the great gatsby读书报告

Disillusionment of the American Dream

——<The Great Gatsby>

Then wear the gold hat, if that will move her;

If you can bounce high, bounce for her too,

Till she cry ‘Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover,

I must have you!’

—THOMAS PARKE D’INVILLIERS

Author

Recently I read The Great Gatsby, because I have ever seen the movie, I think I could understand this book better.

About its author Francis Scott Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896 and died on December 21, 1940, was regarded as one of the most significant American writers in the twentieth century. He was one of the representative writers of the Lost Generation, and also was the poet laureate of the Jazz Age. Fitzgerald was restrained by two things in all his life, one is intelligence; the other one is money, he was ever possess these things, but lost them all in the end. When he dead, reviewers criticized his corrupt life, abandonment and waste his talent. His fictions reflected the

disillusion of the American Dream vividly, and showed the spirit of wilderness era of upper class in the Great Depression.

The age, which Fitzgerald possessed extraordinary creativity, was a special time in American history. At that time,

the World War 1 was finished, the Great Depression didn’t come, the traditional puritan ethics were destroyed, and the hedonism began to be popular. In his own words, “it was an age of miracles, it was an age of art, it was an age of excess, and it was an age of satire.” And Fitzgerald called this age as “Jazz Age”, so he was regarded as the poet laureate of the Jazz Age. He realized the eagerness for romantic of this age observantly, and the emptiness and helplessness back of the surface luxury, and he reflected these feelings in his works. His works always used the eagerness of the young and idealism as themes, because he thought this were Americans’ symbol; his works also always referred to the changing

and disappointment of sentiments, because this was the fate from which people couldn’t escape of that age. Background

The Great Gatsby is Fitzgerald’s most famous novel, is widely considered to be a literary classic and a contender for

the title "Great American Novel". The book is consistently ranked among the greatest works of American literature. “Sensitive and symbolic treatment of themes of contemporary life related with irony and pathos to the legendry of the American dream”--<The Oxford Companion to American Literature>. The author showed the development and disillusion of American dream to people by means of Gatsby’s story, just as the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg of the valley of ashes witness the corruption of American society and the disillusion of American dream in that age. It is Fitzgerald’s first novel, also is the most famous one. It is a great novel about the American dream and jazz age, very thoughtful.

Plot Summary

The main events of the novel take place in the summer of 1922. Nick Carraway, a Yale graduate and World War I

veteran from the Midwest — who serves as the novel's narrator — takes a job in New York as a bond salesman. He rents a small house on Long Island, in the village of West Egg, next door to the lavish mansion of Jay Gatsby, a mysterious millionaire who holds many extravagant parties but does not participate in them. Nick drives around the bay to East Egg for dinner at the home of his cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her husband, Tom, a college acquaintance of Nick's. They introduce Nick to Jordan Baker, an attractive, cynical young girl with whom Nick begins a romantic