A Spatial Study On The Great Gatsby

F.S. Fitzgerald is one of the greatest American writers of the20th century and one of greatest English writers of the20th century. His book The Great Gatsby has become an immortal classic. This study attempts to use the western theory of space of the20th century to research The Great Gatsby from the perspective of urban space.The study is divided into three sections. The introduction describes Fitzgerald’s life and creation as well as the main overview of the study. In the first two chapters, the author mainly investigates the New York City of "The Great Gatsby". The first chapter attempts to explore the morphology of contemporary capitalist society from the theme of the novel. The theme of technology, love and religious is actually the characterization of contemporary capitalism city from the external to the internal morphology. Technology which constitutes the material shell of the city is the backbone of the city; love which is the link between people presents the social relations; religion which is the inner pursuit of people as a individual is a kind of spiritual beliefs. And what fuses the technology, love, and religion into an ideology is exactly the modern urban space. Therefore, studying these three themes of modern is also the overall investigation of the urban spaces. The theme of the novel is also a feature of the performance of the capitalist city. The second chapter of the novel examine a particular character Nick· Calloway. The clue of the article is from the investigation of the "face" of the city to the "point" of the city. The narrative of "The Great Gatsby" is also the process of Nick’s wandering in New York, which contains inspection of the city people, identity and historical perspective. The research of Nick will let us understand the certain features of capitalism and how it affects the city’s typical individual, as well as the typical individual’s unique understanding of the urban space of capitalist society.The third chapter of mainly discusses the construction method of the text space The Great Gatsby, unlike the first two chapters, this chapter is to explain how the features of the capitalist city is reflected in the text of the novel. Fitzgerald is equal to the figure of "The Great Gatsby", they were living in the1920s, which let him and his figure almost shared the same "City Space-ideology." Therefore, the analysis of Space artistic means of The Great Gatsby is also discussing how the concept of modern urban space affects a literary text space.