Triple Ethical Interpretation In Scott Fitzgerald’s Short Stories

The short stories of the American “Jazz Age” novelist Scott Fitzgerald(1896-1940)have not received sufficient scholarly attention.In fact,his short stories are informed by ethical themes at various levels,including individual ethical dilemmas and choices,family ethics and consumer ethics.This thesis uses ethical literary criticism as a theoretical basis to focus on the ethical themes in Fitzgerald’s short stories,including Dalyrimple Goes Wrong,Babylon Revisited and Winter Dreams.The individual ethics of Fitzgerald’s short stories are always intertwined with the theme of growing up.The day in the life of young men in May Day recreates the difficulties of growing up in the Lost Generation;the protagonist in Four Fists completes the epiphany of ethical choices in growing up through “Four Fists”;in Dalyrimple Goes Wrong,the protagonist is led by a guide to making the correct ethical choice.It can be seen that after World War I,the young people of the post-war period first experienced ethical dilemmas,then had an epiphany with the help of a guide,and finally made their own ethical choices.The family ethics in Fitzgerald’s short stories express the writer’s criticism of the lack of family ethics while offering solutions to maintain the balance of the family with love and responsibility.In Crazy Sunday and Two Wrongs,a couple’s bad ethical choices lead to the breakdown of their marriage;in Babylon Revisited,a father uses love and responsibility to win a chance to be with his daughter again,preserving the parent-child ethic;and the two brothers in Family in the Wind ultimately choose to face disaster together and repair their previously broken ethical relationship as siblings.As a witness to the consumer culture of the “Jazz Age,” Fitzgerald combines ethics of consumption with American Dream in his short stories,attempting to recreate the destruction of the individual by consumer culture.In Winter Dreams,the protagonist’s ethical identity is misplaced in a consumer society,leading to the shattering of his “American Dream”;in The Rich Boy,the “rich boy” also makes a wrong ethical choice as his bestiality factor overcomes his humanity factor under the influence of consumer culture.Examining Fitzgerald’s short stories through the lens of ethical literary criticism will deepen the reader’s understanding of his moral warnings and provide a glimpse into the particular context of the transformation of early twentieth-century American society and the change between the old and new moral orders.In the face of the personal ethical dilemmas of the younger generation,the precarious family ethics,and the loss of personal moral bottomlines in a consumer society,the ethical stance and ethical choices presented in Fitzgerald’s short stories tend to be traditional.