Abstract:

At the beginning of the twentieth Century, the “American Dream” exists in the heart of everyone. “American Dream” means getting better life through hard work and struggle. In Tender Is the Night, Fitzgerald portrays the scene of American society life in 1920s for readers, and discusses the corrosive effect of luxurious life on human nature. The author creates a role, Dick Diver who has the “American Dream”. Dick makes great efforts to achieve his dream, but the weaknesses of his personality and the effects of hedonism destroy his “American dream”. This paper analyzes the weaknesses of Dick’s personality and the effects of social environment, and explores the process of about the disillusionment of Dick’s “American Dream” due to his own degeneration.

Keywords: American Dream; Tender Is the Night; Dick Diver; disillusionment

摘  要：

在二十世纪初，“美国梦”存在于每个人的心中。“美国梦”即相信通过努力和不懈的奋斗就可以得到更好生活的理想。菲茨杰拉德的小说《夜色温柔》为读者展现了二十世纪二十年代美国社会生活场面，深刻探讨了奢侈生活对人性的腐蚀作用。作者塑造了迪克•戴弗这样一个拥有“美国梦”的角色。虽然迪克为实现自己的“美国梦”不断努力着，但是由于性格上的弱点和受到物质享乐的侵蚀，加上周围环境的影响导致他的“美国梦”破灭，使他成为了上流社会的牺牲品。本论文通过分析迪克自身的问题与当时社会的环境对他的影响，揭示迪克一步一步走向堕落致使其美国梦破灭的原因。

关键词：美国梦；《夜色温柔》；迪克•戴弗；菲茨杰拉德

1 Introduction
     Fitzgerald was an American writer in the 1920s and he was also the representative of the “Jazz Age” and the spokesman of the “lost generation”. In 1925, the Great Gatsby was published, which established his position in contemporary American literary history. The novel was published in 1934 with a strong biographical character. Protagonist experiences were like author’s experiences. The experiences of the main protagonist almost reflected the author’s own life. The author studied in a famous university and his career also experienced ups and downs. In their marriage the author’s wife also suffered from schizophrenia, which had a negative impact on his career. The author added a large number of his experiences in the novel. Through the novel he expressed the contradictions in his mind, and poured out his grievance. Tender Is the Night had the new structure, beautiful words and phrases and different languages, but it always has many controversies when the novel was published.  Some years later, people acknowledge the value about this novel. As the Great Gatsby, Tender Is the Night also described a young man of humble origins and talents who pursued the ideal fulling of fantastic colors but failed. It reflected the deep theme of “American Dream”. Tender Is the Night revealed the spiritual essence of the illusory “American Dream”. On the basis of this work, the author criticized the luxury lives and human’s indifference in upper class. For a long time, a lot of writers and readers regarded the reasons of Dick’s American dream shattering that led to his downfall, the flaws of his own character or the external environment. In this passage I will make a comprehensive analysis of the reasons for the disillusionment of Dick’s “American Dream” from both internal and external part.