河南农业大学
本科生毕业论文（设计）
题 目 Symbolism of the Great Gatsby
学 院 外国语学院
专业班级
学 号
学生姓名
指导教师
撰写日期： 2011年 12月 25 日
Contents
Abstract ……………………………………………………….2
I. Introduction …………………………………………………2
II. Symbolism in the Great Gatsby ……………………………3
1. Definition of symbolism …………………………………3
2. Main symbols in the Great Gatsby ………………………4
2.1. The green light …………………………………………4
2.2. The valley of ashes …………………………………….4
2.3. The eyes of Doctor T.J. Ecklebury …………………….5
2.4. The weather …………………………………………….5
2.5. The geography ………………………………………….6
2.6. Other symbolic images …………………………………7
III. Conclusion …………………………………………………8
Bibliography …………………………………………………...9
Acknowledgements …………………………………………….9
Symbolism of the Great Gatsby
Li Mei Business English Class2 Grade 2005 0803101036 Tutor: Zhang Professor
李玫 商务英语2班 2005级 0803101036 指导老师：张教授
Abstracts: As a famous novelist of the 20th century in America, Francis Scott Fitzgerald is the reprentative of the roaring 20th, belonging to the lost generation. The Great Gatsby, his masterpiece, which vividly describes the disintegration of the American dream in an era of unprecedented prosperity and material excess, established his prominent position in the literature history. This novel condemns the lfishness and tyranny of the A
merican privileged class as Tom as the reprentative, doing anything just as they plead, and tells Gatsby’s tragedy in the sympathy tone and also points out the tragedy is out of his envision of life and love, lacking of the acknowledge of the upper class.
Keywords: deterioration of morality, addiction of material, symbolism
I. Introduction
With The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald made a conscious departure from the writing process of his previous novels. He started planning it in June 1922, after completing his play The Vegetable and began composing it in 1923. He ended up discarding most of it as a fal start, some of which resurfaced in the story "Absolution".Unlike his previous works, Fitzgerald intended to edit and reshape Gatsby thoroughly, believing that it held the potential to launch him toward literary acclaim. He told his editor Maxwell Perkins that the novel was a "consciously artistic achievement" and a "purely creative work — not trashy imaginings as in my stories but the sustained imagination of a sincere and yet radiant world". He added later, during editing, that he felt "an enormous power in me now, more t
han I've ever had".
After the birth of their child, the Fitzgeralds moved to Great Neck, Long Island in October 1922, appropriating Great Neck as the tting for The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald's neighbors included such newly wealthy New Yorkers as writer Ring Lardner, actor Lew Fields and comedian Ed Wynn. Great Neck, on the shores of Long Island Sound, sat across a bay from Manhast Neck or Cow Neck Peninsula, which includes the communities of Port Washington, Manhast, Port Washington North and Sands Point and was home to many of New York's wealthiest established families. In his novel, Great Neck became the new-money peninsula of "West Egg" and Manhast Neck the old-money peninsula of "East Egg".
Progress on the novel was slow. In May 1923, the Fitzgeralds moved to the French Riviera, where the novel was finished. In November he nt the draft to his editor Maxwell Perkins and his agent Harold Ober. The Fitzgeralds moved to Rome for the winter. Fitzgerald made revisions through the winter after Perkins informed him that the n
ovel was too vague and Gatsby's biographical ction too long. Content after a few rounds of revision, Fitzgerald returned the final batch of revid galleys in the middle of February 1925.
II. Symbolism in the Great Gatsby
1. Definition of symbolism
The definition of symbolism in literature is “any object, person, place or action that has both a meaning in itlf and that stands for something larger than itlf, such as an idea, belief or value”. Symbolism as a literature device was frequently ud in various works. In John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, for example, everything and every person appearing prents something more than themlves. It’s obvious that the protagonist Christians stands for every Christian reader, and his goal, the Celestial city, is the reprentation of Heaven. The places through which had pasd on his way, such as the Lucre, Vanity Fair and so on stands for the temptations that Bunyan felt Christian readers were likely to encounter on their journey to salvation. Even the names of Christian’s fello
w travelers—Mr. Feeble-mind, great-heart and the like, all reprent not individual characters but the states of being.
