An Analysis of the Main Characters in The Great Gats1.doc

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1、浅析了不起的盖茨比中的主要人物性格An Analysis of the Main Characters in The Great GatsbyAbstract：The Great Gatsby is the finest novel written by the famous American writer, Fitzgerald. It is considered by many to be one of modern American literature. The novel mirrors the decline of the American dream and deeply rev

2、eals the essence of it. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald selects skillfully different people such as Jay Gatsby, Nick Carraway, Daisy Buchanan and Tom Buchanan to represent their different statuses in society and eventually to reflect the contradictions of the American world by their lives. This essa

3、y will focus on the analyzing the four main characters in detail and discussing their fate by comparison and talking about the internal conflict of their personality to have a further understanding of the corruption of the American society after the First World War and the cause of their different p

4、ersonality especially the misery fate of Gatsby.Keywords: The Great Gatsby；main characters；analysis of personality摘 要: 作为美国著名作家菲茨杰拉德最成功的小说，了不起的盖茨比已成为现代文学史上的一部经典佳作。这部小说反映了美国梦的衰败，深刻地揭示了美国梦的实质。在小说中，菲茨杰拉德精心挑选了不同的人物，例如杰伊盖茨比，尼克卡罗威，黛西布坎南和汤姆布坎南，来代表其在社会中的不同地位，通过他们的生活来反映美国社会的矛盾。本文通过详尽分析这四个主要角色，比较讨论他们的命运，并且探讨他

5、们性格内部的矛盾，从而来揭示第一次世界大战后美国社会的衰败以及小说中人物不同性格的形成原因，特别是盖茨比的不幸命运的根源。关键词: 了不起的盖茨比；主要人物；性格分析ContentsIA Brief Introduction to the Author and the Novel The Great Gatsby.1AF. Scott Fitzgeralds literature achievements in the world.1BIntroduction to the novel1IICriticism on the Novel and the Author.2IIIAn Analysi

6、s of the Main Characters in the Novel.3 ATragic Jay Gatsby4BVain and selfish Daisy Buchanan.7CCruel and aggressive Tom Buchanan.9DNeutral Nick Carraway.10IVConclusion.11Works Cited.13I. A Brief Introduction to the Author and the Novel The Great GatsbyA. F. Scott Fitzgeralds literature achievements i

7、n the world Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1896, Francis Scott Fitzgerald was the only son of a socially prominent and genteelly poor family. With the financial aid of relatives he entered Princeton University. In 1917, he left before graduating to serve in the US Army in Alabama, where he became

8、 engaged to Zelda Sayre. After his discharge from the army in 1919, he took a job with an advertising agency and worded on short stories and novels at night. Francis Scott Fitzgerald was considered as one of the most well known writers in America at an era that he named “the Jazz Age”. During the tw

9、enty years of his writing, he published about one hundred short stories and four long novels including The Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and the Damned, Tender is the Night and The Great Gatsby. In addition, before he died, he left an uncompleted novel, The Last Tycoon. “His books have been consid

10、ered by as many a symbol for the Jazz Age, a time of extraordinary wealth and promise, but Fitzgeralds novels are much more than that, presenting the truth behind the twenties and creating an atmosphere, which has earned a permanent place in American wealth and spirituality on another”(Millett 209).

11、 The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgeralds masterpiece, stands out among the greatest of all American fictions. The novel is an undisputed classic of American literature produced in the period following the First World War and remains one of the greatest novels of the twentieth century. Jay Gatsbys lav

12、ish lifestyle in a mansion on long Islands gold coast encapsulates the spirit, excitement, and violence of the era named “the Jazz Age” by Fitzgerald.B. Introduction to the novelPublished in 1925, The Great Gatsby, the finest novel written by Fitzgerald, is surely the work by which his name is desti

13、ned to be remembered, and one of the classics of modern American literature. The Great Gatsby is a story about American dream and is a good illustration of a particular period of American life. The story is told in the first person by Nick Carraway, a young man from Minnesota, who moves to New York

14、in the summer of 1922 to learn about the bond business. During his adrift life, he knows the fictions protagonist Gatsby and eyes the whole process of Gatsbys tragedy. Nick uses a special narrative form to describe a story of this poor Mid-Westerner Jay Gatsby. Gatsby is a poor youth from the Midwes

