1、F. Scott Fitzgerald,1896 - 1940,II. Life,Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald Born in St. Paul, Minnesota to an upper-middle class Irish Catholic household the only son of his parents,Father: aristocratic and retiring Mother: provincial, aggressive, working-class, from a family of “straight 1850 potato-fami

2、ne Irish.” F. Scott Fitzgerald: named after his famous relative Francis Scott Key the author of “The Star-Spangled Banner”,First literary effort, a detective story, was published in a school newspaper when he was 13. He entered Princeton University in 1913 as a member of the Class of 1917.,There he

3、became friends with future critics and writers Edmund Wilson (Class of 1916) and John Peale Bishop (Class of 1917),A poor student, Fitzgerald left Princeton to enlist in the US Army during World War I However, the war ended shortly after Fitzgeralds enlistment.,While stationed at Camp Sheridan, Alab

4、ama, he met Zelda Sayre the daughter of an Alabama Supreme Court judge The two fell deeply in love.,Fitzgerald called her the “golden girl”. The two were engaged in 1919 Fitzgerald moved into an apartment in New York City to try to lay a foundation for his life with Zelda.,Fitzgerald needed to impro

5、ve his dismal financial circumstances before he and Zelda could marry.,unable to convince Zelda that he would be able to support her led her to break off the engagement. retreated to St. Paul, Minnesota.,There, he rewrote a novel he had begun at Princeton. In the spring of 1920 the novel, This Side

6、of Paradise, was published.,Suddenly, Fitzgerald could publish not only in prestigious literary magazines such as Scribners but also high-paying, popular ones including The Saturday Evening Post.,Flush with his new wealth and fame, Fitzgerald finally married Zelda. The celebrated columnist Ring Lard

7、ner christened them “the prince and princess of their generation”.,The 1920s proved the most influential decade of Fitzgeralds development. The Great Gatsby, considered his masterpiece, was published in 1925.,several excursions to Europe, notably Paris and the French Riviera became friends with many

8、 members of the American expatriate community in Paris, notably Ernest Hemingway.,Hemingway looked up to Fitzgerald as an experienced professional writer. Hemingway greatly admired The Great Gatsby. Fitzgeralds friendship with Hemingway was quite vigorous.,Although Fitzgeralds passion lay in writing

9、 novels, only his first novel sold well enough to support the opulent lifestyle that he and Zelda adopted as New York celebrities.,Because of this lifestyle, as well as the bills from Zeldas medical care when they came, Fitzgerald was constantly in financial trouble and often required loans from his

10、 literary agent,Fitzgerald described this society in his last completed novel, Tender is the Night, and modeled its hero on Gerald Murphy. Meanwhile, Fitzgeralds reputation as a heavy drinker tarnished his reputation in the literary world he was viewed as an irresponsible writer despite his painstak

11、ing revisions of several drafts.,Shortly after their relocation to France, Fitzgerald completed his most famous and respected novel, The Great Gatsby (1925).,Fitzgeralds own divided nature can be seen in the contrast between the novels hero, Jay Gatsby, and its narrator, Nick Carraway.,Fitzgerald co

12、nnects Gatsbys dream, his “Platonic conception of himself,” with the aspirations of the founders of America.,A year later, Fitzgerald published All the Sad Young Men a collection of short stories marks the end of the most productive period of his life,Zelda: a slow descent into madness first mental

13、breakdown in 1930. Her second breakdown, from which she never fully recovered, came in 1932.,The next decade: full of chaos and misery Fitzgerald: drank excessively,The only museum in the world dedicated to Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald is in the bottom floor of a house in Montgomery, Ala.,his next nov

14、el: Tender is the Night not finished until 1934 the last one that Fitzgerald ever completed considered technically faulty and was commercially unsuccessful,Crushed by the failure of Tender is the Night and his despair over Zelda, Fitzgerald became an incurable alcoholic.,He went to Hollywood alone i

15、n the summer of 1937 with a 6-month MGM screenwriting contract at $1,000 a week. a new contract for a year at $1,250 a week. He earned $91,000 from MGM,His trips East to visit his wife were disastrous. In California Fitzgerald fell in love with a movie columnist. Their relationship endured despite h

16、is benders(酗酒, 狂飲).,He began his Hollywood novel, The Love of the Last Tycoon, in 1939 and had written more than half of a working draft. The novel was left unfinished.,F. Scott Fitzgerald: suffered a fatal heart attack on December 21, 1940. Zelda Fitzgerald: perished at a fire in Highland Hospital

17、in 1948.,The apartment house where F. SCOTT FITZGERALD died in 1940.,Zelda and Scotts grave in Rockville, Maryland, inscribed with the final sentence of The Great Gatsby,So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. 于是我們奮力向前劃，逆流向上的小舟，不停地倒退，進(jìn)入過去。,II. Points of view,1

18、. The dominant influences on Fitzgerald: aspiration (抱負(fù)) literature Princeton Zelda Sayre Fitzgerald alcohol,2. His ideas of “American Dream”: He expressed what the young people believed in the 1920s the so-called “American Dream” is false in nature,It is false to most young people. Only those who w

19、ere dishonest could become rich.,3. His novels follow a pattern: dream lack of attraction failure and despair,4. He had always been critical of the rich and tried to show the integrating(綜合的) effects of money on the emotional make-up of his character wealth altered peoples characters, making them me

