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1、F.Scott Fitzgeraldn I. Life experiencenFrancis Scott Key Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896December 21, 1940) was an Irish-American Jazz Age novelist and short story writer.nFitzgerald is regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century. In his own age, Fitzgerald was the self-s
2、tyled (using a name, title, etc which one has given oneself) spokesman of the Lost Generation, or the Americans born in the 1890s who came of age during World War I.nHe crafted five novels and dozens of short stories that treat themes of youth, despair, and age. Many admire what they consider his re
3、markable emotional honesty. His heroes handsome, confident, and doomed blaze brilliantly before exploding, and his heroines are typically beautiful, intricate, and alluring.F. Scott Fitzgerald on a United States stampn nEarly yearsnBorn in Saint Paul, Minnesota to a Roman Catholic family, Fitzgerald
4、 was named for his distant but famous relative Francis Scott Key, but was commonly known as Scott.nFitzgerald spent 18981901 and 19031908 in Buffalo, New York, where his father worked for Procter & Gamble. When Fitzgerald, Sr., was fired, the family moved back to Minnesota, where Fitzgerald attended
5、 Saint Paul Academy and Summit School in Saint Paul, Minnesota from 19081911. He then attended Newman School, a prep school in Hackensack, New Jersey, in 191112. nHe entered Princeton University in 1913 as a member of the Class of 1917 and became friends with the future critics and writers Edmund Wi
6、lson (Class of 16) and John Peale Bishop (Class of 17). Saddled with (give sb an unwelcome responsibility, task, etc) academic difficulties throughout his three-year career at the university, Fitzgerald dropped out in 1917 to enlist in the United States Army when America entered World War I.nWhile a
7、t Camp Sheridan, Fitzgerald met Zelda Sayre (19001948), the top girl, in Fitzgeralds words, of Montgomery, Alabama, youth society. The two were engaged in 1919 and Fitzgerald moved into an apartment at 200 Claremont Avenue in New York City to try to lay a foundation for his life with Zelda.nWorking
8、at an advertising firm and writing short stories, Fitzgerald was unable to convince Zelda that he would be able to support her. She broke off the engagement and Fitzgerald returned to his parents house in St. Paul to revise The Romantic Egotist. Recast as This Side of Paradise, it was accepted by Sc
9、ribners in the fall of 1919, and Zelda and Scott resumed their engagement. nThe novel was published on March 26, 1920, and became one of the most popular books of the year, defining the flapper generation. The next week, Scott and Zelda were married in New Yorks St. Patricks Cathedral. Their daughte
10、r and only child, Frances Scott Scottie Fitzgerald, was born on October 26, 1921. The 1920s proved the most influential decade of Fitzgeralds development. His second novel, The Beautiful and Damned, published in 1922, represents an impressive development over the comparatively immature This Side of
11、Paradise. The Great Gatsby, which many consider his masterpiece, was published in 1925. nFitzgerald made several famous excursions to Europe, notably Paris and the French Riviera, and became friends with many members of the American expatriate community in Paris, notably Ernest Hemingway.nFitzgerald
12、 drew largely upon his wifes intense personality in his writings, at times quoting direct segments of her personal diaries in his work. Zelda made mention of this in a 1922 mock review in the New York Tribune, saying that “it seems to me that on one page I recognized a portion of an old diary of min
13、e which mysteriously disappeared shortly after my marriage, and also scraps of letters which, though considerably edited, sound to me vaguely familiar. In fact, Mr. FitzgeraldI believe that is how he spells his nameseems to believe that plagiarism begins at home (Zelda Fitzgerald: The Collected Writ
14、ings, 338).nFitzgerald began working on his fourth novel during the late 1920s but was sidetracked (divert from the main topic) by financial difficulties that necessitated his writing commercial short stories, and the schizophrenia that struck Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald in 1930. nHer emotional health re
15、mained fragile for the rest of her life. In 1932, she was hospitalized in Baltimore, Maryland, and Scott rented the La Paix estate in the suburb of Towson to work on his book, which had become the story of the rise and fall of Dick Diver, a promising young psychoanalyst and his wife, Nicole, who is
16、also one of his patients. It was published in 1934 as Tender Is the Night. 1 Critics regard it as one of Fitzgeralds finest works.nAlways something of an alcoholic and consequently in poor health during the late 1930s, Fitzgerald suffered two heart attacks in late 1940. After the first he was ordere
17、d by his doctor to avoid strenuous exertion (great effort) and to obtain a first floor apartment. As Sheilah Graham, his lover at the time, had an apartment on the first floor, he moved in with her. nOn the night of December 20, 1940 he had his second heart attack; but since the doctor was to come t
18、o his house the following day, he and Sheilah went home. On December 21, 1940, F. Scott Fitzgerald collapsed while clutching the mantlepiece in Sheilah Grahams apartment and died at the age of 44.nHis funeral was attended by very few people. Among the attendants was Dorothy Parker, who reportedly cr
19、ied and murmured, the poor son of a bitch, a line from Jay Gatsbys funeral in Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby. Zelda died in a fire at the Highland mental institution in Asheville, North Carolina, in 1948. II. Major worksn2.1. NovelsnThis Side of Paradise (1920) nThe Beautiful and Damned (1922) nThe Gr
