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Abstract：Francis Scott Fitzgerald is one of the greatest novelists in American literature. His excitably visionary sensibility, nourished in high school years by Catholic mysticism, fashioned him into a superbly perceptive critic in the 1920s.He achieved splendid artistic success with his masterpiece The Great Gatsby. This paper, taking the archetypal criticism and The Bible as the theoretical bedrock, attempts to perform sufficient analysis on the biblical themes in this novel. These biblical elements greatly add to the readability and profundity of the novel and further enrich its connotations.
Key words: Bible；themes；Fitzgerald；The Great Gatsby
One of Fitzgerald’s main aims is to show the reader that the world he illustrates in The Great Gatsby includes both despicable sin and substantial innocence, dazzling wealth and tragic emptiness, moral corruption and redemption, all of which are evident in American society of the 1920s. Fitzgerald in his work depicts the wealthy upper class. Straight away we see there are many contradictions, as the glittering surface impression of these wealthy people conceals their true nature as an immoral, careless and unsympathetic society. Moreover, these contradictions carry the features of The Bible, and reveal the themes of his work from a much deeper perspective.
一、Sin and innocence
The Bible is continually contrasting sin and innocence. Jesus is a prominent example of complete innocence for he has no sin. Furthermore, all followers of Christianity are to compare their innocence to Jesus, finding themselves sinners. Innocence can be defined as freedom from sin, moral wrong through lack of knowledge.
Tom has a mistress (Myrtle) who he seems to parade when he went to New York and he has had many mistresses since he married Daisy. Most people will have seen this as a moral wrong but Tom does not believe that he is hurting anybody. When Tom seems to realize what he has been doing and how Daisy has turned against him, he tries to assert his authority and says that Daisy will not leave him. Then soon afterwards Myrtle is killed by Daisy when she is driving back with Gatsby as Myrtle thinks that Tom is driving the car so she wants to get away from her dull husband, Mr. Wilson. Tom believes that it is Gatsby’s fault and tells this to Mr. Wilson, who in turn murders Gatsby. Even though, Tom does not blame himself for all he has done.
The second definition of innocence, freedom from guile, cunning or deceit, can be applied mostly to Gatsby. Gatsby lies to protect his history, which can ruin his chances to be with Daisy if it goes out. But later on when he asks Tom to set up a date with Daisy he shows that he is in the hope by trying to “steal” Daisy away from Tom. He meticulously plans on trying to get Daisy by inviting her to parties; he goes out on mini-dates with her. He does all this to regain a love that he has experienced in his youth. This shows how Gatsby loses his innocence. Apart from the end of the characters innocence we can also look at the end of the search for innocence. By lusting after Daisy, Gatsby wanted to be with her because he wanted to return to a simpler time, when he is innocent. So in fact his desire for Daisy is just a search for innocence and a return to a time when he is younger. In doing so he wants to recapture his ‘inseparable’ relation between him and Daisy. But ultimately he fails in trying to do so as Daisy betrays him again. Gatsby’s search for innocence ends, for as long as he is alive there is still a chance for him to regain his innocence but his death signals the end of innocence for him.
As readers, we feel hard to define innocence and sin for all those characters, but we feel that sin seems hard to avoid and innocence is easily lost in everyone in that age.
二、Wealth and emptiness
According to The Bible, a person’s value should be judged by their actions and not by money or possessions. Jesus taught that wealth encourages greed and selfishness and doesn’t lead to true happiness. Christians believe that wealth sometimes can be used for good or evil, and so, in itself it is not a bad thing. Also Christians should believe that materialism is wrong, this means believing in more than money and possessions, more on deeper worth’s such as justice and compassion.
