the great gatsby(了不起的盖茨比) 英文介绍及赏析

The Great Gatsby F.Scott.Fitzgerald

Context

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896, and named after his ancestor Francis Scott Key, the author of The Star-Spangled Banner. Fitzgerald was raised in St. Paul, Minnesota. Though an intelligent child, he did poorly in school and was sent to a New Jersey boarding school in 1911. Despite being a mediocre student there, he managed to enroll at Princeton in 1913. Academic troubles and apathy plagued him throughout his time at college, and he never graduated, instead enlisting in the army in 1917, as World War I neared its end.

Fitzgerald became a second lieutenant, and was stationed at Camp Sheridan, in Montgomery, Alabama. There he met and fell in love with a wild seventeen-year-old beauty named Zelda Sayre. Zelda finally agreed to marry him, but her overpowering desire for wealth, fun, and leisure led her to delay their wedding until he could prove a success. With the publication of This Side of Paradise in 1920, Fitzgerald became a literary sensation, earning enough money and fame to convince Zelda to marry him.

Many of these events from Fitzgerald’s early life appear in his most famous novel, The Great Gatsby, published in 1925. Like Fitzgerald, Nick Carraway is a thoughtful young man from Min nesota, educated at an Ivy League school (in Nick’s case, Yale), who moves to New York after the war. Also similar to Fitzgerald is Jay Gatsby, a sensitive young man who idolizes wealth and luxury and who falls in love with a beautiful young woman while stationed at a military camp in the South.

Having become a celebrity, Fitzgerald fell into a wild, reckless life-style of parties and decadence, while desperately trying to please Zelda by writing to earn money. Similarly, Gatsby amasses a great deal of wealth at a relatively young age, and devotes himself to acquiring possessions and throwing parties that he believes will enable him to win Daisy’s love. As the giddiness of the Roaring Twenties dissolved into the ble akness of the Great Depression, however, Zelda suffered a nervous breakdown and Fitzgerald battled alcoholism, which hampered his writing. He published Tender Is the Night in 1934, and sold short stories to The Saturday Evening Post to support his lavish lifestyle. In 1937, he left for Hollywood to write screenplays, and in 1940, while working on his novel The Love of the Last Tycoon, died of a heart attack at the age of forty-four.

Fitzgerald was the most famous chronicler of 1920s America, an era that he dubbed “the Jazz Age.” Written in 1925, The Great Gatsby is one of the greatest literary documents of this period, in which the American economy soared, bringing unprecedented levels of prosperity to the nation. Prohibition, the ban on the sale and consumption of alcohol mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment to the Constitution (1919), made millionaires out of bootleggers, and an underground culture of revelry sprang up. Sprawling private parties managed to elude police notice, and “speakeasies”—secret clubs that sold liquor—thrived. The chaos and violence of World War I left America in a state of shock, and the generation that fought the war turned to wild and extravagant living to compensate. The staid conservatism and timeworn values of the previous decade were turned on their ear, as money, opulence, and exuberance became the order of the day.

Like Nick in The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald found this new lifestyle seductive and exciting, and, like Gatsby, he had always idolized the very rich. Now he found himself in an era in which unrestrained materialism set the tone of society, particularly in the large cities of the East. Even so, like Nick, Fitzgerald saw through the glitter of the Jazz Age to the moral emptiness and hypocrisy beneath, and part of him longed for this absent moral center. In many way s, The Great Gatsby represents Fitzgerald’s attempt to confront his conflicting feelings about the Jazz Age. Like Gatsby, Fitzgerald was driven by his love for a woman who symbolized everything he wanted, even as she led him toward everything he despised.

Plot Overview

Nick Carraway, a young man from Minnesota, moves to New York in the summer of 1922 to learn about the bond business. He rents a house in the West Egg district of Long Island, a wealthy but unfashionable area populated by the new rich, a group who have made their fortunes too recently to have established social connections and who are prone to garish displays of wealth. Nick’s next-door neighbor in West Egg is a mysterious man named Jay Gatsby, who lives in a gigantic Gothic mansion and throws extravagant parties every Saturday night.

Nick is unlike the other inhabitants of West Egg—he was educated at Yale and has social connections in East Egg, a fashionable area of Long Island home to the established upper class. Nick drives out to East Egg one evening for dinner with his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her husband, Tom, an erstwhile classmate of Nick’s at Yale. Daisy and Tom introduce Nick to Jordan Baker, a beautiful, cynical young woman with wh om Nick begins a romantic relationship. Nick also l earns a bit about Daisy and Tom’s marriage: Jordan tells him that Tom has a lover, Myrtle Wilson, who lives in the valley of ashes, a gray industrial dumping ground between West Egg and New York City. Not long after this revelation, Nick travels to New York City with Tom and Myrtle. At a vulgar, gaudy party in the apartment that Tom keeps for the affair, Myrtle begins to taunt Tom about Daisy, and Tom responds by breaking her nose.

As the summer progresses, Nick eventually garners an invitation to one of Ga tsby’s legendary parties. He encounters Jordan Baker at the party, and they meet Gatsby himself, a surprisingly young man who affects an English accent, has a remarkable smile, and calls everyone “old sport.” Gatsby asks to speak to Jordan alone, and, through Jordan, Nick later learns more about his mysterious neighbor. Gatsby tells Jordan that he knew Daisy in Louisville in 1917 and is deeply in love with her. He spends many nights staring at the green light at the end of her dock, across the bay from his mansion. Gatsby’s extravagant lifestyle and wild parties are simply an attempt to impress Daisy. Gatsby now wants Nick to arr ange a reunion between himself and Daisy, but he is afraid that Daisy will refuse to see him if she knows that he still loves her. Nick invites Daisy to have tea at his house, without telling her that Gatsby will also be there. After an initially awkward reunion, Gatsby and Daisy reestablish their connection. Their love rekindled, they begin an affair.

After a short time, Tom grows in creasingly suspicious of his wife’s relationship with Gatsby. At a luncheon at the Buchanans’ house, Gatsby stares at Daisy with such undisguised passion that Tom realizes Gatsby is in love with her. Though Tom is himself involved in an extramarital affair, he is deeply outraged by the thought that his wife could be unfaithful to him. He forces the group to drive into New York City, where he confronts Gatsby in a suite at the Plaza Hotel. Tom asserts that he and Daisy have a history that Gatsby could never understand, and he announces to his wife that Gatsby is a criminal—his fortune comes from bootlegging alcohol and other illegal activities. Daisy realizes that her allegiance is to Tom, and Tom contemptuously sends her back to East Egg with Gatsby, attempting to prove that Gatsby cannot hurt him.

