Abstract

Francis Scott Fitzgerald is one of the most prominent American novelists of the 20th century and his masterpiece The Great Gatsby is listed among the most famous 20th-century American novels considering of its literature merits. The novel mainly tells a tragic story of Jay Gatsby, a man who originally was humble and poor,but finally became extremely wealthy through illegal business means. He has devoted all his life into realizing his dream, to pursue his first love Daisy Buchanan, a woman ,who is full of charm but shallow, selfish and aspire money. Truth is that under the general corruptive social circumstance of Jazzy Age, the only answer to Gatsby’s dream was impossibility and distinction. The novel portrayed a vivid picture of the 1920s’ America, such a roaring time that the economy was unprecedented flourishing on the one hand and the spiritual aspect was a astonishing desolation on the other. The humanities’ corruption and destruction, due to their uncontrolled pursuit of material success and complete ignorance of spiritual improvement, caused a confused state of that age. This thesis tries to combing The Great Gatsby and the American Dream to reprove that Jay Gatsby’s tragedy is ascribed to the harsh reality of American society during the Jazz Age and re-emphasis the inevitability of the collapse of American Dream. From the literature world back to the modern greedy society, The Great Gatsby still has a strong practical significance, to give people a warning that money are not equal to happiness , to call back the traditional American moral value.

Key words: American Dream; Fitzgerald; Jazz Age

Contents

Abstract

摘要

Chapter 1 Introduction .1

1.1 Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsby .1

1.2 The Meaning of this Topic.3

Chapter 2 The Development of American Dream.4

2.1 The origin 4

2.2 The development4

2.3 The collapse.5

Chapter 3 The Collapse of Jay Gatsby’s American Dream6

  3.1 Elements of Gatsby’s American Dream. 6

3.1.1 The dream of becoming a useful man in childhood-6

3.1.2 The dream of becoming a rich and upper-class person-6

3.1.3 The dream of loving a charming woman-7

3.2Reasons for the collapse of Gatsby’s American Dream-8

  3.2.1 The objective factors-9

  3.2.2 The subjective factors-10

Chapter4 Conclusion.13

Works Cited 16