摘 要

《了不起的盖茨比 》是美国二十年代著名小说家司各特•菲茨杰拉德 （Scott Fitzgerald，1896-1940）的杰作，讲述的是盖茨比对虚幻的美国梦的追求, 描述的不仅仅是一个人的梦想，而且是整个美国梦的缩影。在“美国梦”盛行的年代，盖茨比的爱情、理想、追求深深地打上了浮华的“美国梦”的烙印，但最终他的梦想统统随着他的“美国梦”的破灭而烟消云散。从小说的字里行间中，我们能感受到一种“距离感”，那就是：一切美好的事物都是海市蜃楼，美国梦仅仅是个虚无飘渺的空中楼阁。

关键词：美国梦；爵士时代；爱情；金钱；破灭

Abstract

The Great Gatsby, which was published in 1925, is a masterpiece of American novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald who was the most representative American novelist of the 1920s. In the novel, the hero Gatsby was eager to pursue the illusory American Dream, which was more than just a dream of a person. In fact, it was the epitome of the American Dream. In the era of “American Dream”, Gatsby’s pursuit of love, ideals was deeply marked by the flashy “American Dream”. His dreams all vanished with the bankruptcy of the “American Dream”. Between the lines of the novel, we can feel a “sense of distance”, that is: all the good things are mirages and the American Dream is only an illusory castle in the air.

Key words：the American Dream; Jazz Age; love; wealth; disillusionment

1.    Introduction 
1.1 Introduction to F. Scott Fitzgerald
F. Scott Fitzgerald is widely regarded as one of the outstanding American writers, as well as the spokesman of the 1920s Jazz Age. Fitzgerald was born in St. Paul—in the Middle West of America, on September 24, 1896. His family was considered socially prominent and genteelly poor. With the financial aid of relatives, he completed his study. Discharged from the army in 1919, Fitzgerald was determined to win success and fame. He took a job with an advertising agency and worked on short stories and a novel at night. Eventually his first novel, This Side of Paradise, was accepted for publication. The Great Gatsby which was published in 1925 helped him reach the zenith of his writing career.
As a representative figure of the “Lost Generation”, Fitzgerald shaped many characters and most of his characters were the young men and women who were in search of fame and fortune after the First World War. And this had a close relationship with his life experiences and the spiritual world. He was brilliant and successful, but nevertheless he had his bitterness and frustration, which were noticeably apparent in his novels. Fitzgerald was of common coinage and he sprang into fame overnight with his critical success of The Great Gatsby. Since then, he had been edged himself into the upper class. It was precisely because he himself was absorbed in this false picture of the era with all of his passion. So he was very keen to feel the desire for truth and the flashy surface of life under the guise of emptiness and helplessness. In Fitzgerald’s view, those young people, who had access to golf courses, country clubs and stately homes of high society, could not disperse their frustration and melancholy with money. They were longing for beautiful love and lofty ideals and this is the characteristic of that era of Americans. However, it was destined to be a tragedy, which was the fate the people of that era could not escape from.