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Jay Gatsby: A Morbid Great Man

杰伊盖茨比：病态的伟人

Literature Review

The Great Gatsby is regarded as a vivid description of the 1920s, for it triggers peoples memory of the special past life. Although the novel was published in 1925, it did not attract much attention of the critics until the 1950s which era saw the new criticism become popular in literary field. Nowadays there are innumerous essays on this novel. International and domestic researchers all study this novel with great enthusiasm.

1. International studies

In the early age of International studies, some famous writers like Jerome David Salinger in his classical work Catcher in the Rye uses Jay Gatsby as model to create the protagonist Young Holden Caulfield to show the sprit of struggling against the traditional American culture and normal ethic.

International studies about Jay Gatsby can mainly be classified into three categories. The first category focusing on the relationship between Jay Gatsby and F. Scott Fitzgerald from the biography and the letters; the second category paying attention to the viewpoint of reality and the standard of modern ethnic to explore the motif of this novel from the love between Gatsby and Daisy; the third category with Jay Gatsbys American Dream.

Some scholars thought the semblance between Fitzgerald and Gatsby in representing a type of negative capability to show the experiences he depicts in his fiction. In The Great Gatsby , Fitzgerald shows his own life through sensation, his imagination of the felt understanding, making him , the American Keats who sought to affirm a High Romanticism in the accents of a belated counter-tradition (Maxwell 65). In comparing Fitzgerald and Gatsbys life experience, it is easy to find the similarity such as the hard road in seeking for their lover, the luxurious life in big cities and gaining the receptions from others.

The plot of the novel is based on the love between Daisy and Gatsby. The love is dreamy, colorful and complex, which can represent the bright hope of Gatsby. The love of Gatsby for Daisy seams valuable, but whats that actually in Daisy and Gatsbys unconsciousness is an unfolded mystery. Lois Tyson suggested that Gatsby and Myrtle function in much the same way. Just as Tom uses Myrtle to avoid the emotional problems in his marriage, so Daisy uses Gatsby. (41) Daisy uses Gatsby is an unconscious importance of her marriage and Gatsby came along again just in the time to buffer Daisy from what seems to be a new development in Toms extramarital activities, which finally makes Daisy feel safe enough to be with Gatsby again. Although Gatsby believes that his ultimate goal is the possession of Daisy, a belief that many readers share that Daisy is merely the key to his goal rather than the goal itself. In a word, the love between Daisy and Gatsby is doomed to fail in the end, for Daisy and Gatsby regarded each other as a tool to be used unconsciously.

Many scholars study Gatsby by his illusion of American dream. Gatsby embodies the popular American dream which combined with wealth, women and social statues. Robert Glen Deamer holds the view that The Great Gatsby is, of course, a compelling and haunting portrayal of what Marius Bewley calls The Collapse of the American Dream. And he also regards Gatsby as an utterly unique portrayal of the American dream. (9) Compared with those protagonists who success in achieving their dreams, Jay Gatsby seams more practical. Actually, the significance of this novel was to explore the hypocritical essence of the American dream. Fitzgerald captured the truth about the popular American dream of innocent success in the short legend of Gatsby. For it is not that Americans dream of money but that for Americans money is a dream: a meansto a transcendent ideal.(Deamer 11)