20、an and distrusted money brought only tragedy and remorse,III. Major themes,the boom of the 1920s the crash of the 1930s combination of the hollowness of the American worship of riches the never-ending dream of love, splendor, and glory.,Some critics objected to Fitzgeralds concern with love and succ

21、ess. His response to that was: “But, my God! it was my material, and it was all I had to deal with.”,The chief theme of Fitzgeralds work is aspiration of the idealism he regarded as defining American character mutability (易變性) or loss,As a social historian Fitzgerald became identified with the Jazz

22、Age: “It was an age of miracles, it was an age of art, it was an age of excess, and it was an age of satire.” -he wrote in “Echoes of the Jazz Age.”,IV. Style,smooth sensitive simplicity gracefulness completely original in its diction and metaphors its skill in manipulating the relation between the

23、general and the specific,Fitzgeralds clear, lyrical, colorful, witty style evoked the emotions associated with time and place.,V. Major Works,This Side of Paradise, 人間天堂,1920 The Beautiful and the Damned, 美麗與毀滅/漂亮冤家, 1922 Tales of the Jazz Age, 爵士時代的故事1922,The Great Gatsby 了不起的蓋茨比，1925 All the Sad Y

24、oung Men 所有悲傷的年輕人1926 Tender is the Night, 夜色溫柔,1934 The Last Tycoon 最后一個巨商, (unfinished), 1941,Tender Is the Night,The Great Gatsby,1. Introduction 2. Type of Work 3. Point of View 4. Major themes 5. Figures of speech 6. Major Characters 7. Symbols,1. Introduction,Written in 1925 Fitzgeralds third

25、novel Fitzgeralds masterpiece,often referred to as “The Great American Novel” One of the best novel to deal with the “American Dream” the quintessential work which captures the mood of the “Jazz Age”,2. Type of Work,a novel of tragedy a tragedy: In classic literature it involved the downfall of a no

26、ble character with a tragic flaw (called hamartia).,The Great Gatsby records the downfall of two characters with at least some noble characteristics: Gatsby American society Their tragic flaws are naive idealism corrupt behavior,3. Point of View,Nick Carraway tells the story in first-person point of

27、 view. In describing and analyzing the characters, he sometimes relies on second-hand information, or hearsay, that he is unable to verify.,For this reason, analysts of the novel sometimes refer to him as an unreliable narrator (不可靠的敘述者). However, he seems to do the best he can.,His account, his com

28、mentary, and his interaction with the characters make him resemble the chorus in an ancient Greek tragedy.,4. Major themes,the Death of a Dream the Death of an Ideal Corruption in Capitalist America What Money Cannot Buy: Happiness Irresponsibility Bigotry (頑固不化),The Death of a Dream: the American D

29、ream,His death in the end points at the truth about the withering of the American Dream The spiritual and moral sterility resulted from the withered American Dream.,WHAT IS THE AMERICAN DREAM?,“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their cr

30、eator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”,Absent morality, virtue, and substance, the American Dream becomes about materialism. A. Gatsby is naive, innocent, and sincere B. Characters are consumed by this absence of substantial values,5

31、. Figures of speech,metaphor simile irony paradox oxymoron,6. Major Characters,(1) Jay Gatsby (2) Nick Carraway (3) Daisy Fay Buchanan (4) Tom Buchanan,Jay Gatsby,the main character born to a poor farm couple in North Dakota At 17, he changes his name to Jay Gatsby as he severs ties with his humble

32、beginnings and dreams of a better day.,His job with a millionaire yacht owner teaches him how to make money. While serving in the U.S. Army, he falls in love with Daisy, but she marries the son of a wealthy family.,When Gatsby returns he pursues his dream: to make a fortune that enables him to recla

33、im Daisy Fay (now Daisy Buchanan).,Gatsby is great, because he is dignified and ennobled by his dream and his mythic vision of life.,Gatsby is American Everyman. His extraordinary energy and wealth make him pursue the dream.,He has the desire to repeat the past the desire for money the desire for in

34、carnation of unutterable vision on this material earth,For Gatsby, Daisy is the soul of his dreams. He believe he can regain Daisy and romantically rebels of time.,Although he has the wealth that can match with the leisured class, he does not have their manners. His tragedy lies in his possession of

35、 a naive sense and chivalry.,(2) Nick Carraway,the narrator of the novel. a Minnesota native imbued with Midwestern values relocates to the New York area to work in the bond business Daisys cousin and becomes entwined with her life and Gatsbys,(3) Daisy Fay Buchanan,Beautiful young woman who rejects

36、 Gatsby and marries wealthy Tom Buchanan, then has an affair with Gatsby. She is shallow and immature, although Gatsby thinks she is the ideal woman.,Daisy seems bored with life saying, “Ive been everywhere and seen everything and done everything.” Although unhappy in her marriage and her privileged

37、 lifestyle, she is unwilling to give up either.,(4) Tom Buchanan,Daisys boorish and bigoted husband, who comes from a fabulously wealthy Chicago family.,VII. His influence,F. Scott Fitzgerald died believing himself a failure. Fitzgeralds work and legend has inspired writers ever since he was first p

38、ublished The Great Gatsby.,The publication of The Great Gatsby prompted T. S. Eliot to write, in a letter to Fitzgerald, “It seems to me to be the first step that American fiction has taken since Henry James.”.,Charles Jackson says, “Theres no such thing.as a flawless novel. But if there is, this is it.”,In letters written in the 1940s, J. D. Salinger expressed admiration of Fitzgeralds work even saw himself for some time as “Fitzgeralds successor”,Richard Yates called Th