When Nick, Jordan, and Tom drive through the valley of ashes, however, they discover that Gatsby’s car has struck and killed Myrtle, Tom’s lover. They rush back to Long Island, where Nick learns from Gatsby that Daisy was driving the car when it struck Myrtle, but that Gatsby intends to take the blame. The next day, Tom tells Myrtle’s husband, George, that Gatsby was the driver of the car. George, who has leapt to the conclusion that the driver of the car that killed Myrtle must have been her lover, finds Gatsby in the pool at his mansion and shoots him dead. He then fatally shoots himself.

Nick stages a small funeral for Gatsby, ends his relationship with Jordan, and moves back to the Midwest to escape the disgust he feels for the people surrounding Gatsby’s life and for the emptiness and moral decay of life among the wealthy on the East Coast. Nick reflects that just as Gatsby’s dream of Daisy was corrupted by money and dishonesty, the American dream of happiness and individualism has disintegrated into the mere pursuit of wealth. Though Gatsby’s power to transform his dreams into reality is what makes him “great,” Nick reflects that the era o f dreaming—both Gatsby’s dream and the American dream—is over.

Character List

Nick Carraway - The novel’s narrator, Nick is a young man from Minnesota who, after being educated at Yale and fighting in World War I, goes to New York City to learn the bond business. Honest, tolerant, and inclined to reserve judgment, Nick often serves as a confidant for those with troubling secrets. After moving to West Egg, a fictional area of Long Island that is home to the newly rich, Nick quickly befriends his next-door neighbor, the mysterious Jay Gatsby. As Daisy Buchanan’s cousin, he facil itates the rekindling of the romance between her and Gatsby. The Great

Gatsby is told entirely through Nick’s eyes; his thoughts and perceptions shape and color the story.

Nick Carraway (In-Depth Analysis)

Jay Gatsby - The title character and protagonist of the novel, Gatsby is a fabulously wealthy young man living in a Gothic mansion in West Egg. He is famous for the lavish parties he throws every Saturday night, but no one knows where he comes from, what he does, or how he made his fortune. As the novel progresses, Nick learns that Gatsby was born James Gatz on a farm in North Dakota; working for a millionaire made him dedicate his life to the achievement of wealth. When he met Daisy while training to be an officer in Louisville, he fell in love with her. Nick also learns that Gatsby made his fortune through criminal activity, as he was willing to do anything to gain the social position he thought necessary to win Daisy. Nick views Gatsby as a deeply flawed man, dishonest and vulgar, whose extraordinary optimism and power to transform his dreams into reality make him “great” nonetheless.

Jay Gatsby (In-Depth Analysis)

Daisy Buchanan - Nick’s cousin, and the woman Gatsby loves. As a young woman in Louisville before the war, Daisy was courted by a number of officers, including Gatsby. She fell in love with Gatsby and promised to wait for him. However, Daisy harbors a deep need to be loved, and when a wealthy, powerful young man named Tom Buchanan asked her to marry him, Daisy decided not to wait for Gatsby after all. Now a beautiful socialite, Daisy lives with Tom across from Gatsby in the fashionable East Egg district of Long Island. She is sardonic and somewhat cynical, and behaves superficially to mask her pain at her husband’s constant infidelity.

Daisy Buchanan (In-Depth Analysis)

Tom Buchanan - Daisy’s immensely wealthy husband, once a member of Nick’s social club at Yale. Powerfully built and hailing from a socially solid old family, Tom is an arrogant, hypocritical bully. His social attitudes are laced with racism and sexism, and he never even considers trying to live up to the moral standard he demands from those around him. He has no moral qualms about his own extramarital affair with Myrtle, but when he begins to suspect Daisy and Gatsby of having an affair, he becomes outraged and forces a confrontation.

Jordan Baker - Daisy’s friend, a woman with whom Nick becomes romantically involved during the course of the novel. A competitive golfer, Jordan represents one of the “new women” of the 1920s—cynical, boyish, and self-centered. Jordan is beautiful, but also dishonest: she cheated in order to win her first golf tournament and continually bends the truth.

Myrtle Wilson - Tom’s lover, whose lifeless husband George owns a run-down garage in the valley of ashes. Myrtle herself possesses a fierce vitality and desperately looks for a way to improve her situation. Unfortunately for her, she chooses Tom, who treats her as a mere object of his desire.

George Wilson - Myrtle’s husband, the lifeless, exhausted owner of a run-down auto shop at the edge of the valley of ashes. George loves and idealizes Myrtle, and is devastated by her affair with Tom. George is consumed with grief when Myrtle is killed. George is comparable to Gatsby in that both are dreamers and both are ruined by their unrequited love for women who love Tom.

Owl Eyes - The eccentric, bespectacled drunk whom Nick meets at the first party he attends at Gatsby’s mansion. Nick finds Owl Eyes look ing through Gatsby’s library, astonished that the boo ks are real.

Klipspringer - The shallow freeloader who seems almost to live at Gatsby’s mansion, taking advantage of his host’s money. As soon as Gatsby dies, Klipspringer disappears—he does not attend the funeral, but he does call Nick about a pair of te nnis shoes that he left at Gatsby’s mansion. Analysis of Major Characters

Jay Gatsby

The title character of The Great Gatsby is a young man, around thirty years old, who rose from an impoverished childhood in rural North Dakota to become fabulously wealthy. However, he achieved this lofty goal by participating in organized crime, including distributing illegal alcohol and trading in stolen securities. From his early youth, Gatsby despised poverty and longed for wealth and sophistication—he dropped out of St. Olaf’s College after only two weeks because he could not bear the janitorial job with which he was paying his tuition. Though Gatsby has always wanted to be rich, his main motivation in acquiring his fortune was his love for Daisy Buchanan, whom he met as a young military officer in Louisville before leaving to fight in World War I in 1917. Gatsby immediately fell in love with Daisy’s aura of luxury, grace, and charm, and l ied to her about his own background in order to convince her that he was good enough for her. Daisy promised to wait for him when he left for the war, but married Tom Buchanan in 1919, while Gatsby was studying at Oxford after the war in an attempt to gain an education. From that moment on, Gatsby dedicated himself to winning Daisy back, and his acquisition of millions of dollars, his purchase of a gaudy mansion on West Egg, and his lavish weekly parties are all merely means to that end.