Money affects different people in different ways in The Great Gatsby.Wealth can be distinguished from class; it is possible to achieve great wealth without being accepted into the elite class, as evidenced by Jay Gatsby’s experience. For Gatsby, it means that he will finally have a chance at getting Daisy.Poverty, on the other hand, restricts decision and action. George Wilson, for example, is unable to “go West” with his wife because he does not have enough money. It is money that allowed Tom and Daisy to go here and there, leaving other people to clean up their messes. The life of ease and luxury that Tom and others enjoyed is contrasted sharply with the stranglehold of poverty containing Myrtle and George Wilson or the life from which Jay Gatsby emerged. Wealth is what separated Gatsby from his love, as he noted of Daisy that “her voice is full of money.” His love of Daisy inspired him to devote his life to the acquisition of wealth. Gatsby gains wealth to impress Daisy, he has what is considered “new money”, and he tries to hide his wealth from people so that Daisy will not find out. But finally, as if doomed by The Bible, Gatsby’s money does not bring him what he has longing for. The end result of the novel is money does not bring happiness. One can say that because of Gatsby’s dishonesty, nothing but collapse comes at the end of the novel. The Great Gatsby serves as an example of the negative view of money and gross materialism which result in emptiness in the modernist era.
三、Demoralization and redemption
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is not only about the tragic love of a man and a woman. Beneath that main story however, it is actually about the moral decline of the 1920’s, when money and material are placed above morals and virtue. Fitzgerald views the cities as the beginning of this demoralization, because we can find in this novel, the narrator, Nick, quickly sees how materialistic, vain, and selfish the people of New York are the first time when he exposed to this wealthy urban society. The City in The Bible is also viewed as implications for urban ministry. And the city, over against the wilderness of devoted nomads or the rural landscape of faithful peasants, is said by some to be the center of wickedness.
In the society of the lost ideals, Gatsby is a hot and romantic idealist, and his marvelous genius to the hope and romance has made him turn a blind eye to American cruel social reality and desperately seeks after impractical romantic love. The novel really responded to the struggle for statuses between the new noble men and the old groups. Tom and Daisy were extreme egoists and real materialist. Because of Tom’s conspiracy and Daisy’s betrayal, Gatsby’s death is tragic.
In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald leaves room for redemption. Gatsby dreams of gaining Daisy’s love and then the two of them can live happily ever after. This simple dream, unlike all other dreams presented in the novel, has not been corrupted by the hunger for material wealth and is a true and pure dream. When Gatsby dreams bout this, he is killed in the swimming pool. We know that water is an important symbol representing baptism and redemption in western conventional awareness. Finally, Gatsby’s murder in the swimming pool is portrayed as a process of redemption, which is of great religious importance. Shot in his chlorinated pool, Gatsby overcomes his shortcomings and is “cleansed” of his sins.
Conclusion
The Great Gatsby, endowed with biblical elements is a general criticism. This paper, taking archetype criticism as its theoretical base, offers an interpretation of the themes in The Great Gatsby. And we can naturally sense the influence of The Bible on Fitzgerald and his novel The Great Gatsby. The more we read the novel, the more we find its far-sightedness and profound insight. By full use of his writing talent, Fitzgerald reveals his criticism of the reality of American society of the Jazz Age.
Bibliography：
1.Bicknell, John. Virginia Quarterly Review: The Waste Land of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Virginia: University of Virginia, 1954: 556-572.
2.Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby [M]. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
3.董衡巽.《美国现代小说家》[M].北京:中国社会科学出版社,1987.
4.菲茨杰拉德(美).《了不起的盖茨比》[M].姚乃强译.北京:人民文学出版社,2004.
5.弗莱(加).批评的解剖[M].陈慧等译,天津:百花文艺出版社,2006.
6.海伦·加德纳(英).《宗教与文学》[M].沈弘等译,成都:四川人民出版社,1989.
7.胡经之,张首映.《西方二十世纪文论史》[M].北京:中国社会科学出版社,1988.
8.金丽.圣经与西方文学[M].北京:民族出版社,2007.
9.王长荣.《现代美国小说史》[M].上海:上海外语教育出版社,1992.
