An Interpretation Of Allusions In Tender Is The Night In Light Of Intertextuality

F.S.Fitzgerald is a renowned modern American writer and a representative figure of “the Jazz Age”.He experienced countless hardships both in life and career so in himself readers can always get a glimpse of the ups and downs in his life.Tender Is the Night,which took him nine years to finish,is one of his several long novels and also an autobiographical work of his.It tells the story of how Dick,the main character,pursues his American dream and how it ends in failure,which reveals people’s endless desire for money and aspiration to enter the upper class when capitalism developed rapidly in America.Several aspects in this novel allude to other works.Therefore,allusions in this novel are interpreted in light of inertextuality theory in this thesis.Intertextuality theory,as a text theory born amid the tides of structuralism and post-structuralism,has been applied widely since it was established.There are two directions of intertextuality: in broad sense and in narrow sense.The former refers to deconstructive criticism and cultural research,which explains the concept of intertextuality in a broad and blurred way;the latter focuses on the relationship between one concrete text and another,in particular,the well-founded quotation,allusion,archetype,collage,parody and pastiche.Allusions can originate in mythology,biblical references,historical events,legends,geography,or earlier literary works.Therefore,on the basis of the narrow sense of intertextuality,this thesis aims to analyze the intertextual relations between the novel Tender Is the Night and three other literary works: Holy Bible,The Great Gatsby and In Search of Lost Time by employing the intertextual device of allusion.This thesis is divided into three main parts,the introduction,the main body and the conclusion.In the introduction,Fitzgerald’s life and his novel Tender Is the Night are briefly introduced as this novel is autobiographical.The research status of the novel both at home and abroad are summarized,and the purpose and significance of this thesis are clarified.The second part is the main body,which includes four chapters.The first chapter is theoretical foundation.Here the development of intertextualitytheory,as well as the introduction to the intertextual devices in text interpretation is presented.As one of the intertextual devices,the role of allusion is the most prominent in elaborating the intertextual relations,which can be applied to interpret the themes,images and characters between two texts.In the second chapter,the intertextuality between Tender Is the Night and Holy Bible is elaborated from three main themes by employing the device of allusion.In terms of the theme of betrayal,it exclaims Judas’ s betrayal of Jesus and Rosemary’s betrayal of Dick;in terms of the theme of salvation,it states Jesus’ s salvation to the sufferer and Dick’s salvation to people around as well as himself;in terms of the theme of goodness and evilness,it sets forth the contradiction between god and demon,heaven and hell,Dick’s dream and reality.In the third chapter,the intertextuality between Tender Is the Night and The Great Gatsby is elaborated from the theme of the American dream by employing the device of allusion.Firstly,it interprets the disillusionment of the American dreams belonging to Dick and Gatsby;secondly,it analyzes excellent qualities of two figures in pursuit of their American dreams;thirdly,it elaborates the sublimation of the American dream achieved by Dick’s self-exile and Gatsby’s death.In the fourth chapter,the intertextuality between Tender Is the Night and In Search of Lost Time is elaborated by listing images and relationship between characters by employing the device of allusion.Images indicate beach and party,which are to analyze the common ground of symbolic meanings;intertextuality can also be demonstrated by putting the analysis of characters relationship into the context of a tragic love story.The last part is the conclusion,in which basic ideas of this paper are concluded,and the research results and significances of this thesis is presented.By elaborating the allusive relations between Tender Is the Night and other three novels,this thesis is meant to bring a new understanding on Tender Is the Night to readers and encourages readers to realize the width and value of the novel and pay more attention to the relations between texts beyond the text alone,thereafter for a high-quality reading.