2。 Literature Review

After its first publication, The Great Gatsby did not achieve great success in publishing market whereas the comments it obtained were unprecedented。 Although in early comments critics did not find its merits, in general, people did speak highly of this novel。 Ruth Snyder stated that after reading The Great Gatsby, he believed Fitzgerald was not a great writer in contemporary America(Cheng 16)。 Besides, some critics pointed out its problems in characters, plots, diction, etc。 But on the other side, more and more critics noticed its excellence in artistic expression and the depth in thoughts。 Most importantly, some realized its "double vision", mysticism, modernism and so on。 People like Herbert S。 Gorman focused on "double vision", he once mentioned in New York Sun that Fitzgerald adorned the main character through onlookers’ participation and observation and through contemplative analysis"(Ibid。, 20-21)。 

It is considered that "the Fitzgerald Revival" was in 1941-1960, especially in 1950s, during which "the New Criticism" prevailed, many critics studied and made a thorough analysis on writing skills in this novel。 At that time, the interest in studying Fitzgerald kept increasing。 In a book named F。 Scott Fitzgerald: His Art and His Technique, James E。 Miller pointed out that in The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald abandoned omniscient narration and used first-person narrative to build a reality that omniscient narrator can not describe(Cheng 51)。 In 1960s to 1970s, a number of studies on narrative skills, text structure, symbolic meanings of colors emerged, including some articles criticizing Fitzgerald’s writing techniques。

Since then, the passion of studying Fitzgerald had been soaring, many monographs appeared in contemporary era。 For example, New Essays on The Great Gatsby of Matthew J。 Bruccoli, and Penguin Critical Studies: The Great Gatsby of Kathleen Parkinson, in which she made a comprehensive analysis of this novel’s background, structure, characters’ personalities and so forth。

In China, with the policy of "reform and opening up", translation and studies of foreign literature surged。 Dong Hengxun is the first scholar who studied Fitzgerald in mainland。 In A Brief History of American Literature written and edited by Dong, The Great Gatsby was believed to be the best one of Fitzgerald’s works, and its unique writing skills─double vision and the use of metaphor were detailed。 It is worth mentioning that in 2002 the first monograph on Fitzgerald in China was published: A Study on Fitzgerald by Wu Jianguo, which comprehensively introduced Fitzgerald’s life, works and studies on him。 The word "impersonal" was mentioned in this book, Wu pointed out that "most mysterious people in literature are impersonalized, there is no difference between their public and private life,they cannot escape from the environment they live in。In this sense, Gatsby is also impersonalized。"(Wu 178)

There are some essays which argue or mention “impersonality” as well。 For instance, in an paper named Analyzing Fitzgerald’s View of Artistic Form from the Narrative Form in The Great Gatsby by Ren Hujun, he talks about the impersonal narrative of Nick, and in another essay titled Interpreting The Great Gatsby from the Perspective of Narrative by Guo Minghe and Liu Lei, they mention that due to Nick’s limited vision, some narration is completed by “impersonal narrator”。来自优I尔Y论S文C网WWw.YoueRw.com 加QQ7520~18766

As noted above, we can see that no matter at home or abroad, among these treatises and monographs, those specializing in the application of "impersonality" in The Great Gatsby are rare; also, those that do have an analysis of impersonality are one-sided, that is, they only focus on Nick and his “double vision”, and little do they connect with the concept of “impersonality”。 In addition, impersonality is also reflected in emotional expression, the organization of Nick’s narration is the cause of dramatic irony, which refrains from the intrusion of author’s emotions and comments。 Therefore in this essay, the links among these factors will also be discussed。