20、eat Gatsby (1925) nTender Is the Night (1934) nThe Last Tycoon (1940) 2.2. Short story collectionsnFlappers and Philosophers (1920) nTales of the Jazz Age (1922) nAll the Sad Young Men (1926) nTaps at Reveille (1935) nThe Short Stories of F. Scott Fitzgerald (1989 2.3. Other worksnThe Vegetable (pla
21、y, 1923) nThe Crack-Up (essays and stories, 1945) III. Points of viewn3.1. Spokesman of the “Jazz AgenFitzgerald was a representative figure of the 1920s. He never failed to remain detached and foresee the tragedy of the “Dollar Decade. His works mirror the exciting age in almost every way. Through
22、the glittering world of his fiction run the themes of moral waste and decay and necessity of personal responsibility. The Great Gatsby, a book about the Jazz Age, is a case study in peoples pursuit of an elusive American Dream. It is also a powerful criticism of American society, as damning a docume
23、nt as The Waste Land. Thus he is often acclaimed literary spokesman of the Jazz Age. 3.2. Moral outlooknIn his works, Fitzgerald is mainly concerned with the moral degradation in modern America that resulted from the rapid growth of capitalism and material comfort. In his opinion, people seemed to c
24、are more about material luxuries than moral upgrade. They became treacherous, cunning, money-oriented, and, in the end, immoral, as we can see in The Great Gatsby, where people are obsessed with parties, orgies, and free sex. By writing the novel, he intended to remind his countrymen of the discrepa
25、ncy between the material well-off and the moral degeneration. 3.3. Artistic viewnLike Henry James, Fitzgerald would keep an aesthetic distance from his characters, thinking that the author should be detached as much as possible so as to give more freedom to his characters. Like Joseph Conrad, he use
26、s the limited point of view, leaving much of the narration to a character that shares more or less his ideas. In writing novels, he also adopts dualism, that is, to involve himself in the story and to detach himself from it at the same time so that he can stand aside analyze that participation, whic
27、h not only makes his work more mature but also more powerful.IV. Special featuresn4.1. Theme of the American DreamnFitzgeralds favorite theme is the American Dream. In The Great Gatsby and other works, a general pattern can be found to fully demonstrate Fitzgeralds enthusiasm and his disillusionment
28、 with the American Dream: formally, a poor young man from the West trying to make his fortune in the East, but thematically, the young man goes on a journey of discovery from dream, through disenchantment, and finally to a sense of failure and despair. In this general pattern of the protagonists per
29、sonal experience is incarnated the whole of American experience. 4.2. Narrative techniquen Fitzgerald inclines to tell the story through a person who functions both as a character in the story and the narrator of the whole work. Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby is a case in point. As a character, h
30、e is “within, involving himself in the actions of the story, yet as a narrator, he is standing away from the story and able to give an objective presentation to the events and characters of the novel.4.3. Symbolism His The Great Gatsby is a highly symbolic novel, in which almost every thing has a sy
31、mbolic meaning. For instance, the valley of ashes, the billboard eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg, Daisys voice, Gatsbys mansion in the West Egg, the green light at the end of Daisys dock, and so on, can all be interpreted in a symbolic way. They are highly suggestive and deliberately chosen by the autho
32、r to help dramatize his thematic concern of the heros loss of the mythic vision and the tragedy that comes after it. 4.4. Languagensmooth, sensitive, original, simple and gracefulV. Appreciation of the excerptn5.1. ThemesnThe Great Gatsby is an examination of American myth in the 20th century. Fitzg
33、erald deliberately depicts Gatsby as a mysterious person so as to achieve the effect that Gatsby is American Everybody. The death, or rather the murdering, of Gatsby poignantly points at the truth about the withering of the American Dream and the ironic effect it has produced upon the whole American
34、 myth. 5.2. Character portrayal5.2.1. Jay GatsbyGatsby in the novel represents the newly rich upstart, vulgar in his ostentatious showy wealth. However, he becomes a kind of new American Adam. He is “great, because he is dignified and ennobled by his dream and his mythic vision of life. 5.2.2. Nick
35、CarrawayNick is both a narrator and a character in this novel. He leads us to the dignity and depth of Gatsbys character, and suggests the relation of his tragedy to the American situation. But as a character, Carraway has his own likes and dislikes. Since Carraway himself is disillusioned, cynical,
36、 and somewhat pessimistic, Gatsby, with all his freshness, his optimism, and his vitality, has naturally turned out to be something Nick finds appealing. As it goes in the novel, Nick increasingly distances himself from the eastern Buchanans and finally returns to the west.5.2.3. Tom BuchanannLike G
37、atsby and Carraway, Tom also represents something of the American character. He is vulgar, hypocritical racist and bigot person who holds sth strongly. He is practical and non-idealistic, shallow and mistrustful of emotion. He never cares or takes responsibility.5.2.4. Daisy BuchanannLike Tom, she a
38、lso has an inner emptiness, marked by her boredom and cynicism and moral irresponsibility. She is afraid of being alone, as though she has no inner self. But she has the power to charm. Daisy represents material wealth to Gatsby, but it also connects with physical attraction. However, Daisy is unworthy of Gatsbys love. She is incapable of living the fully imagined life that Gatsby has visualized. She is cowardly and selfish.
