A Critical Analysis of Symbolism in The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald is considered to be one of the most outstanding American writers in the twentieth century, the spokesman of the ”lost generation” and ”the roaring 20s”. In his short-lived literary career, he created 4 full-length novel and more than 160 short stories, leaving priceless spiritual legacy for the literature circle. The Great Gatsby, one of his famous works, is entitled ”the great American novel”, which reflects the core of American dream as well as exerts great influence on the contemporary American society. It is worth to mention that apart from its profound realistic significance, The Great Gatsby also has great artistic values, among which the use of symbolism is a distinctive feature reflected throughout the novel. Hence, it is of great importance to analyses The Great Gatsby from the perspective of symbolism.

Undoubtedly, the analysis of The Great Gatsby from the perspective of symbolism can help the reader grasp the deeper meaning reveal by the novel and better understand its artistic values. Symbols in the Great Gatsby are diverse, for instance, the symbolic images, the symbolic environment and the symbolic characters, which have rich connotations and are beneficial to the clarifying of the theme. Therefore, through researching on the implications of the novel , one can not only achieve a further understanding of the novel but also appreciate the artistic value of the novel. More importantly, the employment of symbolism is included in the overall organization of the novel and is one of the most prominent writing techniques.

Symbolism is the use of one object or action (a symbol) to represent or suggest something else. The symbolism we deal with nowadays mainly refers to using tangible objects to represent something abstract or invisible, namely, to reside rational knowledge to images. Broadly, the term symbolism may refer to the symbolic meaning or the practice of investing things with a symbolic meaning. Though often associated with religion and literature, symbolism is prevalent in everyday life. But why do writers use symbols in literature? What is its importance? The symbolism in literature is one of the many tools that writers employ in order to generate not only interest in one's work but also to create another level of meaning or give meaning to the literary work that goes beyond what is evident to the reader. Also, symbolism helps to give a mood to the piece without the writer having to actually spell it out. By giving human-like characteristics to certain things and also defining them with certain qualities, the writer can manage to give the novel another level. This may refer to things which are completely alien from what is mentioned in the piece of writing. It is known to us that Baudelaire is a French poet as well as the originator of symbolism. In Flowers of Evil, he is the first writer using symbolism to describe a recluse man who strives to survive between darkness and night, soul and body, fall and sublimation. Moreover, he puts forward the platform of symbolism-Induction theory, considering the universe a symbolic system. In the well-known poem Flowers of Evil, induction has become the platform of the symbolism. Verlaine, as the king of poets, constructs the symbolism Poets school and proposes the music principle of symbolism. He deems that the primary connotation of symbolism is music in Art of poetry, which has the advantages of flow, dim and uncertainty. In the Art of Poetry, he underscores that the primary item in all things is music. It is the mysterious tones of the music and dance imagery that bring a person into the ethereal poetry.

It is worth to mention that Rimbaud inherits and introduce the theory put forward by Baudelaire. Additionally, he hoids the idea that ”a symbolic poet should be a psychic, and he becomes a psychic after making a variety of mistakes of functional, long-term, limitless and intentional.” In Vowel, as Color Sonnet, he stresses Synesthesia: the poet gives the five vowels AEIOU a different color, sound, smell, modal and image, these five characteristics induct and interwoven, which becomes the basis of the theory regarding colored letters and colored hearing of the symbolism poetry.

It is a fact that Mallarme is the symbol of symbolism, who lays emphasis on the connotation of symbolism and probes into the mystery of poems and beauty. He argues that ”calling out the name of a thing would destroy over half of the fun of poems and the perfect use of method constitutes a symbol. One must show the state of mind through leading things step by step; or conversely, one must select one of things, and lead to a certain state of mind with a serious of deciphered methods.” Afternoon of Faun, one of his masterpiece, fully elaborate his suggestibility and pure beauty. Mallarme withdraws from the reality, so he puts the dream as the highest realm of the poet, and believes that a poet could get the pure beauty which can#8217;t be obtained from reality to build the nest of his Pure Poetry only in dreams. Valery proposed the idea of rational symbolism, who underscores the significance of true inner contradictions and the inner conflict between rations and emotions. In addition, it believes that art should have abstract thinking characteristics that perform thought and poem must be the mixture of the image of poetry contemplation of philosophy. He strongly believes that each poet should be a first-class critic. His abilities of abstract thinking and arguing are stronger than people have imagined. His masterpiece The seaside cemetery performs the meditation of life philosophy on the unities of opposites between life and death, body and soul, dynamic and static, change and eternality.

