了不起的盖茨比

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Americanliterature

班级：0903班学号：2009010119姓名：宋丹丹

Analysis of the Personality of the MajorCharacters in The Great Gatsby

Abstract : The Great Gatsby is the finest novel written by the famous American writer, Fitzgerald.The novel mirrors the decline of the American dream and deeply reveals the eence of it.In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald selects skillfully different people such as Jay Gatsby, and Daisy Buchanan to represent their different statuses in society and eventually to reflect the contradictions of the American world by their lives.This eay will focus on the discuion of the two major characters, discuing their fate by comparison and talking about the internal conflict of their personality, to have a further understanding of the corruption of the American society after the First World War and the cause of their different personality.

Keywords: The Great Gatsby major characters analysis of personality

1 A Brief Introduction to The Great Gatsby

Francis Scott Fitzgerald was considered as one of the most well known writers in America at an era that he named ―the Jazz Age‖.During the twenty years of his writing, he published about one hundred short stories and four long novels.The Great Gatsby is one of the greatest literary works of this period and one of the claics in American literature, which reveals the moral emptine and hypocrisy under the prosperity of the Jazz Age.Fitzgerald uses his pen to reveal the life and the ideas of people after the First World War and introduces one kind of valuable spirit.The American dream of happine and individualism has fallen into the mere pursuit of wealth.Fitzgerald presents the rise and fall of Jay Gatsby, skillfully choosing a first-person narrator, Nick Carraway’s perspective.

2 Tragic Jay Gatsby

Jay Gatsby, a typical upstart after the First World War, is a sensitive young man who idolizes wealth and luxury.He falls in love with Daisy, when he stations at a military camp near her home, but later she marries another man.His search for the American dream leads him from poverty to wealth, into the arms of his beloved and eventually, to his death.He is attracted by Daisy’s grace and charm, but blinds her shortcomings.

To some extent, Gatsby is naive and stupid for he never sees Daisy in her true colors just as he never sees the green light clearly.Though he never stops loving and has taken the house in West Egg to be near her, he never realizes that he can’t come back to the old warm world.It is easy to find that throughout his courtship of Daisy, Gatsby is always in a position of le power and lower social status.Because Gatsby has idolized her, Daisy will necearily not live up to his expectation.The reader may find out the contradiction in Gatsby’s personality after reading the novel.On one hand, Gatsby is innocent and naive in his heart for he sticks to his goal and dedicates himself to achieve his destination, but he never realizes that it is actually unreal.He shows his loyalty to his beloved and dares no effort to make his dream come into true.However, on the other hand, he owns money by all means including illegal ones and he is indifferent to the death of Myrtle Wilson, the superficial wife of a garage man called George Wilson.Just as the novel mentions, ―he spoke as if

Daisy’s reaction was the only thing that mattered.‖ Gatsby is nimble and ambitious in making money, which shows the ―sagacity‖ of modern people, but towards love he gives us the impreion of ―a naive young man.‖

Gatsby is great because of his loyalty to love.For Gatsby, Daisy is the soul of his dreams.He believes he can regain Daisy.Although he has the wealth that can match with the leisured cla, he does not have their manners.His tragedy lies in his poeion of a naive sense.

Therefore, Gatsby’s tragedy does not lie in his death, but in the death of his dream of utopia.It is his lack of reason and judgment that leads him to death.When introducing the origination of Gatsby’s name, Fitzgerald writes: ―The true was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his platonic conception of himself.He was a Son of God–a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that and he must be about His Father’s busine, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty‖.This sets the tone of Gatsby’s tragic life.He has not been aware of the different social statuses between his and Tom’s.In general, Jay Gatsby is one of the best among characters in the novel.Even though he is a bootlegger and all his money is illegally made he still has more conscience than many others.Gatsby wants people to be happy, and if they are happy he will be happy, too.He holds luxury parties for people to attend and enjoy themselves.He also does his best to make Nick feel easy in his garden.Gatsby shows a certain amount of kindne to almost everyone he meets.His parties are open to anyone who wants to attend no matter what his social cla is.He does his best to be kind to almost everyone.From this aspect, he is a very decent person indeed.