Fitzgerald delays the introduction of most of this information until fairly late in the novel. Gats by’s reputation precedes him—Gatsby himself does not appear in a speaking role until Chapter III. Fitzgerald initially presents Gatsby as the aloof, enigmatic host of the unbelievably opulent parties thrown every week at his mansion. He appears surrounded by spectacular luxury, courted by powerful men and beautiful women. He is the subject of a whirlwind of gossip throughout New York and is already a kind of legendary celebrity before he is ever introduced to the reader. Fitzgerald propels the novel forward through the early chapters by shrouding Gatsby’s background and the source of his wealth in mystery (the reader learns about Gatsby’s childhood in Chapter VI and receives definitive proof of his criminal dealings in Chapter VII). As a result, the reader’s first, distant impressions of Gatsby strike quite a different note from that of the lovesick, naive young man who emerges during the later part of the novel. Fitzgerald uses this technique of delayed character revelation to emphasize the theatrical qualit y of Gatsby’s approach to life, which is an important part of his personality. Gatsby has literally created his own character, even changing his name from James Gatz to Jay Gatsby to represent his reinvention of himself. As his relentless quest for Daisy demonstrates, Gatsby has an extraordinary ability to transform his hopes and dreams into reality; at the beginning of the novel, he appears to the reader just as he desires to appear to the world. This talent for self-invention is what gives Gatsby his qual ity of “greatness”: indeed, the title “The Great Gatsby” is reminiscent of billings for such vaudeville magicians as “The Gre at Houdini” and “The Great Blackstone,” suggesting that the persona of Jay Gatsby is a masterful illusion.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.

(See Important Quotations Explained)

As the novel progresses and Fitzgerald deconstructs Gatsby’s self-presentation, Gatsby reveals himself to be an innocent, hopeful young man who stakes everything on his dreams, not realizing that his dreams are unworthy of him. Gatsby invests Daisy with an idealistic perfection that she cannot possibly attain in reality and pursues her with a passionate zeal that blinds him to her limitations. His dream of her disintegrates, revealing the corruption that wealth causes and the unworthiness of the goal, much in the way Fitzgerald sees the American dream crumbling in the 1920s, as America’s powerful optimism, vitality, and individualism become subordinated to the amoral pursuit of wealth.

Gatsby is contrasted most consistently with Nick. Critics point out that the former, passionate and active, and the latter, sober and reflective, seem to represent two sides of Fitzgerald’s personality. Additionally, where as Tom is a cold-hearted, aristocratic bully, Gatsby is a loyal and good-hearted man. Though his lifestyle and attitude differ greatly from those of George Wilson, Gatsby and Wilson share the fact that they both lose their love interest to Tom.

Nick Carraway

If Gatsby represents one part of Fitzgerald’s personality, the flashy celebrity who pursued and glorified wealth in order to impress the woman he loved, then Nick represents another part: the quiet, reflective Midwesterner adrift in the lurid East. A young man (he turns thirty during the course of the novel) from Minnesota, Nick travels to New York in 1922 to learn the bond business. He lives in the West Egg district of Long Island, next door

to Gatsby. Nick is also Daisy’s cousin, which enables him to o bserve and assist the resurgent love affair between Daisy and Gatsby. As a result of his relationship to these two characters, Nick is the perfect choice to narrate the novel, which functions as a personal memoir of his experiences with Gatsby in the summer of 1922.

Nick is also well suited to narrating The Great Gatsby because of his temperament. As he tells the reader in Chapter I, he is tolerant, open-minded, quiet, and a good listener, and, as a result, others tend to talk to him and tell him their secrets. Gatsby, in particular, comes to trust him and treat him as a confidant. Nick generally assumes a secondary role throughout the novel, preferring to describe and comment on events rather than dominate the action. Often, however, he functions as Fitzger ald’s voice, as in his extended meditation on time and the American dream at the end of Chapter IX. Insofar as Nick plays a role inside the narrative, he evidences a strongly mixed reaction to life on the East Coast, one that creates a powerful internal conflict that he does not resolve until the end of the book. On the one hand, Nick is attracted to the fast-paced, fun-driven lifestyle of New York. On the other hand, he finds that lifestyle grotesque and damaging. This inner conflict is symbolized througho ut the book by Nick’s romantic affair with Jordan Baker. He is attracted to her vivacity and her sophistication just as he is repelled by her dishonesty and her lack of consideration for other people.

Nick states that there is a “quality of distortion” to life in New York, and this lifestyle makes him lose his equilibrium, especially early in the novel, as when he gets drunk at Gatsby’s party in Chapter II. After witnessing the unraveling of Gatsby’s dream and presiding over t he appalling spectacle of Gatsb y’s funeral, Nick realizes that the fast life of revelry on the East Coast is a cover for the terrifying moral emptiness that the valley of ashes symbolizes. Having gained the maturity that this insight demonstrates, he returns to Minnesota in search of a quieter life structured by more traditional moral values.

Daisy Buchanan

Partially based on Fitzgerald’s wife, Zelda, Daisy is a beautiful young woman from Louisville, Kentucky. She is Nick’s cousin and the object of Gatsby’s love. As a young debutante in Louisville, Daisy was extremely popular among the military officers stationed near her home, including Jay Gatsby. Gatsby lied about his background to Daisy, claiming to be from a wealthy family in order to convince her that he was worthy of her. Eventuall y, Gatsby won Daisy’s heart, and they made love before Gatsby left to fight in the war. Daisy promised to wait for Gatsby, bu t in 1919 she chose instead to marry Tom Buchanan, a young man from a solid, aristocratic family who could promise her a wealthy lifestyle and who had the support of her parents.

After 1919, Gatsby dedicated himself to winning Daisy back, making her the single goal of all of his dreams and the main motivation behind his acquisition of immense wealth through criminal activity. To Gatsby, Daisy represents the paragon of perfection—she has the aura of charm, wealth, sophistication, grace, and aristocracy that he longed for as a child in North Dakota and that first attracted him to her. In reality, however, Daisy falls far short of Gatsby’s ideals. She is beautiful and charming, but also fickle, shallow, bored, and sardonic. Nick characterizes her as a careless person who smashes things up and then retreats behind her money. Daisy proves her real nature when she chooses Tom over Gatsby in Chapter VII, then allows Gatsby to take the blame for killing Myrtle Wilson even though she herself was driving the car. Finally, rather than a ttend Gatsby’s funeral, Daisy and Tom move away, leaving no forwarding address.

Like Zelda Fitzgerald, Daisy is in love with money, ease, and material luxury. She is capable of affection (she seems genuinely fond of Nick and occasionally seems to love Gatsby sincerely), but not of sustained loyalty or care. She is indifferent even to her own infant daughter, never discussing her and treating her as an afterthought when she is introduced in Chapter VII. In Fitzgerald’s conception of America in the 1920s, Daisy represents the amoral values of the aristocratic East Egg set.