15、t. He falls in love with Daisy, a wealthy girl, but is too poor to marry her. Then Daisy married Tom, a rich young man. Gatsby, determined to win his lover back, worked hard and earned money through lawful or unlawful means to buy a magnificent imitation French villa. There he spreads dazzling parti

16、es every weekend in the hope of alluring the Buchanans to come. They finally come and Gatsby meets Daisy again, only to find that the woman before him is not quite the ideal love of his dreams. A sense of loss and disillusionment comes over him. Then Daisy kills a woman in an accident, and plots wit

17、h Tom to shift the blame on Gatsby. The Great Gatsby is an act of faith and an act of courage. On the surface, it is a story of the thwarted love between a man and woman. The main theme of the novel, however, encompasses a much larger, less romantic scope. There is a tension between realism and idea

18、lism, between knowledge and faith that lies behind all great tragedies. Though all of its action takes place over a mere few months during the summer of 1922, The Great Gatsby is a highly symbolic meditation of 1920-America as a whole, and in particular the disintegration of the American Dream in an

19、 era of unprecedented prosperity and material excess. The main characters in The Great Gatsby are special which is important for the readers to know the theme well. So, Id like to analyze the characters in this novel.II. Criticism on the Novel and the AuthorF. Scott Fitzgerald, the famous American n

20、ovelist in the 20th century, is known as the spokesman and laureate of the “Jazz Age” American, whose works give us an accurate picture of the American twenties: the prosperity of economy and the moral absence. Written in 1925, The Great Gatsby is one of the great literary documents of Fitzgeralds p

21、eriod, which wins many favorable praises.In American literature, The Great Gatsby evokes a haunting mood of a glamorous, wild time that seemingly will never come again. Besides, the loss of an ideal and the disillusionment that comes with the failure are exploited fully in the personal tragedy of a

22、young man whose “incorruptible dream smash into pieces by the relentless reality”. For a long time, The Great Gatsby was classified as “a book about the Roaring Twenties”. It is one of those novels that so richly evoke the texture of their time that they become, in the fullness of time, more than li

23、terary classics; they become a supplementary or even substitute form of history. When the book was published, it became famous among the public, because the author criticizes the thought of extreme individualism in the contemporary American society. “This thought is like drugs in the society; poison

24、ous and irresistible. It urges the growth of selfishness of human being” (Wu 188). Fitzgerald uses his pen to reveal the life and the ideas of people after the First World War and introduces one kind of valuable spirit. The American dream of happiness and individualism has fallen into the mere pursu

25、it of wealth. Many experiences in Fitzgeralds early life appear in this famous novel. It is proved to be the most successful and mature one of Fitzgeralds novels. In it, Fitzgerald presents the rise and fall of Jay Gatsby, skillfully choosing a first-person narrator. Nick Carraways perspective. The

26、famous poet, T.S. Eliot points out that The Great Gatsby has been the first progress made in the American novel since Henry James.III. An Analysis of the Main Characters in the NovelThere are four characters in this novel: Jay Gatsby, Nick Carraway, Tom Buchanan and Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby is clever

27、and ambitious, who is attracted by money. On one hand, he tries to earn money without efforts; on the other hand, he shows the enthusiasm for his beloved. He has committed crimes in order to buy the house he feels he needs to win the woman he loves, which happens to be another man wife. The reader m

28、ay love Gatsby because of his dream. It is a kind of romantic idealism. But dreams dont always show on the outside. The Great Gatsby is a kind of mystery story with Gatsby. Fitzgerald invites the reader to share Nicks understanding of Gatsby as he reads the novel. Nick is, first of all, Fitzgeralds

29、means of making his story more realistic. Nick is experiencing events and telling us about them in his own words, which will make the story seem more truthful. He makes us see behind the surface of the man. And he forces us to ask, as we finish the book, what is this dream that Gatsby has dedicated

30、himself to? Is it a worthwhile dream? Is it our dream, too? Fitzgerald makes us ask these questions and then lets us find our own answers.Fitzgerald describes Tom and Daisy as careless people who break things and then retreat into their wealth and let other people clean up their messes. Throughout T

31、he Great Gatsby, Daisy is described almost in fairytale language. Actually Daisy stands for youth, gold and status, which many young Americans regard as an American Dream. Gatsby spends his life pursuing Daisy and at last he even gives his life for these pure materials. Daisy is the princess in the

