment, and finally a sense of failure and despair. (2) Presentation of the 1920s, and of what has become known as American Dream American Dream means that in America one might hope to satisfy every material desire and thereby achieve happiness. It’s deceptive.

(3) modern man live in meaninglessness and futility as best illustrated by Gatsby's pointless parties

(4) Themes the decline of the American Dream in the 1920s --- dealing with the double theme of love and money the hollowness of the upper class the falseness of ideals and moves toward disillusionment

(5) Techniques The choice of a dramatic narrator, through whose consciousness everything filters, ensures the compact organic wholeness of the work.

IV. Artistic features 1. F’s greatness lies in the fact that he found intuitively, in his personal experience, the embodiment of that of the nation and created a myth out of American life. --- recorded the changing manners, morals and social environment of his time, mostly about himself and his problems --- stories about morality, industry and maturity, which can be regarded as moral fables (a realist in an old fashion)

2. His writing style is simple, vivid, graceful, precise and polished; exactly reproduced the language and conversation of the time. 3. a mirror/spokesman of the 1920s

The Jazz Age applied to the era of the 1920s in the U. S., whose frenetic youth of the postwar period were conceived as more juvenile and hedonistic than the contemporary “Lost Generation" of expatriates. The middle-class pursued individual “success” and personal enjoyment. They lived a rich, extravagant, frivolous money-making life. This style of living gave the decade of the 1920’s such nicknames as the Jazz Age, the “Dollar Decade”, and the “Roaring Twenties.” F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tales of the Jazz Age was a classic representation of the period.

小结 * 菲兹杰拉德的生平及创作生涯 * 菲兹杰拉德与 “ 爵士时代 ” * 主要作品 * 《了不起的盖茨比》 * 菲兹杰拉德的小说艺术

习题 简述《了不起的盖茨比》的艺术特色

谢谢！！再见！！