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摘 要

菲茨杰拉德是爵士时代最具有代表性的作家,他所写的《了不起的盖茨比》正是这个时代的缩影，该小说广为流传。前人关于《了不起的盖茨比》的研究不计其数，研究内容主要涉及人物塑造、主题刻画以及作品现实意义讨论，而本文则另辟蹊径，用话语分析的角度研究社会因素对女主人公黛西的影响。

本文运用话语分析中的中介分析法，分析研究男权主义、拜金主义和新女性主义对小说女主人公黛西的影响。首先，她深受男权主义的压迫。如：婚姻中， 她对丈夫的短暂离开感到焦虑不安，对丈夫的苛责质问做出违心承诺。在面对自己的孩子时，她希望她是个傻瓜。种种一切话语表明，男权主义根深蒂固的思想使她不能够追求自己的自由，只能够依赖丈夫而生活。

其次，她深受拜金主义之害。当时社会风靡物质至上。黛西和汤姆的婚姻就是建立在金钱的上面。世俗的黛西凭借着这份婚姻满足了对财富地位的需求。在上流社会中，她需要凭借汤姆的金钱地位去体现自己的价值，她已全然不顾当年对盖茨比的爱恋和对他的承诺，接受了汤姆送她的一串价值三十五万美元的珍珠项链，转而步入建于金钱之上的婚姻坟墓中，体现了她深受拜金主义其害。

同时，当时社会崛起一批新时代的女性，黛西也受到新女性主义的影响至深。作为新女性的其中一员，黛西热爱参加各式各样的聚会，说的话矫揉造作。新女性就是这样一批人，她们缺乏良好的行为和道德责任感，使得在小说中，人们看到的是一副轻浮放荡、玩世不恭、结局凄惨的悲剧女性群像。

通过黛西这些话语，我们不难看出男权主义的根深蒂固思想，风靡的拜金主义思想和新女性主义的崛起对黛西有着深深的影响。她的一言一行都被她当时所在的社会背景所牢牢牵动。

最后，作者希望本文能够启发读者从新的角度研究《了不起的盖茨比》，帮助读者从更深层次领略菲茨杰拉德的语言魅力，并为现代女性在追求自己人生价值方面指明方向。

关键词：《了不起的盖茨比》 话语分析 男权主义 拜金主义 新女性主义

1. Introduction

• 1. Research background

In America, there were many great writers appearing in the 1920s, and F. Scott. Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940) was widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the era. Fitzgerald was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota. After graduating from the Newman School in 1912, Fitzgerald entered into Princeton University. He dedicated himself to the writing and wrote for the literature journals on campus. Due to the poor health, he dropped out of school. In 1917, he joined the army and even insisted his writing after retiring from the military service. In 1920, he published his first long novels named The Side of Paradise and received good reputation. The 1920s was a roaring period called Golden Age in the field of American novels. During this era, American was situating a historical crossroad that suffered the transition of old and new times. It couldn’t be denied that a historically unprecedented wave of industrialization, a thirst and desire for the uncontrolled consumption, and an earthshaking change of lifestyles accelerated the splendid time.

The Great Gatsby (1925) was his most well-known novel and regarded as the microcosm of the society in the era of Jazz music. It was a story about the disillusion of American dream in the 1920s, demonstrating the spiritual aspect of American upper classes during the Great Depression. When he concentrated on this novel, his wife had an affair and lived in luxury, which brought great burden on him. His slightly unstable emotions and his disappointment of the present society were brought into The Great Gatsby, surprisingly creating the fascinating charm of the novel. Fitzgerald created this work with the real presentation of him own life, related the society of the Roaring Twenties historically with the context of the novel. Unprecedented economic and industrial prosperity, people’s strong thirst for consumption, the evolution of Jazz representing new music, the upsurge of newborn and confident female were thoroughly described in this novel. Mammonism, materialism, commercialism and hedonism prevailed in the world described by him. From the detailed description like flapper culture to the whole themes like Fitzgerald’s depression of the present crime society resulting in the misfortune of Gatsby, he used these social phenomena in the 1920s to increase the readability of Gatsby’s story. The publication of The Great Gatsby created a sensation and made Fitzgerald a success. It was this novel that confirmed his status in modern American literature and made him a representative of “Jazz Age” and a member of the “Lost Generation” of the 1920s. In The Crack-Up, Fitzgerald (1993) mentioned that T. S. Elliot who was the most prestigious writer praised The Great Gatsby as “the first step that American fiction has taken since Henry James”.

