摘要

《了不起的盖茨比》中盖茨比的悲剧是贯穿整篇小说的中心，因此国内外许多研究都关注于盖茨比的悲剧。通过分析导致主人公死亡悲剧的原因可以解释作者写作的真正意图。本文主要从社会和盖茨比自身因素出发研究导致盖茨比的悲剧的原因，并进一步指出作者的意图是揭示那个时代盛极一时的奢靡与不可避免的没落，并反应黑暗和不公的社会现实。

关键词：悲剧；社会因素；自身因素；社会现实

Abstract

The tragic story of Jay Gatsby is the core of the novel, The Great Gatsby. So dozens of studies carried out on this novel have been mostly focused on Gatsby’s tragedy. The intention of author is explained by analyzing causes of the hero’s death.
The purpose of this paper is to analyze the social and personal factors that lead to Gatsby’s tragedy, which further reveals the author’s intent on unveiling the decay and downfall of the era then, as well as the dark and unfair reality of society.

Key words: tragedy; social factors; personal factors；reality of society

1.    Introduction

Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald was an American author of novels and short stories, whose works are the paradigm writings of the Jazz Age, a term he coined himself. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. Fitzgerald is considered a member of the "Lost Generation" of the 1920s, together with other expatriated American writers such as Gertrude Stein, Hemingway, and Ezra Pound. He finished four novels, This Side of Paradise, The Beautiful and Damned, Tender Is the Night and his most famous, the celebrated classic, The Great Gatsby. A fifth, unfinished novel, The Love of the Last Tycoon was published posthumously. Fitzgerald also wrote many short stories that treat themes of youth and promise along with despair and age.
The story is told in the first person by Nick Carraway, a quiet young Mid-
westerner who comes east to work on the New York stock exchange and rents a house in 1922 at West Egg, Long island, which is nearby to the city. Nick’s house is next to an extravagant and vulgar mansion owned by the mysterious but fabulously wealthy Jay Gatsby, about whom all sorts of rumors pass from mouth to mouth.