32、tower, the golden girl whom every man dreams of. She is beautiful and rich, innocent and pure (at least on the surface). But her pure and innocent, as the reader will notice, is mixed with the yellow of gold and the inevitable corruption that money brings. Her voice seems to offer everything, but sh

33、es born to disappoint others. In fact, she is a woman with complicated character. Tom, a selfish, proud man with two shining arrogant eyes and a cruel body. His speaking voice, a gruff husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness he conveyed. In fact, Tom is the symbol of the commercializat

34、ion which brought the country only moral depravity in this novel. All the characters in the novel represent their different statues in American society and eventually to reflect the contradictions of the American world by their lives. By analyzing the four main characters in detail, discussing their

35、 fate by comparison and talking about the internal conflict of their personality, it can help the reader further understand the corruption of the American society after the First World War and the cause of their different personality. A. Tragic Jay GatsbyJay Gatsby, a typical upstart after the First

36、 World War, is a sensitive young man who idolizes wealth and luxury. He falls in love with Daisy, a beautiful and charming woman, when he stations at a military camp near her home, but later she marries another man. The protagonist orders his life around for desire to be reunited with Daisy. His sea

37、rch for the American dream leads him from poverty to wealth, into the arms of his beloved and eventually, to his death. He is attracted by Daisys grace and charm, but blinds her shortcomings. Gatsby reveals himself to be innocent hopeful young man who stakes everything on his dreams, without realizi

38、ng that his dreams are unworthy. “He gives Daisy an idealistic perfection that she cannot possess in reality” (Rubinstein 305). He takes it for granted that he would win Daisy back if he becomes rich. Therefore he “became rich through bootlegging and other criminal activities” (Hu 369). he holds his

39、 opulent parties weekly to draw Daisys attention. He tries his best to gain the favor of her by arranging such fabulous entertainment.To some extent, Gatsby is native and stupid for he never sees Daisy in her true colors just as he never sees the green light clearly. Through he never stops loving an

40、d has taken the house in West Egg to be near her, he never realizes that he cant come back to the old warm world. It is easy to find that throughout his courtship of Daisy, Gatsby is always in a position of less power and lower social status. Because Gatsby has idolized her, Daisy will necessarily n

41、ot live up to his expectation. The reader may find out the contradiction in Gatsbys personality after reading the novel. On one hand, Gatsby is innocent and native in his heart for he sticks to his goal and dedicates himself to achieve his destination, but he never realizes that it is actually unrea

42、l. He shows his loyalty to his beloved and dares no effort to make his dream come into true. However, on the other hand, he owns money by all means including illegal ones and he is indifferent to the death of Myrtle Wilson, the superficial wife of a garage man called George Wilson. Just as the novel

43、 mentions, “he spoke as if Daisys reaction was the only thing that mattered” (Fitzgerald 192). Gatsby is nimble and ambitious in making money, which shows the “sagacity” of modern people, but towards love he gives us the impression of “a native young man.”His tragedy first lies in his illusion after

44、 his first dream is achieved, because, at that moment, he begins to idealize the means of material and elevates it to a spiritual dimension. When those dozens of expensive silk shirts are shown by Gatsby to Daisy, in Gatsbys eyes, they are not only wealth, signals of his success, but symbols of his

45、fulfillment of ideal based on material practice.Gatsbys second fault lies in the fact that he idealizes his lifetime dreamDaisy. After five years separation from Daisy, Gatsby can never love merely the particular woman; what he loves is her embodiment for him of all the splendid possibilities of lif

46、e he could, in his romantic hopefulness, imagine. This embodiment is far beyond Daisy herself. So even if Gatsby wins back Daisy temporally, he gets a sense of loss rather than success. Gatsbys idealism is so powerful that he also idealizes himself. After he suddenly becomes rich, he recreates himse

47、lf or, we say, performs his Platonic conception. His wealth, his artificial lot, smile, speech and deportment are all his “successful gestures”, comments Nick. However, these do not make him a real upper-class. Though with honorable-looking and cautious speech, he really does not know how to appreci

48、ate a friend (Nick) properly; Tom uncovers his vital-the illegal source of his wealth, so that Daisy discards him. And ultimately he is discarded by the upper-class which he tries to intimate and his dreamDaisy, as well.The reader may wonder what makes Gatsby great. Gatsby is great because of his loyalty to love and his possession of naive sense. And Nick, the novels narrator, considers that his greatness lies in the talent for self-invention, the ability