A Study Of Narrative Art In Fitzgerald’s Short Stories

Fitzgerald is active in the1920s and1930s American modern literature. His works are: the true record of American society at that time-the younger generation of ideas, values, and cultural characteristics of social transformation period. The times Fitzgerald lives in is; the transitional period of traditional novel to modern novel; so on the narrative techniques, his short stories not only inherit the traditions, but also make bold attempts.Fitzgerald’s short stories, which use various narrative techniques and fuse subtly the thought content and art form, can be said to the masterpieces of writing the disillusionment of "American Dream". From the narrative perspective, we can know the wirter’s; perception of the world, work’s aesthetic tastes, as well as characters of love and hate. Fitzgerald is good at using omniscient perspective to show the broad social background and natural environment, to observe characters’inner world and to record the social life of "Jazz Age". The internal point of view and first-person external perspective focus on the characters’rich and complex subjective feelings; third-person external narrative perspective emphasizes to present the plot and characters objectively.It is that the narrative time’s shortening and extension, the upside down and confused narrative time and the recreated narrative time freely, form Fitzgerald’s self-narrative style. They imply writer’s emotion orientation in the aspects of characterization, plot development, theme expression and so on. The flashbacks and pre-narrative recreate the time and try to disrupt the order of events so as to present the author’s intention to highlight the theme.Narrative perspective and narrative time pay attention to the point of view and time: setting; however the narrative rhetoric has integrated into the elegant and poetic "Fitzgerald-language style" language. Metaphor, with rich emotion and poetic style, makes use of abstract thinking to grasp the essence of things. It makes one feel fresh, especial and far-reaching; Fitzgerald’s situation of the day, which was American society’s transition period, makes his work be full of ridiculous humor with slight satire. Humorous with slight satire implies writer’s profound reflect and exploration for the fallen, absurd and upside down society.Although Fitzgerald can’t be said to be a great writer, he made outstanding achievements in terms of narrative techniques of exploration, innovation and trial. He became a classic writer of American literature gradually, who deserve our further attention and study.