英语论文 杰伊·盖茨比的悲惨命运的必然性

杰伊·盖茨比的悲惨命运的必然性摘要：《了不起的盖茨比》是20世纪美国著名作家菲茨杰拉德的一部反映美国梦破灭的浪漫主义悲剧小说。

追寻浪漫爱情的盖茨比与初恋情人黛西分别多年后终于得以重逢, 梦想着再续前缘。

然而,冰冷的现实容不下缥缈的梦,盖茨比心中的女神已蜕变成庸俗的物质女郎。

浪漫的爱情掺杂了拜金主义的气息,追梦的灵魂就逃脱不了注定的悲剧情缘。

最终, 一厢情愿的浪漫归为幻灭,富于想象的爱情也化为尘埃。

盖茨比爱情梦的破灭标志着“美国梦”的破灭。

盖茨比一方面如此天真，相信过去的日子能够复返；另一方面却已屈服于金钱脚下，走向堕落的深渊。

希望落空，失望和厄运相继开始。

盖茨比悲剧的必然性主要是由其性格中的不足因素，他对黛西的错误想象以及社会历史原因等多方面因素造成的。

本文通过对这些因素的分析揭示盖茨比悲惨命运的必然性。

关键词: 盖茨比；美国梦；悲剧The Inevitability of Jay Gatsby’s Tragic Fat eAbstract：The Great Gatsby was a romantic tragedy novel written by the famous American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald in the 20th century, which is about the disillusion of the American Dream.Gatsby who pursue romantic love has finally been reunited whit his first love Daisy after many years ,dreaming again later. However, the cold reality can not tolerate a misty dream,the goddess in Gatsby‟s heart has been transformed into a vulgar material girl. Romantic love was mixed with the aura of mammonism,the soul which quest for dream hasn‟t escaped from the destined tragedy affinity.In the end,the wishful romantic classified into disillusionment, the imaginative love classified into dust.The burst of Gatsby‟s love Dream marks the disillusion of the "American dream". On the one hand, Gatsby was charmingly innocent enough to believe that the past could be recovered and resurrected . On the other hand, he was both corrupted and corrupting, tragically convinced of the power of money. The hope is gone; despair and doom have set in. The inevitability of Gatsby‟s tragedy was caused by the destructive potentials in Gatsby‟s character, his false image of Daisy, the social historical backgrounds and so on. The analysis of these factors reveals the inevitability of the of Gatsby‟s tragic fate.Key Words: The Great Gatsby; the American Dream; tragedyTABLE OF CONTENTSⅠ.Introduction (1)Ⅱ.T he nature of Gatsby‟s dream (2)A.T he origin of Gatsby‟s d ream (2)B.T he nature of Gatsby‟s dream (3)Ш .Factors contributing to Gatsby‟s tragedy (4)A.Gatsby‟s false image of Daisy (4)B. The tragic factors in Gatsby‟s character (6)C.The dark and cold reality (9)IV .Conclusion (11)Ⅰ.IntroductionF. Scott Fitzgerald was one of the most enduring American novelists of the 20th century. And he was the most famous chronicler of 1920s America, an area that he called “the Jazz Age”. The Great Gatsby was Fitzgerald‟s masterpiece, not only f rom its concept, but also from its creative feature. When it was published in 1925, it received much approval and praise of critics. It was said that The Great Gatsby was one of the most excellent American literary works of the 20th century. T. S Eliot read The Great Gatsby three times and concluded that it was “the first step that American fiction has taken since Henry James”(Chang 2003:225). Fitzgerald‟s greatness lay 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. The story of The Great Gatsby was a good illustration. Gatsby was a poor youth from the Midwest. He fell in love with Daisy, a wealthy girl, but he was too poor to marry her. The girl was then married to a rich young man, Tom Buchanan. Determined to win his lost love back, Gatsby engaged himself in bootlegging and other “shady” activities, thus earning enough money to buy a magnificent imitation French villa. There he spent dazzling parties every weekend in the hope of alluring the Buchanans to come. Finally, they came and Gatsby met Daisy again, only to find that the woman before was not quite the ideal love of his dreams. A sense of loss and disillusionment came over him. Then Daisy killed a woman in an accident, and plotted with Tom to shift the blame on Gatsby. At last Gatsby was shot and the Buchanans escaped.In this novel, the author described a tragedy caused by American Dream, and successfully figured the victim—Jay Gatsby. Gatsby was Fitzgerald‟s favorite character, for in some aspects they had the similar experiences and spirit. Also similar to Fitzgerald was Jay Gatsby, a sensitive young man who worshiped wealth and luxury and who fell in love with a beautiful young woman while stationed at a military camp in the south. After Daisy married Tom Buchanan, Gatsby tried all his best to win her back. Fitzgerald indicated that at that time it was useless and dangerous to pursue the American Dream. Because of this kind of pursuit, it led Gatsby to his tragedy radically. This paper is aimed at analyzing the major reasons that caused Gatsby‟s inevitable tragedy in the following aspects: the nature of Gatsby‟s dream, Gatsby‟s character, his false image of Daisy, social history and so on.