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【摘要】司各脫•菲茨杰拉德以《了不起的盖茨比》获得了艺术上的辉煌成就。他的叙事艺术充满了令人惊奇的手法。故事是通过一个小说情节中的人物讲述的，他所扮演的角色一半在小说之内，一半却在小说之外，这样菲茨杰拉德就避免了作者本人与作品中某个人物联系过于密切的错误。他的写作技巧可以从三个方面进行探讨：叙述角度，叙述方式及主题的展开。
【关键词】 写作技巧；叙述角度；叙述方式；主题展开
【中图分类号】G623.31【文献标识码】B 【文章编号】1001-4128（2010）11-0160-02
1 Point of View
1.1 The modified first-person
That The Great Gatsby is considered to be Fitzgerald’s masterpiece is largely due to its extraordinary and intricate pattern. Fitzgerald used the modified first person instead of omniscient point of view in the novel. Nick Carraway is placed in the novel as an observer and he is the key to the treatment of action,“ through whose gradually increasing knowledge of the facts we, the readers ,follow the story and sense its significance－a character whose reactions serve as an index to meaning”（Brooks, 2289）.
There are three methods by which Nick informs the reader of what is happening or has happened in The Great Gatsby: most of frequently he presents his own eye-witness account；often he presents the accounts of other people, sometimes in their words, sometimes in his own；occasionally he reconstructs an event from several sources— the newspapers ,servants, his own imagination—but present his own version as connected narrative. “Nick’s position is carefully justified in order to enable him to present an eye-witness account of this important incident”（Miller , 111）.Through this, Fitzgerald shows his quality as an artist.
1.2 Duality in the narrator’s status
Nick Carraway is the hardest character to understand in the book because he is the narrator and will therefore only give the reader an impression of himself that he would like to give. He himself is a paradox. He tells the reader that” I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known”, but he lies on several occasions. And on one hand he says “Gatsby ,who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn”, on the other hand he says “ Gatsby turns all right at the end”（Fitzgerald, 2）So it is all but impossible to get an accurate picture of Nick.
Nick embodies Fitzgerald as well as Gatsby. The Great Gatsby, to some extent is an autobiography. Nick is placed in the book through whom Fitzgerald expresses his own idea and position.” This is to go to the very heart of the matter, for in his serious work Fitzgerald could never stifle the part of himself that observed, analyzed and made moral judgments ”（Phelps, 336）.The success of The Great Gatsby lies in the fact that in his fiction it balanced the opposing forces in his nature. The balance is largely achieved through the presence of Jamesian point of view, that of the narrator Nick who, like his creator, is both fascinated and repelled by the world of the very rich, represented by Tom and Daisy Buchanan on one hand and by Jay Gatsby a poor mid-western boy grown rich on the proceeds of bootleg liquor, on the other.
2 The Manner of Representation
2.1 The order of narration
The order of narration in The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald has adopted is not simply chronological but cutting through some specific and representative events then putting them together as a whole.
Fitzgerald works backwards and forwards over his past until the complete portrait finally emerges at the end of the book. According to the time sequence, the order should be: the last Chapter which is about boyhood of Gatsby: Chapter VI when he was seventeen and joined Dan Cody’s yacht; Chapter IV, VI, VIII which are talking about his love affair with Daisy; Chapter VIII in which the author also talks about Gatsby’s war experiences and his trip back to Louisville; Chapter IX which tells about his mysterious occupation. The summer of 1922, the last summer of Gatsby’s life, acts as a string on to which these varicolored “beads” of his past have been “haphazardly” strung.
2.2 The form of The Great Gatsby
Nick’s technical function is to give focus and form to the story of Gatsby. He is in a strategic position to assemble bits of the jigsaw puzzle that is the story of Gatsby and Daisy even contributes to the story by bringing them together again after the five years of separation, thus initiating the immediate action of the novel. And he ends by burying Gatsby, thus asserting himself as the agent that defines the form of the novel. That form as distinguished from the mere narrative, is extraordinarily complex and one aspect of form that gives vitality to the whole is the contrast and tension between the simple story of Gatsby, as it might be if related chronologically, and the complexity of the process of discovery
2.3 Plot construction
In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald pays more attention to manipulate the plot in the middle of a narrative than to construct a plot on the macroscopic level. There are many examples that illustrate this fact. In Chapter 7, when Tom, Daisy, Gatsby and Nick make their expedition to New York City, Tom insists on driving Gatsby’s car. This is the first shift of cars; preparing for later. Similarly, the description of an incident that occurs at the end of one of Gatsby’s parties-in which a new couple leaving the party runs into a ditch-is anticipating the later. Fitzgerald laid the groundwork for plot development in the novel but also used parallel episodes to foreshadow future events.
