Abstract

Fitzgerald is one of the most important writers in the 20th century. His novels express the theme of disillusion about “American Dream”. Tender Is the Night describes the loneliness and helplessness behind prosperity. It tells the story of the protagonist Dick who was a psychiatrist with an “American Dream” but became the failure on his way pursuing it. To some extent, the novel is a semi-autobiography, shadowing the writer’s personal experiences. This thesis intends to explore the cause of Dick’s tragedy.
This thesis consists of four parts. The first part is an introduction to Fitzgerald’s life, works, Tender Is the Night and literature reviews about the novel. The second part focuses on “American Dream” in “Jazz Age”, including its definition, its development and disillusion. The third part is the main body of this thesis, exploring the deep cause of Dick’s tragedy. The last part is a conclusion, which summarizes and interprets the main idea of this thesis.

Keywords:  Fitzgerald  American Dream  disillusion  tragedy

摘要

菲茨杰拉德是20世纪文学史上相当重要的作家之一。他的小说以“美国梦”的幻灭为主题。《夜色温柔》描述了浮华背后的空虚与无奈,生动地描绘了有着远大梦想的精神科医生迪克的美国梦追求之路以及最终遭遇失败的过程。从某些程度上而言，这部小说可以称为作者的半自传，折射出了作者本人的经历。本文试图揭示主人公迪克悲剧命运的根源。
本文共包含四部分，第一部分是绪论，介绍了作家的平生，《夜色温柔》的背景信息以及小说的研究现状等。第二部分主要描述爵士时代的美国梦，介绍美国梦的定义，美国梦的发展到幻灭。第三部分是本文的主体部分，主要是结合文本，探讨迪克悲剧命运的根源。第四部分为总体概述，这部分总结并揭示本文研究的意义。

关键词: 菲茨杰拉德；美国梦；幻灭；悲剧

Chapter One Introduction
1.1 F. Scott. Fitzgerald and Tender Is the Night
F. Scott. Fitzgerald is a famous novelist in the history of American literature in the 20th century. He was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, on September 24, 1896 and died of heart disease on December 21, 1940. In his short life, he is a productive writer, and has written hundreds of works, including novels, poetries and collections of short stories. His novels deeply reflect the characteristics of America in the 1920s and represent themes of disillusion about “American dream”. Therefore, he has been called as the “spokesman” of the “Jazz Age”.
Fitzgerald’s first work is a detective story, which was published on the school newspaper when he was only 13 years old. In his youth, he produced many interesting works, which is the foundation of his later success in literature (Fahey, 1973: 64). In 1918, Fitzgerald was assigned to Camp Sheridan. There he met a beautiful celebrated girl named Zelda Sayre and they got married after he became famous overnight for the publication of This Side of Paradise. In 1925, his most famous work The Great Gatsby appeared which marked a striking advance in Fitzgerald’s work. But his wife’s heath was become worse day by day; in 1930 Zelda Sayre suffered her first breakdown. Fitzgerald had to work hard to pay for his wife’s costly psychiatric treatment. In 1934, the last novel of his life Tender Is the Night published.