The Great Gatsby Under Deconstructive View

As the chronicler and laureate of the Jazz Age, F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896-1940) has shown to us a vivid picture of the 1920s American society through The Great Gatsby, which derives inspiration from his own life experience and is highly realistic. It reflects social evils and the deep disillusionment with the American dream. Being an everlasting theme in American literature, the American dream has once symbolized the spiritual pursuit and pioneering spirit of the Americans. But it began to suffer from disillusionment since the 1920s. All Fitzgerald's works have reflected the disillusionment in one way or another and given profound analysis and reprimand on the social values. This thesis has put The Great Gatsby under Jacques Derrida's (1930～2004 )deconstructive view, in order to reveal the self-contradictory ideologies the text itself seems to be unconscious of.The fundamental idea of Derrida's deconstructive criticism is to say no to logocentrism and glottocentrism. In his opinion, there is no ultimate meaning and the contrast between binary oppositions is not absolute. Deconstruction has replaced metaphysics with diversified and interminable explanations. As a dominant literary tradition, logocentrism has depended heavily on binary oppositions which are highly hierarchical. The collapse of binary oppositions, on the contrary, has freed the multiple meanings which have been so far restrained by it. But deconstruction criticism is not moving toward meaning nihilism, but rather through the significance of multi-orientation of the text it breaks the traditional interpretation of the existing"meaning-worship". That is, to examine dominant traditional concepts and methods of the specific details of the text from the origin, revealing the differences and contradictions which are hidden or oppressed, with a view to reversing the order of the original rating, to update understanding and promote thinking.Based upon the intimately related binary oppositions, that is, the oppositions between love and desire, the rich and the poor, the east and the west, The Great Gatsby has attacked social values in the Jazz Age. Through these oppositions, the novel depicts Gatsby's pursuit for his dream, reveals the degradation and superficiality of the upper class and criticizes the ugliness and decadence of the modern civilization. However, through a deconstructive reading we may notice the text's own contradictory attitudes towards the binary oppositions upon which its main theme is based. Love and desire are intertwined, the description of the rich and the poor makes the world of the rich more appealing than ever, and those who are creating and enjoying to the full the eastern civilization are nobody else but those come from the innocent west. Therefore, through its contradictory criticism on materialism, the novel reveals its own infatuation towards the very object it is criticizing...