阅·思| 【2023级11班】Thematic Symbols of The Great Gatsby

  F. Scott Fitzgerald coined the term "Jazz Age" to describe America's decadent and prosperous decade in the 1920s, also known as the Roaring Twenties.

   After the end of World War I in 1918, the United States and much of the rest of the world experienced a huge economic expansion. The booming economy turned the '20s into an era of quick money, heavy drinking (despite the constitutional amendment to prohibition) and lavish parties.

   Although the '20s were a time of great optimism, Fitzgerald portrays the darker side of revelry by focusing on its indulgences, hypocrisies, superficial recklessness, and its dangerous and even deadly consequences.

The American Dream used to tell that hard work could make a man a self-made man. It has been a central part of the American identity since its inception. Settlers from Europe came west to America in search of wealth and freedom. The pioneers headed west for the same reason.

   The novel shows the tide turning east, as large numbers of Westerners flock to New York City in search of stock market riches. The novel describes this shift as a symbol of disillusionment with the American dream. It is no longer about building a vision of life, but just about getting rich.

  Gatsby is a symbol of both the corrupted dream and the original uncorrupted dream.He sees wealth as a solution to problems, pursues money through devious means, and reinvents himself so completely that he becomes empty and disconnected from the past.

  However, Gatsby's dream of wealth is out of pure love for Daisy. Gatsby's failure is not proof of the folly of the American dream, but of the folly of shortening it by the pursuit of luxury over hard work, integrity, and true love.

  The green light is located at the end of Daisy's East Egg Dock, barely visible from the Gatsby West Egg Lawn. Green is traditionally associated with money.

 Chapter 1: The green light represents Gatsby's hopes and dreams for the future. Gatsby associates it with Daisy, to whom he reaches out his hand in the dark, seeing it as a beacon to guide him toward his goals.

   Chapter 5: The green light is clearly seen this time, and since Gatsby's pursuit of Daisy is broadly related to the American Dream, the green light also symbolizes a more universal ideal.

   Chapter 9: The dream has fallen behind him, on the vast land west of New York, on the endless American fields under the dark night. Gatsby did not realize his dream in the end.

   West Egg on Long Island, New York, is home to the "new rich" who make new money, that is, the nouveau Riche, while East Egg on the other side of the river is home to the traditional American elite. There is a huge gulf between the two.

   Nick describes the novel as a book about Westerners, a "story of the West". Tom, Daisy, Jordan, Gatsby and Nick all come from outside the East.

   The division of the eastern and western regions of the United States is reflected in the book as the division of the East egg and the West egg. Once again, Westerners came to the forefront of people's wealth, but the hearts of these "Westerners" were as empty and corrupt as those of the "Easterners."

  The novel depicts three different social classes: "Old Money" (Tom and Daisy Buchanan); "New Money" (Gatsby); There is also a course that might be called "No Money" (George and Myrtle Wilson).

   "Old Money" families with wealth from the 19th century or earlier have built strong and influential social connections, often hiding their wealth and sense of superiority behind a facade of politeness. The "new rich" class, who made their fortunes during the boom years of the 1920s and therefore had no social connections, tended to overcompensate for this lack by squandering their wealth.

   The novel unfolds in the struggle between Gatsby and Tom over Daisy.The newly developed class competition between "old" and "new" money. As usual, the "no money" classes were ignored by the upper struggle, while the lower and middle classes like George Wilson were forgotten or ignored.

   Located between New York City and West Egg, Ash Valley is an industrial wasteland covered in ash and soot. If New York represented "all the mystery and beauty of the world," and West Egg represented those who got rich in the booming economy of the 1920s, Ash Valley represented the tragic destruction of those caught in the middle.That's where Daisy killed Myrtle. It also represents the "no money" class.

   On the billboards overlooking the Valley of Ashes, Dr. T. Eckberg's eyes represent many things at once: to Nick, they seem to symbolize the lingering waste of the past, which, though irretrievably gone, still lingers, as does Dr. Eckberg's medical practice.

   The eye can also be associated with Gatsby, whose own eyes were once described as "empty", often staring out, keeping a "vigil" (Fitzgerald's term applied to the eyes of Dr. Eckberg and Gatsby) over the Long Island Sound and the green. For George Wilson, Dr. Eckelberg's eyes are God's eyes, and he says God's eyes see everything.