3 The Development of the Theme
3.1 Application of symbolism
The theme of The Great Gatsby is not unique. One reviewer defined the theme “of a soiled or rather cheap personality transfigured and rendered pathetically appealing through the possession of a passionate idealism.” (Piper, 576). The major theme of the novel is the decline of the American Dream in the 1920s.
East and West Egg
One of the most important themes in the novel is class and social standing. It is a barrier for almost every character. East and West Egg act as a symbol of this in its physical makeup. Tom and Daisy live on the East, which is far more refined and well bred. Nick and Gatsby are on the West, which is for people who don't have any real standing, even if they have money. The barrier that the water creates between these worlds in symbolic of the barrier that keeps these people apart from one another and from much of what they want
Valley of Ashes:
The image of a barren wasteland of ashes provides a stark contrast to the lavish parties of Jay Gatsby. The Valley of Ashes symbolizes the moral decay that Fitzgerald saw behind the facade of wealth and happiness. It is in this dump that Mr. Tom Buchanan's mistress lived. It is fitting, then, that the valley is chosen as a setting The Valley of Ashes was based on the Corona dump in Queens. It was a swamp used as a landfill for ashes, manure, and other refuse.
The Green Light
The green light is a multi-faceted piece of symbolism in the book.Gatsby has spent his whole life longing for something better: money, success, acceptance, and Daisy. So the green light stands for all of Gatsby's longings and wants. And when Nick talks about the green light at the end of the book he says "It eluded us then, but that's no matter- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch our arms out farther....”. He connects the green light to all people. Everyone has something that they long and search for that is just off in the distance.
3.2 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.
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. Gatsby's climactic confrontation with Tom occurs on the hottest day of the summer, under the scorching sun. 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.The weather greatly reinforces the tension of the conflict, thus it creates the atmosphere to display the theme: hypocricy of the upper class, sharp conflicts between different classes, and so on.
Conclusion
The Great Gatsby is memorable, and over the years since its publication, it has established itself as an indispensable item in the literary as well as the social record. The success of this novel does not so much lie in the story itself but its skilful writing techniques. Fitzgerald’s craftsmanship is impeccable in this book. His writing techniques partly derived from Conrad and Dreiser greatly influenced many American writers after him.
References
［1］ Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. Ed. Mattew J. Bruccoli. NewYork: Scrinbers, 1992..
［2］ Brooks, Cleanth, R.W.B. Lewis, ＆ Robert Penn Warren. American Literature The Makers and The Making. 2 vols. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1973.
［3］ Miller, James E. F. Scott Fitzgerald His Art and His Technique. 2nd ed. New York: New York Univ. Press, 1957.
［4］ Piper, Henry Dan. F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Critical Portrait. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965.
【关键词】 写作技巧；叙述角度；叙述方式；主题展开
【中图分类号】G623.31【文献标识码】B 【文章编号】1001-4128（2010）11-0160-02
1 Point of View
1.1 The modified first-person
That The Great Gatsby is considered to be Fitzgerald’s masterpiece is largely due to its extraordinary and intricate pattern. Fitzgerald used the modified first person instead of omniscient point of view in the novel. Nick Carraway is placed in the novel as an observer and he is the key to the treatment of action,“ through whose gradually increasing knowledge of the facts we, the readers ,follow the story and sense its significance－a character whose reactions serve as an index to meaning”（Brooks, 2289）.
There are three methods by which Nick informs the reader of what is happening or has happened in The Great Gatsby: most of frequently he presents his own eye-witness account；often he presents the accounts of other people, sometimes in their words, sometimes in his own；occasionally he reconstructs an event from several sources— the newspapers ,servants, his own imagination—but present his own version as connected narrative. “Nick’s position is carefully justified in order to enable him to present an eye-witness account of this important incident”（Miller , 111）.Through this, Fitzgerald shows his quality as an artist.
1.2 Duality in the narrator’s status
Nick Carraway is the hardest character to understand in the book because he is the narrator and will therefore only give the reader an impression of himself that he would like to give. He himself is a paradox. He tells the reader that” I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known”, but he lies on several occasions. And on one hand he says “Gatsby ,who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn”, on the other hand he says “ Gatsby turns all right at the end”（Fitzgerald, 2）So it is all but impossible to get an accurate picture of Nick.
Nick embodies Fitzgerald as well as Gatsby. The Great Gatsby, to some extent is an autobiography. Nick is placed in the book through whom Fitzgerald expresses his own idea and position.” This is to go to the very heart of the matter, for in his serious work Fitzgerald could never stifle the part of himself that observed, analyzed and made moral judgments ”（Phelps, 336）.The success of The Great Gatsby lies in the fact that in his fiction it balanced the opposing forces in his nature. The balance is largely achieved through the presence of Jamesian point of view, that of the narrator Nick who, like his creator, is both fascinated and repelled by the world of the very rich, represented by Tom and Daisy Buchanan on one hand and by Jay Gatsby a poor mid-western boy grown rich on the proceeds of bootleg liquor, on the other.