10.韦伯(德):新教伦理与资本主义精神[M].李修建,张云江译.北京:九州出版社,2006.
11吴建国.《菲茨杰拉德研究》[M].上海:上海外语教育出版社,2002.
12.27 June. 2009.
13.21 July. 2009.
Key words: Bible；themes；Fitzgerald；The Great Gatsby
One of Fitzgerald’s main aims is to show the reader that the world he illustrates in The Great Gatsby includes both despicable sin and substantial innocence, dazzling wealth and tragic emptiness, moral corruption and redemption, all of which are evident in American society of the 1920s. Fitzgerald in his work depicts the wealthy upper class. Straight away we see there are many contradictions, as the glittering surface impression of these wealthy people conceals their true nature as an immoral, careless and unsympathetic society. Moreover, these contradictions carry the features of The Bible, and reveal the themes of his work from a much deeper perspective.
一、Sin and innocence
The Bible is continually contrasting sin and innocence. Jesus is a prominent example of complete innocence for he has no sin. Furthermore, all followers of Christianity are to compare their innocence to Jesus, finding themselves sinners. Innocence can be defined as freedom from sin, moral wrong through lack of knowledge.
Tom has a mistress (Myrtle) who he seems to parade when he went to New York and he has had many mistresses since he married Daisy. Most people will have seen this as a moral wrong but Tom does not believe that he is hurting anybody. When Tom seems to realize what he has been doing and how Daisy has turned against him, he tries to assert his authority and says that Daisy will not leave him. Then soon afterwards Myrtle is killed by Daisy when she is driving back with Gatsby as Myrtle thinks that Tom is driving the car so she wants to get away from her dull husband, Mr. Wilson. Tom believes that it is Gatsby’s fault and tells this to Mr. Wilson, who in turn murders Gatsby. Even though, Tom does not blame himself for all he has done.
The second definition of innocence, freedom from guile, cunning or deceit, can be applied mostly to Gatsby. Gatsby lies to protect his history, which can ruin his chances to be with Daisy if it goes out. But later on when he asks Tom to set up a date with Daisy he shows that he is in the hope by trying to “steal” Daisy away from Tom. He meticulously plans on trying to get Daisy by inviting her to parties; he goes out on mini-dates with her. He does all this to regain a love that he has experienced in his youth. This shows how Gatsby loses his innocence. Apart from the end of the characters innocence we can also look at the end of the search for innocence. By lusting after Daisy, Gatsby wanted to be with her because he wanted to return to a simpler time, when he is innocent. So in fact his desire for Daisy is just a search for innocence and a return to a time when he is younger. In doing so he wants to recapture his ‘inseparable’ relation between him and Daisy. But ultimately he fails in trying to do so as Daisy betrays him again. Gatsby’s search for innocence ends, for as long as he is alive there is still a chance for him to regain his innocence but his death signals the end of innocence for him.
As readers, we feel hard to define innocence and sin for all those characters, but we feel that sin seems hard to avoid and innocence is easily lost in everyone in that age.
二、Wealth and emptiness
According to The Bible, a person’s value should be judged by their actions and not by money or possessions. Jesus taught that wealth encourages greed and selfishness and doesn’t lead to true happiness. Christians believe that wealth sometimes can be used for good or evil, and so, in itself it is not a bad thing. Also Christians should believe that materialism is wrong, this means believing in more than money and possessions, more on deeper worth’s such as justice and compassion.
