A Study Of Fitzgerald’s Novels From The Perspective Of Consumerism

Fitzgerald,known as the spokesman of the "jazz age",is an outstanding writer of the "lost generation" in American literature.In his works,he vividly reproduced the social landscape and ideological values of the United States in the 1920 s and 1930 s.This paper focuses on the phenomenon of consumption culture in Fitzgerald’s novels,and with the help of relevant theories of consumerism,reveals the plasticity of consumption culture and its manipulation on people’s living conditions,thus deepening the understandings of Fitzgerald’s novels from cultural perspective.This paper consists of four parts.The general contents of each part are as follows:The first chapter,the introduction,is divided into two sections.The first section summarizes the research status at home and abroad while the second gives a brief introduction to the theoretical basis and research significance of this paper.The second chapter discusses the consumption landscape and consumption behaviors depicted in Fitzgerald’s works.By analyzing the fashion consumption patterns of jazz girls in The Beautiful and Damned and Tender is The Night,it can be deduced that jazz girls display themselves in the fashion consumption way,and pursue self-identity and social identity.Then it analyzes the conspicuous consumption patterns in The Great Gatsby and The Beautiful and Damned,revealing Gatsby and Anthony’s pursuit of honor through conspicuous consumption,and their attempts to manifest property strength and to enhance their social status by obvious material display.Finally,the paper analyzes the luxury consumption mode and the leisure life style in The Beautiful and Damned and Tender is the Night,shows the phenomenon that Anthony,Nicole and others maintain a hedonistic life by luxury consumption,and reveals that the leisure class further spread the luxury consumption mode by their status of consumption idol.The third chapter analyzes the love trauma,self-loss and lonely experience of the characters in the works,and reveals that people in the consumer society suffer from emotional trauma which leads to the state of spiritual emptiness.First,the author analyzes the love and marriage in the works to reveal the dominance of money on emotion and marriage.Under the influence of consumer culture,characters like Daisy take property and social status as the criterion to judge marriage and love,and constantly suppress their true feelings.The next chapter discusses Anthony and Dick’s loss of self in the consumer society.They are enveloped in a life of pleasure,and their ideals and willpower are gradually overwhelmed by material desires.Finally,through the analysis of the lonely experience of Dick and Gatsby in the consumer society,it can be concluded that due to the great differences in cultural capital between the two characters and the leisure class,they are always unable to integrate into the upper class.The materialization of value and the utilitarianism of people take away the warmth among people,leaving them trapped in the experience of struggle,pain and loneliness.The fourth chapter discusses the spiritual dilemma of the characters in Fitzgerald’s novels in the consumption society,revealing the reasons of people’s soaring material desire and the phenomenon of mental nothingness.After the first World War,traditional culture came under strong attack by modern consciousness.Many of the young people in Fitzgerald’s works lost their traditional beliefs and were captured by the thought of consumerism in the post-war commercial society.As a result,they became hollow people in the gilded era.Among them,such young people as Gatsby and Dick gradually lost their faith in the pursuit of the nihilistic American dream,felt lost,and finally inevitably went to disillusionment.This tragedy is not only a description of the real situation of American post-war commercial society,but also reflects the writer’s confusion and reflection on the consumerism of that era.