Seek-Find-Lose

Fitzgerald, an American writer, was spokesman of the "Jazz Age" and one of therepresentative writers of the "Lost Generation" in the1920s. A dedicated emphasislaid on the research on Fitzgerald’s long novels, to a great extent, led to an ignoranceof researches on his large number of short stories.In his lifetime, Fitzgerald published more than160short stories and four collectionsof short stories, which shows that he was excellent enough to be comparable with anyoutstanding contemporary novelist either in terms of quantity or quality. Many of hisnovels are strictly structured with flexibility and profound thinking short stories,sharing a similar deep structure. Through the use of Todorov’s theory of "SyntacticStructures" to find a deeper narrative mode of “seek-find–lose” that novels usuallyfollow, and through the use of the Frye’s " Myth Theory" in an in-depth analysis ofthis unique narrative mode, this paper makes an attempt to find out “hopelesssalvation”, the main theme of modern novels, reflected by such a narrative mode.This paper is divided into five parts. The Introduction part mainly introduces the lifeand works of Fitzgerald, and then gives a historical overview of related studies on hisshort stories as well as a general introduction of theories adopted by this paper; with acombined use of Todorov’s theory of Syntactic Structures and Frye’s " Myth Theory",the first chapter carries out a study on a number of “seeking modes” in Fitzgerald’sshort stories in order to find out why the characters in the novel are seeking and whatthey are after; Also through the use of Todorov’s theory of Syntactic Structures andFrye’s " Myth Theory", the second part carries out an analysis of many “seekingmodes” in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s short stories, in order to find out what the characters inthe novel “find” and whether what they "find" is what they want; With the abovementioned theories, this third part analyses the “seeking modes” in Fitzgerald’s shortstories in order to find out what on earth the characters in the novel "lost" and whythey "lost"; The Conclusion part gives an overview of the narrative modes of hisnovels and reveals “hopeless salvation”, the main theme of modern novels, reflectedby such a narrative mode.