Themes, Motifs & Symbols

Themes

Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

The Decline of the American Dream in the 1920s

On the surface, The Great Gatsby is a story of the thwarted love between a man and a woman. The main theme of the novel, however, encompasses a much larger, less romantic scope. Though all of its action takes place over a mere few months during the summer of 1922 and is set in a circumscribed geographical area in the vicinity of Long Island, New York, The Great Gatsby is a highly symbolic meditation on 1920s America as a whole, in particular the disintegration of the American dream in an era of unprecedented prosperity and material excess.

Fitzgerald portrays the 1920s as an era of decayed social and moral values, evidenced in its overarching cynicism, greed, and empty pursuit of pleasure. The reckless jubilance that led to decadent parties and wild jazz music—epitomized in The Great Gatsby by the opulent parties that Gatsby throws every Saturday night—resulted ultimately in the corruption of the American dream, as the unrestrained desire for money and pleasure surpassed more noble goals. When World War I ended in 1918, the generation of young Americans who had fought the war became intensely disillusioned, as the brutal carnage that they had just faced made the Victorian social morality of early-twentieth-century America seem like stuffy, empty hypocrisy. The dizzying rise of the stock market in the aftermath of the war led to a sudden, sustained increase in the national wealth and a newfound materialism, as people began to spend and consume at unprecedented levels. A person from any social background could, potentially, make a fortune, but the American aristocracy—families with old wealth—scorned the newly rich industrialists and speculators. Additionally, the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919, which banned the sale of alcohol, created a thriving underworld designed to satisfy the massive demand for bootleg liquor among rich and poor alike.

Fitzgerald positions the characters of The Great Gatsby as emblems of these social trends. Nick and Gatsby, both of whom fought in World War I, exhibit the newfound cosmopolitanism and cynicism that resulted from the war. The various social climbers and ambitious speculators who attend Gatsby’s parties evidence the greedy scramble for wealth. The clash between “old money” and “new money” manifests itself in the novel’s symbol ic geography: East Egg represents the established aristocracy, West Egg the self-made rich. Meyer Wolfshiem and Gatsby’s fortune s ymbolize the rise of organized crime and bootlegging.

As Fitzgerald saw it (and as Nick explains in Chapter IX), the American dream was originally about discovery, individualism, and the pursuit of happiness. In the 1920s depicted in the novel, however, easy money and relaxed social values have corrupted this dream, especially on the East Coast. The main plotline of the novel reflects this assessment, as Gatsby’s dream of loving Daisy is ruined by the difference in the ir respective social statuses, his resorting to crime to make enough money to impress her, and the rampant materialism that characterizes her lifestyle. Additionally, places and objects in The Great Gatsby have meaning only because characters instill them with meaning: the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg best exemplify this idea. In Nick’s mind, the ability to create meaningful symbols constitutes a central component of the American dream, as early Americans invested their new nation with their own ideals and values.

Nick compares the green bulk of America rising from the ocean to the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. Just as Americans have given America meaning through their dreams for their own lives, Gatsby instills Daisy with a kind of idealized perfection that she neither deserves nor possesses. Gatsby’s dream is ruined by the unworthiness of its object, just as the American dream in the 1920s is ruined by the unworthi ness of its object—money and pleasure. Like 1920s Americans in general, fruitlessly seeking a bygone era in which their dreams had value, Gatsby longs to re-create a vanished past—his time in Louisville with Daisy—but is incapable of doing so. When his dream crumbles, all that is left for Gatsby to do is die; all Nick can do is move back to Minnesota, where American values have not decayed.

The Hollowness of the Upper Class

One of the major topics explored in The Great Gatsby is the sociology of wealth, specifically, how the newly minted millionaires of the 1920s differ from and relate to the old aristocracy of the country’s richest families. In the novel, West Egg and its denizens represent the newly rich, while East

Egg and its denizens, especially Daisy and Tom, represent the old aristocracy. Fitzgerald portrays the newly rich as being vulgar, gaudy, ostentatious, and lacking in social graces and taste. Gatsby, for example, lives in a monstrously ornate mansion, wears a pink suit, drives a Rolls-Royce, and does not pick up on subtle social signals, such as the insincerity of the Sloanes’ invitation to lunch. In contrast, the old aristocracy possesses grace, taste, subtlety, and elegance, epitomized by the Buchanans’ tasteful home and the flowing white dresses of Daisy and Jordan Baker.

What the old aristocracy possesses in taste, however, it seems to lack in heart, as the East Eggers prove themselves careless, inconsiderate bullies who are so used to money’s ability to ease their minds that they never worry about hurting others. The Buchanans exemplify th is stereotype when, at the end of the novel, they simply move to a new ho use far away rather than condescend to attend Gatsby’s funeral. Gatsby, on the other hand, whose recent wealth derives from criminal activity, has a sincere and loyal heart, remaining outside Daisy’s window until four in t he morning in Chapter VII simply t o make sure that Tom does not hurt her. Ironically, Gatsby’s good qualities (loyalty and love) lead to his death, as he takes the blame for killing Myrtle rather than letting Daisy be punished, and the Buchanans’ bad qualities (fickleness and selfishness) allow them to remove themselves from the tragedy not only physically but psychologically.

Motifs

Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.

Geography

Throughout the novel, places and settings epitomize the various aspects of the 1920s American society that Fitzgerald depicts. East Egg represents the old aristocracy, West Egg the newly rich, the valley of ashes the moral and social decay of America, and New York City the uninhibited, amoral quest for money and pleasure. Additionally, the East is connected to the moral decay and social cynicism of New York, while the West (including Midwestern and northern areas such as Minnesota) is connected to more traditional social values an d ideals. Nick’s analysis in Chapter IX of the story he has related reveals his sensitivity to this dichotomy: though it is set in the East, the story is really one of the West, as it tells how people originally from west of the Appalachians (as all of the main characters are) react to the pace and style of life on the East Coast.

Weather

As in much of Shakespeare’s work, the weather in The Great Gatsby unfailingly matches the emotional and narrative tone of the story. Gatsby and Daisy’s reunion begins amid a pouring rain, proving awkward and melancholy; their love reawakens just as the sun begins to come out. Gatsby’s climactic confrontation with Tom occurs on the hottest day of the summer, under the scorching sun (like the fatal encounter between Mercutio and Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet). Wilson kills Gatsby on the first day of autumn, as Gatsby floats in his pool despite a palpable chill in the air—a symbolic attempt to stop time and restore his relationship with Daisy to the way it was five years before, in 1917.