All in all, Gatsby is only a dreamiest in his whole life.His loyalty to his love and ideal and the contradictions of his dreams lead to the disillusionment of his American dream.His death, in a sense, serves as a warning, but it also ennobles him.

3 Vanity and Selfish Daisy Buchanan

As a beautiful and charming girl in the upper cla, Daisy is quiet active in all kinds of social activities and she once had her true love.It is safe to say Daisy once really loved Gatsby.But her mother prevents it .To some extent, her mother not only prevents Daisy’s stupid idea but also changes her opinions about the real meaning of life.After that, Daisy

becomes a representative of the upper cla.At that time, the most important thing for a lady was to find a rich husband with decent status, so Daisy makes good use of her beauty to deal with a lot of young men.Her vanity is completely disclosed when she contacts with those men.She has bright eyes and a bright paionate mouth and her best feature seems to be her voice.So she quickly marries Tom just because he is richer.

Compared with Gatsby, Daisy is superficial, shallow, and self-centered for she sees everything from the perspective of her own happine.For Fitzgerald, women like Daisy represent the deepest seductive power of the American dream as well as its greatest dangers.Daisy’s lack of responsibility is revealed at the end of the story.When she drives over Myrtle and she doesn\'t even stop, which shows what Fitzgerald wants to reveal in the whole book—the rich have no concept of responsibility in reality.She is a little bit too carele.In fact, her carelene leads to the death of Myrtle Wilson.She proves her real nature when she chooses Tom over Gatsby, and allows Gatsby to take the blame for killing Myrtle Wilson even though she herself is the murderer.Finally, Daisy and Tom move away rather than attend Gatsby’s funeral, leaving no addre.Daisy is indifferent to the death of Gatsby.As a matter of fact, she is the real murderer of Myrtle Wilson.After the accident, she and Tom conspire together and follows her husband’s suggestion to let Gatsby take the responsibility.

Why Daisy is unwilling to leave Tom and come together with Gatsby after he becomes rich? In fact, there are also some contradictions in her personality.On one hand, she is moved by Gatsby’s loyalty and stubbornne, which is fully embodied in the reunion between Gatsby and her.In addition, she is also attracted by Gatsby’s wealth and disappointed at Tom’s infidelity.On the Other hand, she dose not have the power to leave her husband and her family when Tom confronts Gatsby.She can’t lose the comfortable and luxury life with Tom.―This life is boring but gives her a feeling of safety.‖ During the First World War, Gatsby is only an inferior officer.Therefore, though Daisy loves him, she is unwilling to marry him.After Gatsby leaves to fight in the war, she marries Buchanan, a young man from an aristocratic family who promises her a wealthy lifestyle.Gatsby gathers great fortune and becomes the new rich, but Daisy is married to Tom Buchanan who is the ―the very rich‖ and the traditional aristocrat.Though Daisy is unsatisfied with Tom’s behavior

and never forgets Gatsby, the wealth makes Daisy and him invulnerable.So in the end, Mr.Gatsby’s dream still has not come true and Daisy does not break up with Tom to go with Gatsby.

As a representative lady of the upper cla at the particular time, Daisy enjoys vanity, selfishne and sophistication that a young woman often has at her time.It’s her vanity and selfishne that cause the death of Gatsby.

Conclusion:

To sum up, The Great Gatsby is an elegy of the corruption of the American Dream .The novel clearly shows that there is no way from money to love, from material to spirit.The author criticizes the American society in 1920s.Fitzgerald uses the characters to show the destruction of morals in society.The characters in this novel, many of them lose their morals in order to find their ideal place in the society.To some extent, their different personalities are caused by their attitudes towards money.It is not only the tragedy of love between Daisy and Gatsby but also shows the tragedy of the American dream.Reference: [1]胡荫桐、刘树森.美国文学教程[M].天津:南开大学出版社, 1995 .

[2]钱青.美国文学名著精选[M].北京:商务印书馆,1994.[3]唐建清, 巫宁坤.了不起的盖茨比[M].南京:译林出版社, 1998.

[4]吴建国.菲茨杰拉德研究[C].上海:上海外语教育出版社, 2002.