With great achievement, Eliot is regarded as the representative writer of symbolism, who creates the impersonal theory of symbolism. He deems that a poet must be hold back his personal feelings and keep from showing the personal emotions when he creates a person, which is viewed the golden rule of symbolism. Eliot emphasize that a poem is not to indulge feelings and express individualities but to escape feelings and avoid personalities. He iterated that ”the only way of expressing emotions in art forms is to find the objective correlative.”(Modernism Literature Studies, 1989) In terms of Elliot#8217;s work Waste land, it is viewed as the pinnacle of symbolism and is a successful practice of impersonal symbolism and the objective correlative theory of feelings. This work refers to 6 languages, 35 writers and 56 works. In addition, it cites lots of mythological and historical stories. It shows the collapse of society civilization and desert of spirit of Western countries during world war Ⅱ by means of implied symbolic arts. In terms of international literary trend, the development characteristics of symbolism among different countries are different, which is made up of complicate factors of national temperament, cultural traditions, and each writer#8217;s personal temperament. Just as the case, French symbolism is more pure. Symbolism exerts great influence on China and generates the symbolic literature of

China. In addition, novel, poetry, play, dissertation and several others have been greatly influenced by symbolism. In terms of novel, Lu Xun wrote novels in a common symbolic way. For example, his novel Medicine is end with the Ante-style cold Leif. With regard to MaoDun#8223;s Midnight, It not belongs to the works of symbolism. However, it has a symbolic title. Fortress Besieged by Qian ZhongShu is regarded as a symbolic novel. It is after 1920 that the important symbolic western writers have been introduced into China. Wen Tian wrote a book Research on Baudlaire in December of the same year. XuZhiMo published the translation of Cadava from Baudlaire#8217;s Flowers of Evil in the magazine of Tattler(3).Bian ZhiLin and Cao Baohua are regarded as the important translators from the late 1920 to 1930.It is Bian who translated Baudlaire#8217;music ,La Boheme La Boh#232;me, Mallarme's Heave A Deep Sigh, Sea Wind and some more. It is Cao who translated various books and articles of symbolic theory, For example, Arthur Simmons#8223; Symbolist Movement, Yeats#8223; Symbolism in the Poem, and so on. It is a fact that the translation of modern Western Literature stopped after 1949. Yuan Kejia composed the books Selected Works of Foreign Modernism in 1980, which makes the situation change. Symbolism is the first genre to be introduced. A wide variety of elections, translations, reviews and monographs about symbolism have been published. As a result, it marks a new stage of the symbolic literature of China. From 1980 to the present, there exist many articles with symbolic theories, such as Zhang RuiHua#8223;s symbolic meaning in the Great Gatsby; Zhang Junlu and FengPing#8223;s on the symbolic significance in Rickshawboy in 2007,Song Weiqin#8223;s On the Symbolic Significance in Secret Garden in 2010;DaiXiaojing#8223;s on the use of symbolism in the Scarlet Letter in 2010; and He Daozhong#8223;s on the use of the symbolism in Wuthering Heights in 2010.

This thesis will be divided into several parts. Firstly, it will begin by giving a brief introduction to Fitzgerald and the Great

Gatsby. Then, it will provide an overview on the current studies regarding the symbolism. Most importantly, the thesis will offer a detailed study on Fitzgerald#8217;s employment of symbolism in images, settings and characters respectively. Through the detailed analysis of the various symbols used in the novel, the thesis aims to work out the different connotations and contributions to the deepening of the theme. At last, it will summarize the thesis and restate its main points.