The American Dream---Symbolism As Seen In The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald抯 classic twentieth-century story of Jay Gatsby抯 quest for Daisy Buchanan, examines and critiques Gatsby抯 particular vision of the 1920抯 American Dream. F. Scott Fitzgerald was the spokesman for young people who were wildly searching for a perfection which never exists. Therefore, in many ways of his stories, he expressed the disillusiomnent of the young generation towards 揂merican Dream? He had been regarded as the representative figure of the 揓azz Age敆an age between the end of World War I and the outbreak of the Great Depression. The Great Gatsby is considered by critics as the core of Fitzgerald抯 artistic achievement. Apart from the superb technique and style in narrative form and structure, its outstanding artistic merit also lies in Fitzgerald抯 original and successful use of symbolism in the novel to depict his philosophical and moral views, especially of his own times. The present thesis attempts to offer a detailed and systematic analysis of symbolism as a literary technique used in The Great Gatsby. The thesis will be divided into four parts as follows: symbolism and setting in The Great Gatsby, symbolism and the Jazz Age, symbolism and the criticism on the American rich and symbolism and American Dream. I In the first part, I put much emphasis on the relations of symbolism and the setting in The Great Gatsby. For some writers, setting is just used as the site for a story抯 action. But Fitzgerald uses the setting in his novel creatively and successfully not only as the site of an action, but also heavily weighed with symbolic connotations. In this part I choose some typical symbols as examples, such as the valley of ashes, the eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg, the east-west division of the society, New York city and Gatsby抯 mansion. The valley of ashes is the barren wasteland where the blue collar, working class people live in The Great Gatsby It is charaterized literally by dust, for it is here that New York City抯 ashes are dumped. Symbolically, the rich people in New York City and East Egg and West Egg dump on the inhabitants of the valley of ashes. The valley of ashes, with its brooding eyes of Dt T. J. Eckleburg, also stands as a symbol of the- spiritual dryness and emptiness in the world of the novel. 揂sh- grey?men move through the landscape 揹imly and already crumbling through the powdery air.?Here, the color of grey represents the hopelessness that surrounds the valley of ashes and the low class to which there is no escape. If we read The Great Gatsby carefully, we can see how a setting can make an essential contribution to the work抯 mood. We will hardly miss a point that as a crucial factor in the creation of atmosphere, a given scene plays a major part in raising, developing, sustaining, and repeating emotions in fiction. II In the second part of my thesis, the Jazz Age is fully discussed. We should say that the I 920s is an era full of change in the American history. One reason for this change is undoubtedly American involvement in World War I, the first major foreign conflict in which the United States had participated. Although the United States involved in the war, there was no fighting on American soil. So the United States emerged as an economic beneficiary, a creditor rather than a debtor nation, a land of technological leadership, a major power. After the war, America was determined to concentrate on ec...