The Degraded Hero Of The Lost Time

Fitzgerald reflects nearly all aspects of the life through his works, so he becomes the symbol of this time——he is deserved as the "historian" and "the laureate poet" of the American 1920s. He endues this time with a vivid name as "the Jazz Age", this makes the Chaotic time become the sempiternal time of the literature world as the any former important historical period.Under the prosperous and the desolate time and the dilemma between the destruction and the reconstruction of God, the experiences of the mood as the lost and indulgence, struggle and revolt, pessimism and despair and so on pervades all over the western world. Fitzgerald expresses this mood relying on his dual feeling of the onlooker and partaker, and tries his best to save himself and enlighten others. This kind of expression has surmounted the space and time's limits, existing on the past, present and the future of the human pursuance.Regarding the study of Fitzgerald and his work's subject, scholars mostly concentrates on two aspects: On the one hand, they analyzes the destruction of the "American dreams" and reveal the painfulness of people; On the other hand, they analyzes Fitzgerald's view of the money and love. Based on the study of the two aspects, this article attempts to analyze the consciousness of the self-salvation of Fitzgerald and his characters. This kind of consciousness not only makes the works have the more profound significances, but also provides us a new view to understand the author. Through the analysis of Fitzgerald's self-salvation, we can further find its value and significance in the American specific age. The paper carries on the analysis through the following three parts:The foreword introduces the consciousness of Fitzgerald's self-salvation in his life and art in general, analyzing his status and significance in the American literature. The first part begins with the analysis of the thought background of the Loss Generation. Firstly it analyzes the factors of the time of Fitzgerald's self-salvation through the study of the process of the self-salvation of the Loss Generation. Secondly it analyzes the origin of Fitzgerald's self-salvation through the study of his consciousness of tragedy and the idealism .The second part analyzes his self-salvation in his novels mainly through the study of the three characters in The Great Gatsby and Tender Is the Night ,. Among them, either Gatsby's ideal rebirth from his death,or Nick 's breakthrough of the dream in the puzzledom, and Dick's self-realization after the self-expatriation, all display their pursue of the ideal-self in different ways.The third part analyzes the choice of his self-salvation through excavating to the Fitzgerald's spirit characteristic. Fitzgerald has the knight spirit characteristic as well as his chaste riches and honor ideal and out of the ordinary worships regarding of the female, constituting his different outlook on life and moral, finally, all this affect his choice of the path of his self-salvation. His romantic expression of life and the artistic reappearance have finally given his self-salvation a not perfect but splendid end.The conclusion retraces the Fitzgerald's art life and shows that he realizes the salvation of his own soul and guides the young people at the same time. To be the literature hero of the young people, his salvation has a profound significance in that time.In such a chaotic time, Fitzgerald looks into the absurd and sad world and looks for the hope and dream which be enshrouded. He expresses his life by his chaste idealism, although defeats still the glory. The sentences which engrave on his grave would be the sempiternal power for the people which have the dreams——"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."...