1.2 Need for the study

Practically speaking, this thesis will analyze the social effects on Daisy through her dialogues. In the man-dominated society, Daisy is depicted as the leading role and oppressed by men. However, through the delusion, we can have a thorough view on her unfair destiny and reasonable reactions. Although her characteristics and the present society trigger her to escape from the responsibility, she is also a victim of the era and forced to change herself.

Theoretically speaking, discourse analysis can provide a new perspective to make readers have better understanding of the main character. Few scholars choose this form of linguistics to analyze the literature. Through analyzing the specific languages and behaviors of Daisy, readers will have a further and deeper comprehension of the female role.

2. Literature Review

2.1 Discourse Analysis

2.1.1 Definitions

Over the past three decades, discourse analysis has developed into an emerging discipline of linguistics and has been aroused extensive attention in the field of linguistics. In the process of the development, discourse analysis has been closely connected with literature works. Due to the literature as an essential type in the research, it has become a hot topic to have comprehensive understandings in the aspect of discourse analysis.

According to Liu Baoshan (1983), discourse analysis is a general form of many approaches to analyze the study of language in use or any significant semiotic events. The basic elements of discourse analysis—discourse, writing, conversation, communicative events— are made up of cohesion of sentences, utterances, dialogue, monologue and multiperson interchanges. It aims to reveal socio-psychological characteristics of people and analyze the specific use of language that naturally occurs. Scholars mainly focus on the society while language is just a part.

Bakhtin (1982) claims that every discourse has dialogic features and is only obtained by social interactions and dialogues. He also points out that to analyze the discourse is the most important explanation of the social transformation.

Foucault (2003) points out that a discourse not only reflects and describes the relations between social objects and the society, but also constructs this relation. Different discourses construct kinds of important social phenomena and put people into the main social positions of the phenomena in various ways. Discourse and power have mutual dependence and production. With specific discourse and controlled by it, the power thus can bring itself into play. Without the discourse, the power is lack of the important carrier of operation. The function of discourse becomes a basic form of the function of power, which contributes the important aspect of social practice.

In my views, discourse analysis refers to the relations between objects and the society. The

discourse reflects complicated social backgrounds and these social effects give rise to the production of discourse. The objects and the society have mutual dependence and interactions. It is not just a method of analyzing the relations between the language and the text. It is a way that points out how we understand the practical social meaning of discourse.

2.1.2 Classification of discourse analysis

Discourse analysis can be divided into three categories: mediated discourse analysis, multimodal discourse analysis, and corpus-based discourse analysis (Vijay K.Bhatia 2008) .

Mediated discourse analysis mediates discourse, agency, and practice a “nexus of practice”, which was first laid out by Ron Scollon in the late 1990s. MDA believes discourse must comply for the social activities engaged by people and based on the context. The aim of MDA is to understand how the specific communicative behaviors are made through the discourse and how the social structures and ideology of these behaviors are produced again and again.

According to Bhatia, multimodal discourse analysis refers that the set-up of texts and interaction depends on the mutual influence among multi signals such as language, technologies, images, colors, music and so on rather than limited on the language systems. The theory of multimodal discourse analysis is based on the systemic functional linguistics founded by Halliday. Specifically, this kind of analysis accepts the view that language is the combination of social semiotic and meaning potential from the systemic functional linguistics.

Bhahia also points that Corpus-based discourse analysis is started from the establishment of colossal general corpus and now extensively applied in the discourse analysis. This kind of analysis provides valid and reliable information for the regular rules of specific lexical and grammar models to facilitate the process and analysis of abundant language datum.

2.1.3 Significance

Discourse analysis is more likely to focus on the social practice rather than discourse, especially concerning the analysis, interpretation, and explanation of social issues. It reminds people of paying close attention to not only the discourse but also the specific context and the social practice itself. It further reveals associations between discourse and society and digs into the various deep motivations that between the lines (Scollon 1998).

