An Analysis Of Themes And Techniques In The Great Gatsby From The Perspective Of Western Marxist Criticism

Fitzgerald (1896-1940) is one of the most outstanding novelists in America of the 1920s and the spokesman of the"Lost Generation", as well as the creator of"the Jazz Age". As a typical writer of"Lost Generation"in the United States during the post-war period of the economic prosperity, he not only experienced false prosperity of"the 1920s full of clamor"–"the Jazz Age", but also predicted that it would not last long.His representative works The Great Gatsby, is a novel about a typical American young man -- Gatsby's pursuit of the American dream, which vividly portraits the trend of money worship and epicureanism in America of the so-called"Jazz Age"and reveals money worship as well as people's selfishness and indifference in the United States during the economic prosperity period after the World War I. Georg Lukács, a Western Marxist theorist, points out in Historical Novel, his literary and art critical works that"A historical fiction is a story in which history is set among historical events". Fitzgerald's purpose is to show the postwar social life and mental outlook of the Americans in the 1920s and try to arouse people's introspection and exploration for the value of survival.Since the advent of the novel, it has been the focus of most critics. Among a large number of comments, most focus on the analysis of the text and the subject matter of the novel, as well as the author's writing techniques. While few have tried to employ Western Marxist criticism to analyze the themes embodied and techniques employed in the novel by the combination of the literature perspectives of Georg Lukács and Bertolt Brecht. This thesis attempts to conduct an analysis of realistic themes and modernistic techniques, such as impressionism and symbolism in The Great Gatsby from the theory of Western Marxist criticism, in particular, points of view of two Western Marxist theorists-- Georg Lukács and Bertolt Brecht with a view to reflecting the corruption of people's value, and man's commodification, disillusionment and vanity hidden under the surface of social reality.