Symbols

Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

The Green Light

Situated at the end of Daisy’s East Egg dock and barely visible from Gatsby’s West Egg lawn, the green light represents Gatsb y’s hopes and dreams for the future. Gatsby associates it with Daisy, and in Chapter I he reaches toward it in the darkness as a guiding light to lead him to his goal. Because Gatsby’s quest for Daisy is broadly associated with the American dream, the green light also symbolizes that more generalized ideal. In Chapter IX, Nick compares the green light to how America, rising out of the ocean, must have looked to early settlers of the new nation.

The Valley of Ashes

First introduced in Chapter II, the valley of ashes between West Egg and New York City consists of a long stretch of desolate land created by the dumping of industrial ashes. It represents the moral and social decay that results from the uninhibited pursuit of wealth, as the rich indulge themselves with regard for nothing but their own pleasure. The valley of ashes also symbolizes the plight of the poor, like George Wilson, who live among the dirty ashes and lose their vitality as a result.

The Eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg

The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are a pair of fading, bespectacled eyes painted on an old advertising billboard over the valley of ashes. They may represent God staring down upon and judging American society as a moral wasteland, though the novel never makes this point explicitly. Instead, throughout the novel, Fitzgerald suggests that symbols only have meaning because characters instill them with meaning. The connection between the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg and God exists only in George Wilson’s grief-stricken mind. This lack of concrete significance contributes to the unsettling nature of the image. Thus, the eyes also come to represent the essential meaninglessness of the world and the arbitrariness of the mental process by which people invest objects with meaning. Nick e xplores these ideas in Chapter VIII, when he imagines Gatsby’s final thoughts as a depressed consideration of the emptiness of symbols and dreams.

《了不起的盖茨比》英文读后感

Pursuit for dreams —after reading The Great Gatsby I have heard of the famous novel The Great Gatsby for many years. However, until recently have I got the time and mood to read it. As soon as I finish reading, I find my previous unwarranted assumption of it totally wrong. This is a story about Gatsby and his pursuit for the ‘American dreams'. During the World War One, the poor soldier Gatsby fell in love with an upper class girl named Daisy. But due to the wide gap between them, Daisy decided to marry Tom, a man of her class, instead of Gatsby. Broken-hearted Gatsby then held the conviction that money was of the greatest importance. He strongly believed in the ‘American dreams', which as we all know, advocates that one can achieve whatever he or she likes through continuous efforts. He strived for five years to become a millionaire and bought a villa near Daisy's to attract her. He was too addicted to his fantasy to realize that Daisy was no longer the lovely girl she used to be. Eventually, he was killed because of her crime. After reading it, something reverberates in my heart. I

the_great_gatsby(了不起的盖茨比)_英文介绍及赏析

The Great Gatsby F.Scott.Fitzgerald . Character List Daisy Buchanan - Nick’s cousin, and the woman Gatsby loves. As a young woman in Louisville before the war, Daisy was courted by a number of officers, including Gatsby. She fell in love with Gatsby and promised to wait for him. However, Daisy harbors a deep need to be loved, and when a wealthy, powerful young man named Tom Buchanan asked her to marry him, Daisy decided not to wait for Gatsby after all. Now a beautiful socialite, Daisy lives with Tom across from Gatsby in the fashionable East Egg district of Long Island. She is sardonic and somewhat cynical, and behaves superficially to mask her pain at her husband’s constant infidelity. Daisy Buchanan (In-Depth Analysis) Tom Buchanan - Daisy’s immensely wealthy husband, once a member of Nick’s social club at Yale. Powerfully built and hailing from a socially solid old family, Tom is an arrogant, hypocritical bully. His social attitudes are laced with racism and sexism, and he never even considers trying to live up to the moral standard he demands from those around him. He has no moral qualms about his own extramarital affair with Myrtle, but when he begins to suspect Daisy and Gatsby of having an affair, he becomes outraged and forces a confrontation. Jordan Baker - Daisy’s friend, a woman with whom Nick becomes romantically involved during the course of the novel. A competitive golfer, Jordan represents one of the “new women” of the 1920s—cynical, boyish, and self-centered. Jordan is beautiful, but also dishonest: she cheated in order to win her first golf tournament and continually bends the truth. Myrtle Wilson - Tom’s lover, whose lifeless husband George owns a run-down garage in the valley of ashes. Myrtle herself possesses a fierce vitality and desperately looks for a way to improve her situation. Unfortunately for her, she chooses Tom, who treats her as a mere object of his desire. Analysis of Major Characters Daisy Buchanan Partially based on Fitzgerald’s wife, Zelda, Daisy is a beautiful young woman from Louisville, Kentucky. She is Nick’s cousin and the object of Gatsby’s love. As a young debutante in Louisville, Daisy was extremely popular among the military officers stationed near her home, including Jay Gatsby. Gatsby lied about his background to Daisy, claiming to be from a wealthy family in order to convince her that he was worthy of her. Eventually, Gatsby won Daisy’s heart, and they made love before Gatsby left to fight in the war. Daisy promised to wait for Gatsby, but in 1919 she chose instead to marry Tom Buchanan, a young man from a solid, aristocratic family who could promise her a wealthy lifestyle and who had the support of her parents. After 1919, Gatsby dedicated himself to winning Daisy back, making her the single goal of all of his dreams and the main motivation behind his acquisition of immense wealth through criminal activity. To Gatsby, Daisy represents the paragon of perfection—she has the aura of charm, wealth, sophistication, grace, and aristocracy that he longed for as a child in North Dakota and that first attracted him to her. In reality, however, Daisy falls far short of Gatsby’s ideals. She is beautiful and charming, but also fickle, shallow, bored, and sardonic. Nick characterizes her as a careless person who smashes things up and then retreats behind her money. Daisy proves her real nature when she chooses Tom over Gatsby in Chapter VII, then allows Gatsby to take the blame for killing Myrtle Wilson even though she herself was driving

了不起的盖茨比经典句子中英文

菲茨杰拉德的《了不起的盖茨比》，摘录书中比较经典的句子： Chapter 1 1. 每当你觉得想要批评什么人的时候，你切要记着，这个世界上的人并非都具备你禀有的条件。 Whenever you feel like criticizing any one, just rember that all the people in this world haven ' thad the advantages that you 've had. 2. 人们的善恶感一生下来就有差异。 A sense of the fundamental decencies is parceled out unequally at birth. 3. 人们的品行有的好像建筑在坚硬的岩石上，有的好像建筑在泥沼里，不过超过一定的限度，我就不在乎它建在什么之上了。 Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes, but after a certain point I don ' tcare what it ' s founded on. Chapter 2 这时，天色已经暗了下来，我们这排高高地俯瞰着城市的灯火通明的窗户，一定让街头偶尔抬头眺望的人感到了，人类的秘密也有其一份在这里吧，我也是这样的一个过路人，举头望着诧异着。我既在事内又在事外，几杯永无枯竭的五彩纷呈的生活所吸引，同时又被其排斥着。 Yet high over the city our line of yellow windows must have contributed their share of humansecrecytothecasualwatcherinthedarkeningstreets,andIwashimtoo,lookingupan dwondering.Iwaswithinandwithout,simultaneouslyenchantedandrepelledbytheinexh austible variety of life. Chapter 3 1. 他理解体谅地笑了——这笑比理解和体谅有更多的含义。这是那种不多见的使你忐忑不安的情绪能很快地平静下来的笑，这种笑容人的一生中顶多能碰 上四五次。它先是再一刹那间面对——或者说似乎在面对——整个外部世界，然后他就全副心神地倾注到你的身上，对你充满一种不可抵御的偏爱之情。它对你的理解恰是

