The War Between Material And People

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald,(1896-1940) is the representative American writer of "lost generation" in the20th century, in short twenty years,he published more than160short stories and5novels, repectively is This side of Paradise(1920),The Beautiful and Damned(1922),The Great Gatsby(1925),Tender Is the Night (1934),and The Last Tycoon (1941,which hasn’t been finished before his death).Fitzgerald is considered to be a classical writer in the history of American Literature, and this paper centres on his novels.This article will observe and study the characters in novels under the circumstance of consumer society, consciously using the theory of sociology and economics. As we analyze the influence of consumer culture and inquire how it controls our survival situation, we will get better understanding of Fitzgerald’s novels from the perspective of social history.This paper will assimilate the relationships between material and people to a war: having an insight into mind, it seems like a fight with material desire; looking around, it is the war people contend against the rules of living which are base on the material. It is a new perspective for us to regard material with the theory of sociology and economics in consumer culture, meanwhile, we can fully comprehend the emotion ideas and heart experience of people when we take Fitzgerald’s living experience as a break through our research.The war took place in three battlefield:"identity","emotion","will", therefore the main text of this paper is consist of three corresponding parts. The first part is "material defines people’s identity", the first segment investigates Gatsby in The Great Gatsby, in order to prove that wealth constructs identity, the second part investigate Gatsby in The Great Gatsby and Anthony in The Beautiful and Damned., showing us that habitus consolidate identity. The essential difference among Social classes is wealth,and the horizontal and vertical extension of wealth is the formation of habitus, wealth and habitus become the barriers of obtaining identity.The second part is "material control people’s emotion", the first segment investigates Daisy in The Great Gatsby, Daisy is the godness in Gatsby’s eyes, although she is from the wealthy class,but she is still the slave of money, so Daisy is "the godness purchased", the second segments takes three women in Tender Is the Night for example,Rosemary, Bobby and Nicole. Their love and marriage are decided by their economic rationality. The great pleasure of shopping makes up the happiness they can’t acquire from heart experience. Consumption becomes their spiritual being and source of enjoyment.The third part is "material destroy people’s will", hedonism clears up the Puritanism which respects hard working and simple life, the first segment is "the whirlpool of enjoyment", pleasure-seeking lifestyle corrupts men’s will,it is a tragedy in the end. This segment analyze Anthony in The Beautiful and Damned and Dick in Tender Is the Night, the second segment is "tender trap", Fitzgerald’s novels tend to regard women as traps which tempt men to degenerate, the writer compares golden girls to tender traps,actually they are the pioneer of pleasure-seeking lifestyle, not only can’t promote men,but also indirectly let the men sink. In short, in the battlefields of "identity","emotion" and "will", material damages people and destorys people, becoming the conqueror in the end.Fitzgerald is the most profound observer of the past-war, he is the chronisten as well as the poet laureate of "Jazz Age", he has the care and insight as a historian, keeps recording the agitation on that time. He is also gifted with the romantic and sentimentality as a poet, and continues to write eternally immutable feelings.