Money affects different people in different ways in The Great Gatsby.Wealth can be distinguished from class; it is possible to achieve great wealth without being accepted into the elite class, as evidenced by Jay Gatsby’s experience. For Gatsby, it means that he will finally have a chance at getting Daisy.Poverty, on the other hand, restricts decision and action. George Wilson, for example, is unable to “go West” with his wife because he does not have enough money. It is money that allowed Tom and Daisy to go here and there, leaving other people to clean up their messes. The life of ease and luxury that Tom and others enjoyed is contrasted sharply with the stranglehold of poverty containing Myrtle and George Wilson or the life from which Jay Gatsby emerged. Wealth is what separated Gatsby from his love, as he noted of Daisy that “her voice is full of money.” His love of Daisy inspired him to devote his life to the acquisition of wealth. Gatsby gains wealth to impress Daisy, he has what is considered “new money”, and he tries to hide his wealth from people so that Daisy will not find out. But finally, as if doomed by The Bible, Gatsby’s money does not bring him what he has longing for. The end result of the novel is money does not bring happiness. One can say that because of Gatsby’s dishonesty, nothing but collapse comes at the end of the novel. The Great Gatsby serves as an example of the negative view of money and gross materialism which result in emptiness in the modernist era.
三、Demoralization and redemption
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is not only about the tragic love of a man and a woman. Beneath that main story however, it is actually about the moral decline of the 1920’s, when money and material are placed above morals and virtue. Fitzgerald views the cities as the beginning of this demoralization, because we can find in this novel, the narrator, Nick, quickly sees how materialistic, vain, and selfish the people of New York are the first time when he exposed to this wealthy urban society. The City in The Bible is also viewed as implications for urban ministry. And the city, over against the wilderness of devoted nomads or the rural landscape of faithful peasants, is said by some to be the center of wickedness.
In the society of the lost ideals, Gatsby is a hot and romantic idealist, and his marvelous genius to the hope and romance has made him turn a blind eye to American cruel social reality and desperately seeks after impractical romantic love. The novel really responded to the struggle for statuses between the new noble men and the old groups. Tom and Daisy were extreme egoists and real materialist. Because of Tom’s conspiracy and Daisy’s betrayal, Gatsby’s death is tragic.
In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald leaves room for redemption. Gatsby dreams of gaining Daisy’s love and then the two of them can live happily ever after. This simple dream, unlike all other dreams presented in the novel, has not been corrupted by the hunger for material wealth and is a true and pure dream. When Gatsby dreams bout this, he is killed in the swimming pool. We know that water is an important symbol representing baptism and redemption in western conventional awareness. Finally, Gatsby’s murder in the swimming pool is portrayed as a process of redemption, which is of great religious importance. Shot in his chlorinated pool, Gatsby overcomes his shortcomings and is “cleansed” of his sins.
Conclusion
The Great Gatsby, endowed with biblical elements is a general criticism. This paper, taking archetype criticism as its theoretical base, offers an interpretation of the themes in The Great Gatsby. And we can naturally sense the influence of The Bible on Fitzgerald and his novel The Great Gatsby. The more we read the novel, the more we find its far-sightedness and profound insight. By full use of his writing talent, Fitzgerald reveals his criticism of the reality of American society of the Jazz Age.
Bibliography：
1.Bicknell, John. Virginia Quarterly Review: The Waste Land of F. Scott Fitzgerald, Virginia: University of Virginia, 1954: 556-572.
2.Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby [M]. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
3.董衡巽.《美国现代小说家》[M].北京:中国社会科学出版社,1987.
4.菲茨杰拉德(美).《了不起的盖茨比》[M].姚乃强译.北京:人民文学出版社,2004.
5.弗莱(加).批评的解剖[M].陈慧等译,天津:百花文艺出版社,2006.
6.海伦·加德纳(英).《宗教与文学》[M].沈弘等译,成都:四川人民出版社,1989.
7.胡经之,张首映.《西方二十世纪文论史》[M].北京:中国社会科学出版社,1988.
8.金丽.圣经与西方文学[M].北京:民族出版社,2007.
9.王长荣.《现代美国小说史》[M].上海:上海外语教育出版社,1992.
10.韦伯(德):新教伦理与资本主义精神[M].李修建,张云江译.北京:九州出版社,2006.
11吴建国.《菲茨杰拉德研究》[M].上海:上海外语教育出版社,2002.
12.27 June. 2009
13.21 July. 2009