2 The Manner of Representation
2.1 The order of narration
The order of narration in The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald has adopted is not simply chronological but cutting through some specific and representative events then putting them together as a whole.
Fitzgerald works backwards and forwards over his past until the complete portrait finally emerges at the end of the book. According to the time sequence, the order should be: the last Chapter which is about boyhood of Gatsby: Chapter VI when he was seventeen and joined Dan Cody’s yacht; Chapter IV, VI, VIII which are talking about his love affair with Daisy; Chapter VIII in which the author also talks about Gatsby’s war experiences and his trip back to Louisville; Chapter IX which tells about his mysterious occupation. The summer of 1922, the last summer of Gatsby’s life, acts as a string on to which these varicolored “beads” of his past have been “haphazardly” strung.
2.2 The form of The Great Gatsby
Nick’s technical function is to give focus and form to the story of Gatsby. He is in a strategic position to assemble bits of the jigsaw puzzle that is the story of Gatsby and Daisy even contributes to the story by bringing them together again after the five years of separation, thus initiating the immediate action of the novel. And he ends by burying Gatsby, thus asserting himself as the agent that defines the form of the novel. That form as distinguished from the mere narrative, is extraordinarily complex and one aspect of form that gives vitality to the whole is the contrast and tension between the simple story of Gatsby, as it might be if related chronologically, and the complexity of the process of discovery
2.3 Plot construction
In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald pays more attention to manipulate the plot in the middle of a narrative than to construct a plot on the macroscopic level. There are many examples that illustrate this fact. In Chapter 7, when Tom, Daisy, Gatsby and Nick make their expedition to New York City, Tom insists on driving Gatsby’s car. This is the first shift of cars; preparing for later. Similarly, the description of an incident that occurs at the end of one of Gatsby’s parties-in which a new couple leaving the party runs into a ditch-is anticipating the later. Fitzgerald laid the groundwork for plot development in the novel but also used parallel episodes to foreshadow future events.
3 The Development of the Theme
3.1 Application of symbolism
The theme of The Great Gatsby is not unique. One reviewer defined the theme “of a soiled or rather cheap personality transfigured and rendered pathetically appealing through the possession of a passionate idealism.” (Piper, 576). The major theme of the novel is the decline of the American Dream in the 1920s.
East and West Egg
One of the most important themes in the novel is class and social standing. It is a barrier for almost every character. East and West Egg act as a symbol of this in its physical makeup. Tom and Daisy live on the East, which is far more refined and well bred. Nick and Gatsby are on the West, which is for people who don't have any real standing, even if they have money. The barrier that the water creates between these worlds in symbolic of the barrier that keeps these people apart from one another and from much of what they want
Valley of Ashes:
The image of a barren wasteland of ashes provides a stark contrast to the lavish parties of Jay Gatsby. The Valley of Ashes symbolizes the moral decay that Fitzgerald saw behind the facade of wealth and happiness. It is in this dump that Mr. Tom Buchanan's mistress lived. It is fitting, then, that the valley is chosen as a setting The Valley of Ashes was based on the Corona dump in Queens. It was a swamp used as a landfill for ashes, manure, and other refuse.
The Green Light
The green light is a multi-faceted piece of symbolism in the book.Gatsby has spent his whole life longing for something better: money, success, acceptance, and Daisy. So the green light stands for all of Gatsby's longings and wants. And when Nick talks about the green light at the end of the book he says "It eluded us then, but that's no matter- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch our arms out farther....”. He connects the green light to all people. Everyone has something that they long and search for that is just off in the distance.
3.2 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.
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. Gatsby's climactic confrontation with Tom occurs on the hottest day of the summer, under the scorching sun. 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.The weather greatly reinforces the tension of the conflict, thus it creates the atmosphere to display the theme: hypocricy of the upper class, sharp conflicts between different classes, and so on.
Conclusion
The Great Gatsby is memorable, and over the years since its publication, it has established itself as an indispensable item in the literary as well as the social record. The success of this novel does not so much lie in the story itself but its skilful writing techniques. Fitzgerald’s craftsmanship is impeccable in this book. His writing techniques partly derived from Conrad and Dreiser greatly influenced many American writers after him.
References
［1］ Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. Ed. Mattew J. Bruccoli. NewYork: Scrinbers, 1992..
［2］ Brooks, Cleanth, R.W.B. Lewis, ＆ Robert Penn Warren. American Literature The Makers and The Making. 2 vols. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1973.
［3］ Miller, James E. F. Scott Fitzgerald His Art and His Technique. 2nd ed. New York: New York Univ. Press, 1957.
［4］ Piper, Henry Dan. F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Critical Portrait. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1965.