Symphony Of The Apollonian And Dionysian Spirits

F. Scott Key Fitzgerald is a controversial novelist in American literary history. His short lifetime and literary career with ups and downs result in his complicated and contradictory dual personality, which makes him a tragic social novelist with peculiar charm and enigmatic nature. In his autobiographical novel Tender Is the Night, Fitzgerald portrays the protagonist Dick as a tragic figure with dual personality struggling between the Apollonian spirit and Dionysian spirit. By employing two key concepts as Apollonian spirit and Dionysian spirit of Nietzsche's theory on tragedy and absorbing Zhu Guangqian's further elucidation on them, this thesis aims at studying the dual personality of Dick who incessantly struggles between Apollonian spirit and Dionysian spirit, and also attempts to explore the hard and tragic journey that Dick has taken in his lifetime.In addition to the introduction and conclusion, this thesis falls into four chapters. The first chapter is the logical starting point of the whole thesis. By making a brief explication of Nietzsche's tragic theory about Apollonian spirit and Dionysian spirit and Zhu Guangqian's further explanation of the two spirits, the author analyses the influence of the two spirits on Fitzgerald's literary creation. In the second chapter, the author mainly analyzes the Apollonian spirit as reflected in Dick, and reckons that Dick not only has the external handsome image of the god of Apollo, but also possesses the qualities of Apollonian spirit such as self-confidence and ultra-idealism. The third chapter focuses on the examination of Dionysian spirit as revealed in Dick, which is mainly demonstrated by his self-indulgence and self-destruction. And the author holds that Dick's self-indulgence and self-destruction are embodied in his extramarital love with the young film star Rosemary and his excessive drinking respectively. The fourth chapter particularly dwells on the exploration of Dick's struggling between Apollonian spirit and Dionysian spirit. The author thinks that Dick's struggling between the two spirits results in his transformation from an image of priest into a tragic figure and then leads to his final self-exile which is apparently full of tragic significance. By portraying Dick as a tragic figure with dual personality struggling between Apollonian spirit and Dionysian spirit, Fitzgerald not only expresses his own tragic outlook on life, but also endows Tender Is the Night with profound tragic and aesthetic value and realistic significance as well.