摘要

作者菲兹杰拉德是美国文学史上一位伟大的作家，是20世纪20年代“迷惘的一代”的代表作家之一。在他的代表作《了不起的盖茨比》中，他通过象征手法的独创运用，描绘了当时社会的风貌，反映了作者对追求“美国梦”这一社会理想的探究和反思。象征，作为一种特有的艺术表现手法，旨在展示隐匿的心灵隐秘和理念。美国梦，不仅指追求财富, 物质生活得到满足,也指追求美好,使精神生活达到满足。本文依次分析了《了不起的盖茨比》中的几个富有象征意味的物品，三种色彩和二个场景，来解读它们代表的象征意义并结合菲茨杰拉尔德生活的时代背景多角度地分析象征和文章主题美国梦之间的关系，更好地解读了菲茨杰拉尔德的作品《了不起的盖茨比》和他本人。

关键词：菲兹杰拉德；《了不起的盖茨比》；象征；美国梦
 
Abstract

 F. Scott Fitzgerald is widely regarded as one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers and considered as a member of the “Lost Generation” of the 1920s. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald used the method of symbolic narrative rather than documentary realism to catch essence of the history moment, which reflects the author’s reflection on social phenomenon of “American dream”. Symbolism is the art or practice of using symbols especially by investing things with a symbolic meaning or by expressing the invisible or intangible by means of visible or sensuous representations. American dream means not only people’s quest for fortune, but also people’s pursuit of the good life which meets the spiritual life. In my thesis, the first chapter introduces Fitzgerald, the main content of The Great Gatsby, the concepts of symbolism and American dream; the next three chapters，that is, “symbolic objects,” “symbolic colors,” and “symbolic settings” analyze their symbolic meanings to illustrate relation between symbolism and “American dream”, which helps readers better understand the author and The Great Gatsby.

Key words:  Fitzgerald；The Great Gatsby; symbolism; American dream
 
1. Introduction
1.1  Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby is written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, who was born in 1896 and died in Hollywood in 1940. He is the most important representative of the “Jazz Age”. He published the novels Tender is the Night, Paradise, and the Last Tycoon and so on; and published over 160 short novels, for instance, Benjamin’s Fantasy Trip, Ice Palace, and Winter Dream. He is widely regarded as one of the twentieth century’s greatest writers and considered as a member of the “Lost Generation” of the 1920s.
On April 10, 1925, he first published The Great Gatsby a story sets in Island’s North Shore and New York City during the summer of 1922. The Great Gatsby is regarded as the most mature work of F. Scott Fitzgerald. T. S. Elliot said it was “the first step that American fiction has taken since Henry James, because Fitzgerald depicted the extolled grandest and most boisterous, reckless and merry-making scene.” The Oxford Companion to American Literature comments “his finest novel, sensitive and symbolic treatment of themes of contemporary life related with irony and pathos to the legendry of the American dream.”