Ⅱ.The nature of G atsby’s dreamA. The origin of Gatsby’s dreamThe American dream is the faith held by many in the United States that through hard work, courage and determination one can achieve a better life for oneself, usually through financial property. These were values held by many early European settlers and have been passed on to the subsequent generations (Zhao 2006:5).Gatsby‟s American dream was originated in his childhood. Gatsby was born on a North Dakota farm, and his real name was James Gatz. He spent his impoverished childhood in rural North Dakota, but his lofty goal was becoming fabulously wealth. From his early youth, Gatsby despised poverty and longed for wealth and sophistication. Though he studied at St. Olaf in Minnesota, he disgusted the humiliating janitorial work by means of which he paid his tuition, and he dropped out two weeks later. The next summer he worked on Lake Superior fishing for salmon and digging for clams. One day, he saw a yacht owned by Dan Cody, a wealthy copper mogul, and rowed out to warn him that a storm was coming. Cody felt very grateful to Gatz, so that he took young Gatz with him as his personal assistant, and gave him a new name as Jay Gatsby. Traveling with Cody to Barbary Coast and the West Indies, Gatsby fell in love with wealth and luxury. Cody was a heavy drinker, and one of Gatsby‟s jobs was to look after him when he was drunk. This gave Gatsby a healthy respect for the dangers of alcohol and convinced him not to become a drinker himself. When Cody died, he left Gatsby 25,000 dollars, but Cody‟s girlfriend prevented him from getting this inheritance. Therefore, Gatsby dedicated himself to becoming a wealthy and successful man. The description of Gatsby‟s early life revealed the sensitivity to status that spurred Gatsby on. Acutely awared of his poverty, the young Gatsby developed a powerful obsession with collecting wealth and status. Gatsby‟s act of changing name symbolized his desire to abandon his lower-class identity and recast himself as thewealthy man he imagined.It is not hard to see how a man who has gone to such great lengths to achieve wealth and luxury would find Daisy so attractive: for her, the aura of wealth and luxury came effortlessly. She was able to take her position for granted, and she became, for Gatsb y, the epitome of everything that he invented “Jay Gatsby” to achieve. Determined to win his lost love back, Gatsby engaged himself in bootlegging and other “shady” activities. Just as the American dream—the pursuit of happiness—has corrupted into a quest for mere wealth, Gatsby‟s powerful dream of being happy with Daisy has become the motivation for lavish excesses and criminal activities.B. The nature of Gatsby’s dreamGatsby‟s American dream has experienced an evolutionary process that accompanied his growing. When he was young, he wanted to be rich one day as the protagonist of Franklin‟s works who achieved a better life through hard work, courage and determination. When he was a young military officer in Louisville, he met Daisy and immediately fell in love with her. Daisy became the embodiment of his ideal. To Gatsby, Daisy represented the paragon of perfection—she had the aura of charm, wealth, sophistication, grace, and aristocracy that he longed for as a child in North Dakota. It was also because of this that he fell in love with her at the first time. However, the fact is that Gatsby had no money to marry her. The difference between their social statuses prevented them from being together. He knew that he even had no real right to touch her hand. G atsby “was overwhelmingly aware of the youth and mystery that wealth imprisons and preserves, of the freshness of many clothes and of Daisy, gleaming like silver, safe and pround above the hot struggles of the poor”(Fitzgerald 2007:308). Therefore, when he lost Daisy, he tried his best to earn money to win Daisy back.Later, Gatsby really became rich. He really had a lot of money, and he owned a luxurious mansion which was a factual imitation of some Hotel de Ville inNormandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. There he spent dazzling parties every weekend in the hope of alluring Daisy to come. Unlike other people in the Jazz Age who tried their best to pursue wealth and upper social status, Gatsby thought that money was not the most important thing, as it can be earned after it was spent. What Gatsby thought and wanted was being together again with Daisy and winning his lost love back. His acquisition of millions of dollars, his purchase of the gaudy mansion on West Egg, and his lavish weekly parties were all merely meant to that. He never stopped missing Daisy during those past five years. He flung into the reveries that he weaved for Daisy with a creative enthusiasm and kept adding to the pattern of his fancies. As a result, the revery became more and more perfect, but at the same time became far away from the fact.Ш .Factors contributing to Gatsby’s tragedyA. Gatsby’s false image of DaisyHowever, in reality, Daisy fell far short of Gatsby‟s ideals. She was beautiful and charming, but also fickle, shallow, bored and sardonic. For her, the aura of wealth and luxury came effortlessly. As a young debutante, Daisy was extremely popular among the military officers stationed near her home, including Jay Gatsby. In order to convince her that he was worthy of her, Gatsby lied about his background to Daisy that he was from a wealthy family. At last, he won Daisy‟s heart and they made love before Gatsby left to fight in the war. Daisy promised to wait for Gatsby, but in 1919 she changed and married Tom Buchanan, a young man from a solid, aristocratic family who could promise her a wealthy lifestyle and who had the support of her parents. At that time, Gatsby was studying at Oxford after the war in an attempt to gain an education. From that moment on, Gatsby dedicated himself to winning Daisy back.。