经典英文诗歌赏析(全)

经典英文诗歌赏析(全) 一 nothing gold can stay 1简介：《美景易逝(Nothing Gold Can Stay)》罗伯特弗罗斯特 的代表作之一。此诗于1923年写就，即于当年十月在《耶鲁杂志(The Yale Review)》上刊印出版，随后就被收录到弗罗斯特的一本名为 《新罕布什尔州(New Hampshire)》的诗集中。 2诗歌翻译： Nothing gold can stay 岁月留金 Nature's first green is gold, 大自然的第一抹新绿是金， Her hardest hue to hold. 也是她最无力保留的颜色.。 Her early leaf's a flower; 她初发的叶子如同一朵花,; But only so an hour. 不过只能持续若此一刹那。 Then leaf subsides leaf, 随之如花新叶沦落为旧叶。 So Eden sank to grief. 由是伊甸园陷入忧伤悲切， So down gose down to day, 破晓黎明延续至晃晃白昼。 Nothing gold can stay. 宝贵如金之物岁月难保留。 3诗歌赏析：这首诗揭示了一切真切而美好的事物最终定会逐渐消失的哲理。它同时也使用了独特的技巧来表现了季节的变化。想到了 小时了了，大未必佳。一切都是转瞬即逝的，浮世有的仅仅转丸般的 繁华。 二 the road not taken 1诗歌简介：这首名诗《The Road NotTaken》形式是传统的抑扬 格四音步，但音步可变(含有很多抑抑扬的成分);每节的韵式为abaab 。

了不起的盖茨比 论文

OUTLINE Abstract Key Words I. Introduction II. Background 2.1 Life Experience 2.2 Social Reality III. Use of Symbolism 3.1 The Symbolism of Name 3.1.1 Daisy 3.1.2 Gatsby 3.1.3 Tom 3.2 The Symbolism l of Setting 3.2.1 East Egg and West Egg 3.2.2 The Valley of Ashes 3.3.3The Eyes of Dr.T,J,Eckleburg 3.3 The Symbolism of Color 3.3.1 Green-Hope, Dream, Envy 3.3.2 Blue-Quiet Melancholy, Fantasy 3.3.3 Yellow (Golden) - Fame, Fortune,Fall 3.3.4 White-Purity, Indifference, Empty 3.3.5 Grey-Desolation Ruins Desperation Ⅳ. Conclusion Bibliography 中文标题、摘要、关键词

On the Function of the Symbolism in Expressing Theme of The Great Gatsby Author：xierongfeng Number：××× Tutor：liuguoying Abstract: F. Scott Fitzgerald, American novelist and short story writer, is widely consider the literary spokesman of the “jazz age”-the decade of the 1920s .In 1925, Fitzgerald published his masterpiece, The Great Gatsby .In this book, he employs all kinds of names, settings and colors as symbols to reflect the characteristics of the age and to deepen the theme of the work. The author of the paper mainly analyzes the function of the symbolism in manifesting the theme- disillusion of American dream-of the work from there aspects of the symbols-name, setting and color. Key Words: Symbolism; American dream; The Great Gatsby Ⅰ.Introduction F. Scott Fitzgerald was born in a not rich family, so he wanted to earn lots of money to become rich to enjoy high quality life. To satisfy his wife’s limitless requirements, he lived a very hard life. The tempo of his life slackened as his life was shredded by Zelda’s insanity and his own self-destructive alcoholism. Through years of emotional and physical collapse he struggled to repair his life by writing for Hollywood-producing at the same time a series of stories that exposed his humiliation there. He became one of the greatest writers in American literature and wrote many works in his lifetime to manifest the life reality of that time. He was a spokesman for the so-called Jazz Age, setting a personal as well as literary example for a generation whose first commandment was: Do what you will. He fell from favor as a writer when the indulgent decade of his triumph went down under the impact of a worldwide Depression in the 1930s. The Great Gatsby is regarded as his masterpiece. First published on April 10, 1925, the story is set in Long Island's North Shore and New York City during the summer of 1922. The novel tells of Gatsby ,an idealist , who tries to recapture his lost love but in vain and is finally destroyed by the influence of the wealthy people around him .The

