Colours in The Great Gatsby
Contents
摘要…………………………………………………………………..2
Abstract……………………………………………………………….3
1.Introduction
1.1 A brief description of F. Scott Fitzgerald……………………................4 1.2 Colours and its symbolic significances…………………………………5
2. Colours in The Great Gatsby 2.1 Red—— The Jazz Age……………………………………….................7 2.2 White —— The Upper Class……………………………………….......8 2.3 Green ——Aspiration ……………………………………………...9-10
3. Other Colours in The Great Gatsby 3.1 Golden ——Richness…………………………………………………11 3.2 Blue—— Hopeless……………………………………………………11
4. Conclusion………………………………………………………..12
5. References…………………………………………………….13-14
摘要
《了不起的盖茨比》将背景设置于一战以后的美国社会中产阶级的白人圈内,享乐主义成为社会主流意识。用作者自己的话说“这是一个奇迹的时代,这是一个艺术的时代,一个挥金如土的时代,也是一个充满嘲讽的时代”(F. Scott Fitzgerald : The Jazz Age)。社会弥漫着及时享乐、灯红酒绿、追求浪漫与奢华,又透出迷惘、失意与空虚感。无法被金钱驱散和弥补的惆怅与失落是那个年代背后无法逃避的现实与命运。作者菲茨杰拉德在这部不朽之作中巧妙地运用了大量颜色形容词来渲染这一主题。本文避开国内外各学者普遍关注的“美国梦”这一主题,选择另辟蹊径,以作者出版前试图改The Great Gatsby为 Under the Red, White and Blue 为线索,重点分析文中频繁出现的红、白与绿的象征意义,从而使读者可以从新的角度对“美国梦” 的精神实质和“爵士时代”的美国社会价值体系有新的解读,丰富了对于《了不起的盖茨比》的研究方向。
关键词:《了不起的盖茨比》;菲茨杰拉德; 颜色;红色;白色;绿色;金色;蓝色;象征意义;“爵士时代”。
Aabstract
The setting of The Great Gatsby is in the middle-class of white people after World War I when hedonism becomes the mainstream consciousness in America society. As the writer F. Scott Fitzgerald puts it in his novel The Jazz 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’(F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Jazz Age). Exposed to a society of instant gratification, longing to drowse sleepily in the lap of romance and luxury, people are also overwhelmed by the sense of confusion, frustration and emptiness, for it is an inescapable reality and destiny in an age when the sense of melancholy and loss cannot be fulfilled even dispelled by wealthy. F. Scott Fitzgerald allocated large resources of colour adjective in this immortal to render that theme vividly. In this paper, based on the story of Fitzgerald’s unsuccessful attempt to change the title of The Great Gatsby to Under the Red, White and Blue before publication, choosing a different aspect of this novel rather than avoid the various scholars’ common concern to the theme of ‘America Dream’. By focusing on the analyse of the symbolism of these frequent colour adjective as red, white as well as green, this paper aims to show the readers a new perspective on the nature of the ‘America Dream’ and a new interpretation of the value system of the American society in ‘the Jazz Age’, which can enrich the research aspects for The Great Gatsby.
Key Words: The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald, Colours, Red, White, Green, Golden, Blue, Symbolism, ‘the Jazz Age’.
1.Introduction
1.1 A brief description of F. Scott Fitzgerald F. Scott Fitzgerald(1896-1940) is a legend in his own lifetime and has become even more so since his death. He seems to epitomize an American era-the ‘Jazz Age’ of the 1920s, and to symbolize its delights, and dangers and defeats through his immortal works. His spectacular early success as a writer, his frantic pursuit of pleasure, his fraught relationship with his wife Zelda, and his decline into alcoholism, obscurity and premature death represents the trajectory of generation.
F. Scott Fitzgerald was born in 1896 in St Paul, Minnesota, and went to Princeton University, which he left in 1917 to join the army. In 1920s he married Zelda Sayre. Their traumatic marriage and subsequent breakdowns became the leading influence in his writing. Among his publications were five novels, This Side of Paradise, The Great Gatsby, The Beautiful and Damned, Tender is the Night and The Last Tycoon(unfinished) ; six volumes of short stories and The Crack-Up, a selection of autobiographical pieces. Scott Fitzgerald died suddenly in 1940. After