摘 要

《了不起的盖茨比》是二十世纪二十年代美国作家、“爵士时代”的桂冠诗人弗朗西斯·司各特·基·菲茨杰拉德的代表作，被众评论家誉为美国最杰出现实主义作品。小说细腻而准确地展现了20世纪20年代美国的社会风貌。本文从身份重构这一角度出发，首先简要介绍了作者以及这部小说的基本情况，然后尝试探讨分析两个主人公盖茨比和黛西的身份重构方式和身份重构失败的原因，最终得出结论：只有实现自我的物质追求和精神追求相平衡，才能找到自我归属感和真正的社会身份。

关键词：菲茨杰拉德;《了不起的盖茨比》；身份重构；美国梦；自我实现

Contents

1. Introduction………………………………………………………………………....1

1.1. A brief introduction to the author and The Great Gatsby………………………....1

1.2. A brief introduction to identity reconstruction……………………………………2

2. Demonstration……………………………………………………………...……….5

2.1. Different acts of reconstructing identity of the character…………………………5

2.1.1. Reconstructing identity of Daisy……………………………...……………...…5

2.1.2. Reconstructing identity of Gatsby………………………………………………6

2.2. Reasons for failure in identity reconstruction…………………………………….8

2.2.1. Effects of consumerism on identity reconstruction……………………………. 9

2.2.2. Division between social and economic classes……………….……………….10

2.2.3. Loss of moral values………………....…......................................................... 11

2.3. Real self-fulfillment of identity reconstruction……..…………………..……… 11

2.3.1. Correct direction……………………………………………………….....…... 12

2.3.2. Balance between material desire and spiritual pursuit...………………………13

1. Conclusion…………………………………………………………………........... 14

Works Cited…………………………………………………………………..............15

Bibliography………………………………………………………………….............16

A Brief Analysis of Identity Reconstruction in The Great Gatsby

1. Introduction
   1. A brief introduction to the author and The Great Gatsby

F·Scott·Fitzgerald (September 24,1896-December 21,1940) was born in 1896 in Saint Paul, Minnesota. He was a shining star in American literature circle in the 1920s. Regarded as the outstanding representative of the “Lost Generation”, Fitzgerald created a large amount of works that present a panorama of the American society of the Jazz Age. His works revealed the living history of “the roaring twenties”, and presented the scene of feasting and revelry, overnight parties and carnivals in his time. The heroes of his stories were the fashionable, advanced and rebellious flappers and the wealthy, lavish, hedonistic “rich boys”. Acting as a photographer of history, F. Scott Fitzgerald depicted the young generation’s depression, loss and their cynical but helpless revolt to the strange world in the era of social transformation. Fitzgerald’s deep awareness of the leading role that money played in consumer society originated from his father’s business bankruptcy and his several setbacks in love and academy owing to shortage of money in Princeton. These experiences not only urged him to pursue fortune, but also shaped his consumerist attitudes towards life. Fitzgerald fell victim in roaring twenties. He and his wife Zelda indulged themselves in the extravagant life in the Jazz Age, intoxicated with the happiness and satisfaction brought by lavish consumption. They attended numerous lavish feastings and travelled around Europe and built relationships with the social celebrities. During the Great Depression in the 1930s, he suffered from heavy financial burden because of his decreased income and his wife’s medical treatment. To ease the spiritual pressure caused by declining quality of his writing and bankruptcy, he became addicted to alcohol. From this angle, it is not hard to understand why in Fitzgerald’s stories there was usually a struggle between wealth as fluid income and wealth as an inherited and solid possession, or rather, it was between a man and a woman as representatives of the new and the old money classes. A poor but ambitious boy is attracted to a Golden Girl, and his efforts to improve his economic and social status are inseparably interwoven with his romantic quest of the girl.

The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald’s magnum opus, focuses on presenting realistic image of American life in the 1920s when jazz music blossomed, the flapper redefined modern womanhood, unprecedented industry developed and consumer demand and aspirations accelerated. In this period, a man named Gatsby tries to win back her wartime lover Daisy by recreating his social identity. Regarded as the crowning achievement of Fitzgerald’s literary career, The Great Gatsby not only bespeaks the ambiance of the Jazz Age but also raises the questions of declining traditional values in the face of increasing wealth and happiness. Don Birnam, the protagonist of Charles Jackson’s The Lost Weekend, says to himself, referring to Gatsby, “There’s no such thing…as a flawless novel. But if there is, this is it” (Jackson 136). The main theme of The Great Gatsby is the American Dream which experienced a steep decline in the 1920s when people were infatuated with the material possessions. In Epic of America by James Truslow Adams (1878-1949), American Dream was described as the values of “being able to grow to the fullest development of men and women, unhampered by the barriers which has slowly being erected in older civilizations, unrepressed by social orders which have been erected for the benefit of classes rather than for the simple human of any and every class” (Adams 9). Succumbing to the pursuit of the so-called American Dream, or more exactly, the temptation of a higher social status, people described in The Great Gatsby then were indulged in amassing money and consuming material things lavishly as a means of displaying wealth and identity.

• 1. A brief introduction to identity reconstruction

Identity is the product of a particular culture and history and develops with the changes of society. The definition of identity in western academia has experienced three major changes with time passing by. In pre-modern time, the term identity highlighted blood lineage that we had no choice in our gender and were not able to decide our family backgrounds. Our destiny or identity was predetermined. In the age of Enlightenment, the scholar Descartes conducted prominent analyses and discussions on the issue of identity with his focus on the analysis of self-identity. Self-identity stressed the people themselves and their private experiences, which was the research object of enlightenment philosophy, phenomenology and existentialism. It meant that person’s self was founded on their thought. By the end of the 18^th century, with the development of sociology and social psychology, there emerged a new concept of identity, which placed a heavy emphasis on the crucial factors of social impact, individual existence, and social consciousness. From then on, identity began to pay attention to interaction between individual and society, and self and others. Complex social experiences may make various identity. As we can see, with the world becoming increasingly complex, individual’s identity can’t be determined by the single factor such as one’s noble family or one’s thoughts.