On The Inevitability Of Gatsby's Tragedy

One of the most representative works of the Jazz Age is American writer F.Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925), which highlighted what some describe as the corruption of the post-World War I age, as well as new attitudes, and the growth of individualism. This novel, registered a sense of purposeless, decadence and spiritual emptiness under the mask of material flourish in an age of fast-paced and roaring change, tells a story of the period so well that it has absolutely become its literary emblem in which everyone is in the shape of wild pursuit of other's desire such as the women, the money, and the higher social position, etc.This thesis attempts to provide a new way of re-reading of this novel from Lacan's theory of the mirror stage so as to explore the inevitability of the protagonist's tragedy. The Great Gatsby is mainly concerned with the desire of the protagonist, Gatsby, who refuses the self and attempts to obtain the recognition from the upper class in the form of love. This novel enjoys a worldwide reputation as the representative of the roaring age because its variety of the narrative techniques and historical pictures depicted in the novel stand out unequaled in the world literature, which may very well account for the universal popularity among Chinese readers and critics as well as those in other countries. It is noted that a lot of essays on it emphasize either on its traditional view of the American Dream, the hope and disillusion or on the narrative point of view and its stylistics, especially from the perspective of the post-colonism, feminism and deconstructionism. To this day, however, almost neither essayists nor critics have made a close and detailed analysis on the novel based on Lacan's theory of the mirror stage, which is, rich and complex in implication, essentially about the identity formation of human beings at the earlier stage of their lives. The protagonist in this novel, like child before the mirror, has no sense of distinct selfhood because of the psychological confusion between the imaginary order and the real order; therefore the character always lives in a state of identity confusion. In one sense, the protagonist, Jay Gatsby, is killed by Wilson, in another sense; it is his rootlessness that results in his self-destruction. In this regard, Lacan's theory of mirror stage may shed light on the interpretation of Gatsby's causality of the tragedy in the pursuit of his dream. This paper, in accordance with the preposition of Lacan's theory about the mirror stage, attempts to probe into the hidden cause of his psychic devastation and traces his long and impeding process of self-construction in the upper class by the way of love and the misrecognition between the real order and the imaginary order. The author of this paper aims to find the main point to the fact that one is ontologically as well as emotionally dependent upon others'recognition.This thesis consists of five parts. The first part makes a brief introduction to Fitzgerald's literary works, the rationale of this study, the summary of the story and the literature review on this novel. Chapter Two, focusing on Lacan's theory of the mirror stage, helps to give a theoretical basis for the further analysis. Chapter Three gives a full analysis of Gatsby's rootlessness in the society. Chapter Four tries to make a detailed explanation to Gatsby's confusion of the imaginary order and the real order. Part Five makes a conclusion of this thesis that Gatsby is eager to get recognition from the high social class but he fails and Gatsby's tendency of deserting self and creating the deceptive and attractive image lead to his alienation from the society. The alienation of self and the refusal of self, which are due to himself, make contribution to his tragedy.