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The Great Gatsby’s theme goes far beyond a romantic scope that is the frustrated love between Gatsby and Daisy. It is more about a critical social history of America during the roaring twenties with its narrative.
As for the American Dream, that is as long as one works hard, he surely can become successful and fulfill his wishes, representing the romantic enlargement of the possibilities of the life, is an eternal subject in the USA. It permeates through every level of this nation, and occupies an especially important place in the American literature. And The Great Gatsby deals with the bankruptcy of the American Dream, which is highlighted by the disillusionment of the Gatsby’s personal dreams due to the clashes between their romantic vision of life and the sordid reality.
The term “Lost Generation”came from Gertrude Stein's remark to a mechanic in Hemingway's presence that “you are all a lost Generation”. Hemingway used it as a motto in his novel The Sun Also Rises, whose hero, the emasculated Jack Barnes, is often considered the archetypal man of the generation. Fitzgerald is surely considered one of the three best known members of the "Lost Generation" of the 1920s, which is also tagged as the Jazz Age and the Roaring Twenties. The young generation of this era was discontent with existing social reality, but they did not know what to do about it. Some of them accepted cynical hedonism and nihilism, saying “eat, drink, and be happy for tomorrow we shall die.”The Great Gatsby is the paradigmatic writing of the Jazz Age. In his own words, the Jazz Age “was an age of miracles, it was an age of art, it was an age of excess, and it was an age of satire”, “Here was a new generation, shouting the old cries, learning the old creeds, through a revelry of long days and nights; destined finally to go out into that dirty gray turmoil to follow love and pride; a new generation dedicated more than the last to the fear of poverty and the worship of success; grown up to find all Gods dead, all wars fought, all faiths in man shaken”. 1920s was an age of extreme riot and exaggeration. And during this period of time, the American Dream became distorted.
1.2 Literature Review
There are many intensive studies and discussions on The Great Gatsby since its publicity, starting from the text of this book, to the theme, textual structure, narrative technique and even some specific points, such as religion and feminism, and all these literary criticisms manifest the social and literary values of The Great Gatsby.
When The Great Gatsby got published, it attracted both readers and the critics. Many authors and critics admired The Great Gatsby as a great novel. Hemingway called it “an absolutely first rate book”. And T.S. Eliot commented on this book as that “ It seems to me to the first American fiction has taken since Henry James."(Meyers, 1994:131)
People’s comments on The Great Gatsby changed in Fitzgerald’s last decade while his reputation suffered a decline. However, ten years later after his death, new interest in Fitzgerald and his novels aroused, which could be clearly seen in Stanley Cooperman’s F.Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. According to Cooperman, starting from1960s and even after 1970s, Fitzgerald and his Great Gatsby had never failed to appeal to people not only in the United States but also all over the world. In 1985, Matthew J.Bruccoli intensively studied the symbolism of The Great Gatsby in his work New Essays on The Great Gatsby. He described The Great Gatsby "so much a permanent presence, a persistent influence that it is almost impossible to imagine contemporary American fiction without Jay Gatsby."(Bruccoli 2007:23)Giles Mitchell analyzed Gatsby’s characteristics in his The great narcissist: A study of Fitzgerald's Jay Gatsby. He argued Gatsby was a great narcissist and a Platonic idealist. Douglas Taylor attached the symbolism to the Bible in The Great Gatsby: Style and Myth. And Thomas Dilworth went further in his The Passion of Gatsby: Evocation of Jesus in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. He pointed out that Gatsby’s death was similar to Jesus crucifixion.