Moral Crisis And Self Sublimation:an Ethical Literary Analysis Of Fitzgerald’s Tender Is The Night

Tender Is the Night, published in the1930s, is a famous novel of Fitzgerald who is considered as one of the most important Americans of the twentieth century, particular known as the spokesman of the "Jazz Age". There are many researches on this novel domestically and abroad. However, research from the perspective of ethical literary criticism is rare to see. After all, it is a research method based on Chinese literary study, so it is different from theories from western world. Research that combines morality of the eastern world with that of the western world which is mostly affected by the religion is rare to see.This thesis is composed of five chapters. The first chapter is a brief introduction to the author of Tender Is the Night and the novel, and current domestic and abroad research situation. The second chapter is an introduction to the theory of ethical literary criticism and an analysis of its feasibility for analyzing the novel. The third chapter is a body part, emphasizing to analyze the reasons for the protagonist’s personality change with the theories of Freud’s psychoanalysis and ethical literary criticism. Personality change belongs to the sphere of morality, so promoting the former way up to the latter one is necessary. Ethical literary criticism is used not only to interpret the moral phenomena recorded in literature on a historical and dialectic basis, but also to make value judgment of those in the present literature based on the moral values in the reality. However, since mention moral outlook, to the westerners, moral value orientation is inevitable related to their religious belief. The moral change in the form of religion is basically decided by the economic base. The fourth chapter is also a body part, it analyzes Dick’s awakening of consciousness and self-sublimation which are multiaspect. The fifth chapter is conclusion part, which sums up the contents before as well as being theme sublimation.There are many reasons for Dick’s personality change. These changes are not only influenced by economic, political, and cultural background at that certain historical period, but also related to the author’s personal experiences. These also reflect the common phenomena of belief crisis. The protagonist’s final self-sublimation on some level emphasizes an important meaning of ego and superego on human nature which is particularly a characteristic possessed by human beings and on human rights with which people can keep their independence and dignity.The moral outlook during different historical periods has different principles in different ways. The ones are shown in different ways in a new era. However, no matter how the economic base changes, good traditionally moral principles will not change. Keeping the individual’s independence and dignity is the most basic and important to the way human beings called.