Discourse analysis also pays attention to the intertexuality and dialogism. Intertexuality refers to the relations of discourse between one text and another, being practically and

theoretically significant. A sentence that contains its direct meaning may implicate another implicit meaning in certain discourse environment (Gerald Prince, 1987) . Dialogism means two or more characters talk with each other to express their ideas. What they say may occur under some circumstances which are always related with the society. The dialogism in the literature is firmly associated with the society that puts forward the characters’ saying (Mikhail Bakhtin 1982) . From discourse analysis, we can limit or promote the implement of some certain social practice and the establishment of social statuses belonging to the characters, giving the effect of context into full play. It is a tool that includes the individuals engaging in the social practice and keeps up with the relations between individuals and society. With the combination of the theory and the social practice, discourse analysis can help readers to have a comprehensive understanding of the complicated personalities of the characters and the historical background of the novel.

2.2 Previous studies on The Great Gatsby

There have been more than 200 academic papers and periodicals which study on this novel published these decades. Many scholars show great interest in the heroine Daisy Buchanan. Zhang Qing (2003) compares the three females- Daisy, Jordan, and Myrtle from different social classes. She finds all these women have some commons in living on men. Their traits demonstrate their ideology of losing their original purity. Evi Darmayanti (2005) uses some supporting concepts: marriage, material wealth, and pride to show that in order to maintain her pride, Daisy uses her marriage to achieve material wealth and social status. She defines Daisy as an excessive materialistic young lady and misunderstands the concept of pride, revealing the reason of Daisy’s failure to maintaining her pride. Zhang Xiaohua (2010) interprets the duality of Daisy as the reasons of the tragedy. Firstly, outside is like angles while inside is like a flapper. Pure, enchanting, and innocent as she is while her flirtation with others as she expresses. Secondly, outside is enthusiastic while inside is indifferent. She is selfish and cares little about her daughter but excited about the strangers. Thirdly, outside is a lady while inside is a devil. With the vivid dualities of characteristics, Daisy is doomed to be the root of the disillusion of the American dream and the tragedy of the story. Xia Guhua (2011) cites many examples of Daisy’s reactions. She sets aside the responsibility of the car accident and elaborates conspiracy, which represents her immorality. Moreover, she always holds cynical attitudes towards her

marriage and her noblest sentiments are subverted by the greed and money-worship. She even never cares about her daughter’s existence. These render on her indifferent, selfish and irresponsible personalities.

Some scholars also focus on the present society at that time as the external cause effected on Daisy. Wu Xuqing (2010) depicts Daisy through the dialogues of four men- Fitzgerald, Gatsby, Tom and Nick. Criticizing on the feminism, the heroine Daisy is reinterpreted to be a courageous, real and helpless under the pressure of masculine discrimination. The Ambivalent Gender Ideology of The Great Gatsby written by Gu Shanping (2013) demonstrates Fitzgerald’s gender ambivalence and the relationships between the main characters. Maintaining masculinity but confessing femininity is always a frequent manner that Fitzgerald applies for in his novels. By contrast, we can easily distinguish the discrepancy of the consciousness and attitudes towards men’s or women’s emotions and perceptions at that time that advocated many virtues in a man rather than in a woman. According to Gao Yang’s (2014) Female Modernity in The Great Gatsby, she classifies different behaviors of Daisy and other female characters, including smoking, driving, dancing and taking part in sports. These phenomena can be classified as symbols for females to enhance their statuses in the male-dominated society.

Above all, there are a large amount of studies on interpreting the inner and external causes of Daisy’s tragic life. This thesis will analyze the external causes of Daisy through discourse analysis. By interpreting the linguistic methodology of discourse analysis, we can have a basic concept of discourse. Furthermore, by analyzing the discourse of the main characters, we use this concept to understand the close connection between her discourse and the social effects and to point out the way that the modern females pursue their values of life.

3.Social Effects on Daisy from the Perspective of Discourse Analysis

The Great Gatsby was created in the 1920s when the American had experienced a period of rapid development. People lived in a good wealth while females were in the decreasing positions in the society. They still maintained the traditional relationships between men and women in the patriarchal society, which prevailed the discrimination and oppression against women. In The Great Gatsby, we are prone to find this phenomenon from the description of Daisy occupied plentiful descriptions of the whole novel. To analyze her dialogues and social behaviors enables us to have a comprehensive understanding of the social backgrounds and influence under that circumstance.

3.1 The deep-rooted male chauvinism

Male chauvinism is a society dominated by men, mainly in social laws, customs, cultures, concepts, and ethics. In the contrast, women are in the lower position of obedience and oppression. The existence of women are determined and interpreted by men. Literature works is a vivid reflection of the social life, unreservedly demonstrating the ideology of men in the reign. These works are normally created by writers who want to express a phenomenon of suppression and disparagement of females. In men’s minds, any denying towards the traditional female image of being obedient to her husband will inevitably bring out the ruin of the marriage and the breakdown of the social morality.

