On The Ethical Tragedy In The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby,the masterpiece of American writer Fitzgerald,laid the foundation for his status in the history of modern American literature,making him the spokesman of “the Jazz Age” and one of the representative writers of “the Lost Generation”.In July 1998,American academic authority--the editorial team of Modern Library which was owned by Random House selected one hundred best novels from the long river of English literature of the century,and The Great Gatsby ranked the second.This classic work enjoys enduring popularity in the world literature and attracts wide attention from critics at home and abroad,and it has also been performed on screen and on stage for many times.Most comments put emphasis on the theme of “American dream” and the distinct narrative technique.Nevertheless,the real reflection of various social ethical phenomena in the Jazz Age cannot be ignored.Thus it’s worth for the scholars to delve into the deep ethical meaning concealed behind the novel,so as to reveal the implicit moral power between the lines.Poisoned by hedonism and consumerism prevailing in the Jazz Age,the five main characters in The Great Gatsby broke the moral boundary in terms of family ethics and social ethics for their selfish desire,lost in that era of ethical chaos,and some of them even lost their lives,leading to ethical tragedy.Ethical literary criticism,a kind of method of literary criticism,was formally put forward by Nie Zhenzhao in 2004.It’s mainly applied to interpret,analyze and illustrate literary works,and to study writers as well as literary issues from the perspective of ethics.Nie Zhenzhao deems that “to some extent,the original emergence of literature was totally for the purpose of ethics and morality”.Ethical literary criticism doesn’t make simple good-or-evil judgement on literature from today’s moral stand point,but stress on going back to the historical ethical scene.It advocates to interpret literary works from moral stand point of that time,to find the objective ethical reasons and explain why they make sense,to analyze the ethical factors which lead to social issues and affect characters’ destiny in the works,to make explanation of affairs,characters and literary problems by ethical views,and to make moral comments from historical angle.From the perspective of ethical literary criticism,this thesis aims to deeply interpret the novel by making full use of the new concepts of its theory--ethical structure(including ethical lines and ethical knots),ethical environment,ethical identity,ethical dilemma and so on.It elaborates how the ethical tragedy was caused by the characters in the novel,and makes ethical introspection from it.This thesis totally consists of seven chapters.Chapter one is the introduction,which introduces the creation background of the novel,the purposes and the significance as well as the layout of the thesis.Chapter two is the literature review,which introduces the previous studies of The Great Gatsby at home and abroad,and the previous studies of ethical literary criticism.Chapter three is the theoretical background,which introduces the foundation and development,the basic views,and the new concepts of ethical literary criticism.Chapter four extracts the ethical structure in The Great Gatsby,teasing out five ethical lines and the six ethical knots formed by the entanglement of ethical lines from the intricate timeline in the novel,which can help the readers to systematically grasp the ethical plots of the whole novel.Chapter five analyzes the ethical environment in The Great Gatsby in terms of family ethics and social ethics respectively,returning to the historical ethical scene in the novel.By analyzing people’s general view of love,of marriage and of family,it can be found that people in the Jazz Age generally were selfish in romantic relationship,disloyal in marriage and irresponsible in family.In terms of social ethics,people’s general view of money,of right and wrong as well as of interpersonal relationship can reflect worship of money,confusion of right and wrong,and alienation of interpersonal relationship in the society at that time.Chapter six elaborates the ethical unbalance in The Great Gatsby.The loss and change of characters’ ethical identities pushed them into the ethical dilemmas caused by the conflicts between personal desire and ethical norm.The predominance of animal factor over human factor prompted the characters to make wrong ethical choices,which finally leaded to ethical chaos--the breakup of three families and the destruction of three persons.Chapter seven is the conclusion,which summarizes the ethical tragedy in the novel in aspects of the ethical structure,the ethical environment as well as the ethical unbalance and then makes ethical introspection: everyone lives in social relationship and cannot escape from ethical bondage;everyone should consciously protect the ethical order to create a happy family as well as a harmonious society.