了不起的盖茨比 女性形象解读

解读《了不起的盖茨比》中的女性形象 朱碧荣201314703004 ［摘要］作为爵士时代的代言人，菲茨杰拉德的小说《了不起的盖茨比》被公认为美国文学史上的经典之作，菲茨杰拉德在作品中描写了一个来自社会底层的青年人盖茨比的人生奋斗历程，同时作品也反映出在物质丰富和精神喧嚣的年代，在父权文化的压制下女性的生存空间依然狭窄，随着女权运动的兴起，在很多妇女恪守传统的同时新女性不断涌现它展现了一幅轻浮放浪、玩世不恭的女性群像。本文尝试从女性主义视角来分析解读《了不起的盖茨比》中的女性人物，并得出女性的自私、空虚、金钱至上等悲剧性格的根源在于物质至上主义的制度及作者的男权主义、厌女症和对新女性出现的恐惧。有助于女性反思自己的生存现状，追求经济和思想的独立，这也是小说了不起的盖茨比的现实意义所在。 ［关键词］父权文化; 女权运动; 新女性; 独立 《了不起的盖茨比》在美国最优秀的100 部小说中排名第二，而小说的作者也被誉为桂冠诗人的称号在小说中，作者以主人公盖茨比的人生奋斗历程为线索，描写了其爱情梦和财富梦的破灭，反映了美国梦的虚幻性。《了不起的盖茨比》在今天仍然具有非常重要的现实意义，在物质高度发达的美国社会，人们的精神迷失和道德崩溃是人物悲剧命运的根源，在小说中作者还塑造了很多自私虚荣追求物质享乐的寄生虫样的女性形象，她们的命运也以悲剧收场，同时作者还塑造了一个具有独立精神的新女性乔丹·贝克，在作品中，乔丹与其他的女性形象形成鲜明对比因此本文将通过对作品中的女性形象分析，来说明父权文化下传统女性的悲剧命运，以及在这种压制下，新女性正逐渐崛起从女性主义解读这部小说将有助于妇女反抗父权文化的压迫，勇敢地面对生活的挑战，从而找到属于自己的幸福。 一父权文化下女性的悲惨命运 父权文化在人类社会中具有很长的历史，《圣经》可以说是这种两性关系失衡的根源众所周知，在《圣经》中夏娃是上帝用亚当的一根肋骨制成，这为男女关系的失衡奠定了基础。从此，男人在男女关系中拥有至高无上的地位，男人作为支配者决定了女人的命运和人生价值，而女人只是男人的附属品。《了不起的盖茨比》创作于20 世纪20 年代，这一时期的美国经历了一段经济的快速发展时期，人们的物质生活富足安逸但是女性的社会地位依然低下，她们仍然保持着传统父权社会中的男女两性的关系特征，整个社会对女性的歧视和压迫仍非常普遍。［1］从《了不起的盖茨比》中我们可以非常容易解读出父权文化对女性的压迫。 小说中的女主人公黛西出身于上流社会，她美丽单纯，在众多的追求者中选择了青年军官盖茨比。黛西厌恶上流社会的虚荣、欺骗和无情，她本以为善良诚实的盖茨比是她将来人生的依靠。可是事实上，盖茨比向黛西隐瞒了他的社会底层的出身，单纯的黛西不过是他跻身于上流社会的最好的捷径。当黛西与盖茨比谈婚论嫁时，盖茨比却因军队的调遣远赴国外。伤心的黛西在心灰意冷的情况下，被家人安排要嫁给上流社会的富家子弟汤姆，而盖茨比根本无力实现他答应给予黛西幸福的承诺，在婚礼当天还给黛西写了一封祝贺信。而此时的黛西还在伤心欲绝地等待着盖茨比。黛西虽然出身高贵，衣食无忧，但是在一个父权制社会中，她却无力选择自己的幸福，而黛西婚后的生活更加显示了父权文化对女性的压迫。 黛西在嫁给汤姆之后，不久就发现她的丈夫对婚姻不忠汤姆与酒店的服务员有染的事

英文诗歌赏析翻译

《英语诗歌欣赏》课程教学诗选 Types of Poetry Unit one Nature The Pasture Robert Frost (1874–1963) I’M going out to clean the pasture spring; I’ll only stop to rake the leaves away (And wait to watch the water clear, I may): I shan’t be gone long.—You come too. I’m going out to fetch the little calf That’s standing by the mother. It’s so young, It totters when she licks it with her tongue. I shan’t be gone long.—You come too. 牧场 罗伯特·弗罗斯特 (1874–1963) 我去清一清牧场的泉水， 我只停下来把落叶全耙去 （还瞧着泉水变得明净—也许）； 我不会去得太久。—你也来吧。 我去把那幼小的牛犊抱来， 它站在母牛身边，小得可怜，一摇一晃，当母牛给她舔舔；我不会去得太久。—你也来吧。 （方平译） Daffodils William Wordsworth (1770-1850) I wondered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils;

《了不起的盖茨比》和美国现代社会

最新英语专业全英原创毕业论文，都是近期写作 1 《恋爱中的女人》人物及其人物关系的象征分析 2 侦探小说的发展 3 林语堂翻译思想探究——以《浮生六记》英译本为例 4 中英爱情谚语的隐喻研究及其翻译 5 一个典型的拜伦式英雄——论《呼啸山庄》中的希斯克利夫 6 A Comparative Analysis Between Pride and Prejudice and The Portrait of a Lady from the Perspective of Feminism 7 论《远离尘嚣》中女主人公的悲剧原因 8 论中西方思维方式的差异 9 美国战争电影的人性和文化透视－－以《拯救大兵瑞恩》为例 10 浅析《喜福会》中的中美文化碰撞与融合 11 From Dormancy to Revival—A Feminist Study on Kate Chopin’s Awakening 12 商务英语函电的语言和文体特征及其翻译 13 美国校园俚语发展的促动因素看美国的自由精神 14 Comparaison entre l’Histoire d’A Q et l’Etranger 15 中西方语言和文化间的相互影响 16 分析《要说出全部真理,但不能直说》中的标记用法 17 经济学视野下的《鲁滨逊漂流记》 18 文化负载词的翻译策略 19 试论英汉日常礼貌表达的异同 20 企业英文简介中的概念语法隐喻分析 21 两个反叛的女人——姚木兰和斯佳丽之对比分析 22 非言语交际在中西文化中的差异 23 从中美数字谚语看中美文化的差异 24 浅析《汤姆叔叔的小屋》中黑奴的命运 25 对《红字》中完美人性的求索－－浅析海斯特与丁梅斯代尔的自我思想较量与精神升华 26 英语阅读理解中的若干信息处理手段 27 论《简爱》中话语的人际意义 28 论中美商务沟通中的跨文化意识 29 从传统消费观念看中美文化差异 30 Cultural Influences on Business Negotiation between China and Japan 31 美国个人主义对民众生活信念的影响－－以电影《当幸福来敲门》为例 32 论商标翻译的原则及策略 33 英汉语篇中的省略衔接手段对比及其翻译方法——以《雪》译文为例 34 李宁的品牌推广 35 浅析《宠儿》中塞丝背上的树的形象 36 A Study of Intertextuality in Advertising Text 37 寻找自我——从女性意识角度解读《觉醒》 38 An analysis of Female Images in The House on Mango Street from the Perspective of Feminism 39 阅读中的英语词汇教学策略 40 An Analysis of Female Images in The Thorn Birds