“Where’s Tom gone?”(Scott 78). It is always heard from Daisy when her husband leaves the room for a minute. If she finds her husband’s going out, she instantly becomes mad and anxious. Daisy, as a married woman, is reluctant to turn herself into relying on her husband - Tom to live on and sustain her marriage. She is constrained by the traditional marriage, in which her husband plays a predominant role. She doesn’t expect the life that leads her to the freedom and independence and is unwilling to release her true emotions and feelings.

A typical response “I never loved him.” (Scott 136) said by Daisy to Gatsby occurs when Gatsby tells Tom he and Daisy love each other, which reflects Daisy complicated emotions and insignificant position in her marriage under the pressure of Tom. When Gatsby wants to tell Tom that he and Daisy love each other, Daisy interrupts him helplessly and hesitatingly in hope of maintaining her frustrated marriage despite the truth that she loves Gatsby. Although she knows that Tom had little spree in Chicago, she doesn’t reject Tom in a pitiful voice that telling Gatsby she never loved him. It is Tom’s pressure of compelling and Daisy’s obedience of not pursuing pure love and freedom that force this happening. In this process, Daisy is regarded as a sacrifice of the fight between the two men. In the man-dominant society, a woman hardly obtains the true love. In Tom’s view, Daisy should be firmly controlled by him and her so-called pursuit of love is moral degeneration. The male chauvinism determines Daisy as a subsidiary good symbolizing Tom’s social status. He cares about the beauty and the background of Daisy rather than her real idea. Instead of self-examination on his betray, he compares his amount of wealth with Gatsby’s, which is considered as the standard that women judge men. He believes Daisy should select him who possesses large amount of wealth rather than Gatsby.

When her baby was born, she said, “I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool- that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool”. (Scott 18) This sentence demonstrates her silent sarcasms and struggle of having no way out of her desperate fate, a female fate. She deeply understands from her own experience that the beautiful appearance of females is an effective tool to attract males in order to obtain what they want. Under that circumstance, men do not care about the intelligence and the real thought of females. They only are attracted by the beautiful faces of the women. The predominant role in the society is only possessed by men. Women have no choice but to be a beautiful fool. She reflects the unfair fate of being a female and sighs for her own daughter who will follow her life tracks. Living like a fool is the best choice to avoid the discrimination from the society. Women have no alternatives but to be dominated by the men.

3.2 The pursuit of mammonism

After World WarⅠ, money’s everything is sweeping across the world. People aspire to get money and view it as the only symbol of the success. In the minds of most American, by replacing the Gods, money becomes their belief, which breaks the structure of the original order of the whole society. The awakening of women’s identifies spurs them to seek the wealth and pleasure and to require the independence of economic and social status. However, the deep-rooted historical and social causes prevent them from obtaining the complete independence. So this existence of contradictory determines that females in that society can’t fundamentally achieve success and independence. Only if they submit to the males can they obtain money, status, and pleasure to confirm their self-values and existing significance. It is women living age that gives rise to the distortion, decay and obedience in their minds.

“Take’em down-stairs and give’em back to whoever they belong to. Tell’em all Daisy’s change… Daisy’s change’s her mind!” (Scott 77) This is Daisy’s reflection of her mind at that time, showing her affection to Gatsby. She is a pure girl who falls in love with Gatsby. She promises him to wait for him when he goes to war. However, despite of whom she really cares about, she steps straightly into her illusory world built with money. She accepts a string of pearls valued at three hundred and fifty thousand dollars that Tom gives her. In the upper class, Daisy can’t find any hope to support her. No matter in the material support or the mental side, Gatsby, as a soldier, is unable to give her a sense of safety. At that time, she is an incompetent and perplexed girl who doesn’t know how to pursue and has no courage to pursue. The lure of materials attracts her to choose the instant happiness of wealth and the marriage.

3.3 The influence of the new feminism

A decade after World WarⅠis called “the Roaring Age” or “Jazz Age”, mainly referring to the field of American society, especially in the field of women authorities striking the tremendous transformation. In some senses, the status of their economic life has been strengthened, which promotes their political position. In 1920, females finally achieve the authority of selection as well as males. As their economic and political positions change, the ethics and values alter. Most of the female characters are defined as seductress in Fitzgerald’s mind.

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