了不起的盖茨比经典句子中英文

，摘录书中比较经典的句子：菲茨杰拉德的《了不起的盖茨比》Chapter 1 每当你觉得想要批评什么人的时候，你切要记着，这个世界上的人并非都具备你禀有的1. 条件。Whenever you feel like criticizing any one, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had. 人们的善恶感一生下来就有差异。2.A sense of the fundamental decencies is parceled out unequally at birth. 不过超过一定的限度，有的好像建筑在泥沼里，3.人们的品行有的好像建筑在坚硬的岩石上，我就不在乎它建在什么之上了。Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes, but after a certain point I don't care what it's founded on.Chapter 2 一定让街头偶尔我们这排高高地俯瞰着城市的灯火通明的窗户，这时，天色已经暗了下来，举头望我也是这样的一个过路人，抬头眺望的人感到了，人类的秘密也有其一份在这里吧，同时又被其排斥着诧异着。我既在事内又在事外，几杯永无枯竭的五彩纷呈的生活所吸引，着。Yet high over the city our line of yellow windows must have contributed their share of human and looking up and I was him too, streets, secrecy to the casual watcher in the darkening the by enchanted without, simultaneously and repelled wondering. I was within and inexhaustible variety of life. Chapter 3 他理解体谅地笑了——这笑比理解和体谅有更多的含义。这是那种不多见的使你忐忑不1. 先是再一刹安的情绪能很快地平静下来的笑，这种笑容人的一生中顶多能碰上四五次。它那间面对——或者说似乎在面对——整个外部世界，然后他就全副心神地倾注到你的身上，人理解的那么多，它对你的对你充满一种不可抵御的偏爱之情。它对你的理解恰是你想被它叫你确信它对你的印象恰是你所希望造信任恰像你平时愿意对自己所信任到的那种程度，成的那么多。smiles rare those understandingly. It was one of much He smiled understandingly—more than with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, which you may come across four or five times in life. It the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on —faced—or seemed to faceyou with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey. 每个人都认为他自己至少具有一种主要的美德，我的美德是：我是我所结识过的少有的几2. 个诚实人中间的一个。Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people I have ever known. Chapter 4 世界上只有被追求者和追求者，忙碌者和疲惫者。 There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired. Chapter 5 他怀着一种创造性的情感将自己全身心地投入到它的中间，不断地为它增添内容，用飘浮到他路上的每一根漂亮羽毛去装扮它。有谁知道在一个人的波诡云谲的心里，能蓄下多少火一1 / 3 样的激情和新鲜的念头。 He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.

初中英文诗歌带翻译赏析

初中英文诗歌带翻译赏析 【篇一】初中英文诗歌带翻译赏析 A Coat by William Butler Yeats I made my song a coat Covered with embroideries Out of old mythologies From heel to throat; But the fools caught it, Wore it in the world’s eyes As though they’d wrought it. Song, let them take it, For there’s more enterprise In walking naked. 外套 威廉?巴特勒?叶芝(着) 我用古老的神话作为衣料， 为我的歌缝制一件外套， 上面铺满刺绣， 层层秘密，从头到脚; 可是愚蠢的人们把它夺去， 穿起来在世人面前炫耀， 似乎是他们亲手织造。

让他们拿走吧，歌啊，没有衣服更好， 因为裸体行走， 需要胆识更加高超。 【篇二】初中英文诗歌带翻译赏析 初恋的感觉 I never was struck before that hour With love so sudden and so sweet Her face it bloomed like a sweet flower And stole my heart way complete My face turned pale as dealy pale My legs refused to walk away And when she looked” what could I ail?”. My life and all seemed turned to clay. 我在这之前从未如此之震惊 这份爱情是如此的突然如此的甜蜜 她的脸庞像一朵盛开的鲜花 将我的心儿全部个的偷走了 我的脸颊变得像死者似地苍白 我的腿再也迈步不出任何步伐 但当她看我的时候我怎能感到丝毫的痛苦 我的生命以及一切都变的犹如黄土 And took my eyesight qyite away.

了不起的盖茨比读后感(英文)

What Makes The Great Gatsby Great？ Recently, I have read a classical novel, The Great Gatsby, Francis Key Fitzgerald is the author, who is one of the most outstanding writers in 20th century. I think all the plots in the novel are similar to the something happens in the today’s society. The story is told by Nick(Daisy’s cousin),who witnesses a lot the ugly aspects of the society and human characters. Here is the story goes: Tom and Daisy married for a time and live in East Egg. In their opposite, living a very great wealthy man, called Gatsby. He hold parties day and night and get famous for this. Actually, Daisy and Gatsby fell in love a few years ago. At that time, Gatsby was very poor and dispatched into Europe because of war. Then, they broke up and Daisy married Tom, the second-generation rich. Latter, Gatsby comes back with social position and big fortunate, and he continues loving Daisy. At a car accident, Daisy kills the Tom’s mistress. To protect Daisy, Gatsby takes all the responsibility of the accident. Finally, Wilson (the husband of mistress) shoots Gatsby under the instigation of Tom. And Tom and Daisy set foot on Europe’s travelling. I think everyone feels pity for the Gatsby, for his infatuation to Daisy and for his foolish love, like the following two descriptions.①“--Was Daisy driving? ---Yes, he said after a moment, but of course I’ll say I was.”(p154) ②“the chauffeur –he was one of Wolfshiem’s

了不起的盖茨比 中英文台词对照

1、每当你觉得想要批评什么人的时候，你切要记着，这个世界上的人并非都具备你禀有的条件。Whenever you feel like criticizing any one, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had. 2、人们的善恶感一生下来就有差异。 A sense of the fundamental decencies is parceled out unequally at birth. 3、人们的品行有的好像建筑在坚硬的岩石上，有的好像建筑在泥沼里，不过超过一定的限度，我就不在乎它建在什么之上了。Conduct may be founded on the hard rock or the wet marshes, but after a certain point I don't care what it's founded on. 4、这时，天色已经暗了下来，我们这排高高地俯瞰着城市的灯火通明的窗户，一定让街头偶尔抬头眺望的人感到了，人类的秘密也有其一份在这里吧，我也是这样的一个过路人，举头望着诧异着。我既在事内又在事外，几杯永无枯竭的五彩纷呈的生活所吸引，同时又被其排斥着。Yet high over the city our line of yellow windows must have contributed their share of human secrecy to the casual watcher in the darkening streets, and I was him too, looking up and wondering. I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life. 5、他理解体谅地笑了——这笑比理解和体谅有的含义。这是那种不多见的使你忐忑不安的情绪能很快地平静下来的笑，这种笑容人的一生中顶多能碰上四五次。它先是再一刹那间面对——或者说似乎在面对——整个外部世界，然后他就全副心神地倾注到你的身上，对你充满一种不可抵御的偏爱之情。它对你的理解恰是你想被人理解的那么多，它对你的信任恰像你平时愿意对自己所信任到的那种程度，它叫你确信它对你的印象恰是你所希望造成的那么多。He smiled understandingly——much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, which you may come across four or five times in life. It faced—or seemed to face—the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it h ad precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hope to convey. 7、世界上只有被追求者和追求者，忙碌者和疲惫者。There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired. 8、他怀着一种创造性的情感将自己全身心地投入到它的中间，不断地为它增添内容，用飘浮到他路上的每一根漂亮羽毛去装扮它。有谁知道在一个人的波诡云谲的心里，能蓄下多少火一样的激情和新鲜的念头。He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.