The Great Gatsby Symbolism

The Use of Symbolism in The Great Gatsby

(By Wang Xiaomin )

The Great Gatsby is Fitzgerald's finest work, both in terms of ideology and literary art. The novel depicts the tragedy of Gatsby, a young man from the lower class in the western United States, who dreamed of obtaining real happiness and love through personal struggle, but his dream was eventually shattered and he was killed by someone's assassination. The author designed a "dual protagonist" Nick Carraway for the novel. He is both the narrator and commentator of the story, and also an important character in the novel. He is inextricably linked to the main characters of the book. He is Gatsby's neighbor and friend, Daisy's cousin and Tom's classmate. He acts as a matchmaker for Gatsby and Daisy after their five-year separation, a critic of Gatsby's relapse and a sympathizer of his tragic murder. He is situated in the materialistic eastern United States, but represents the traditional ideas and moral codes of the Midwest. The novel adopts the first-person narrative technique, and through what Nick sees, hears, and feels, the storyline gradually unfolds, giving a generalized description of the "Jazz Age" in which Fitzgerald lived, and at the same time lashing out at the hypocrisy and heartlessness of American society.

In this novel, Fitzgerald overcame the weaknesses of his earlier works, such as the lack of depth and the lack of refinement of typicality, to make the novel concentrated, concise, subtle, and relaxed. The theme of the disillusionment of the American dream is expressed to the fullest extent through the perfect art form. In the novel Fitzgerald utilizes a method of expression that is both integrated and distanced to make the thoughts and feelings embedded in the images have multiple layers, which can be experienced differently by different readers and interpreted differently by people of different times. The characters he depicts are impressionistic, not characterized by concrete and realistic depictions, but good at capturing the spiritual characteristics of the characters. In the novel characterization, Fitzgerald's successful use of symbolism is undoubtedly a major feature of this novel.

Symbolism is an important literary trend and school of thought that emerged in France in the late 19th century. Before the First World War, symbolism was prevalent in European countries and spread to all branches of the arts. Writers of this school of thought believed that any kind of thing has a corresponding meaning of the idea, the outside world and the human inner world is mutual induction fit, people from each thing can dig out its hidden symbolic significance, and therefore emphasize the use of material sense of the object, suggesting the inner subtle world, the two worlds to communicate with each other. Baudelaire was a pioneering figure in the development of symbolist literature. He believed that colors, silhouettes, sounds, and scents had spiritual meanings, which were manifested in his works through the author's imagination. In the novel The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald gives full play to his imagination to show the symbolic charm of color to the fullest.

It is customary to associate the color green with youth, vigor, spring, and hope. However, in this novel, Fitzgerald gives green a whole new symbolic meaning. Daisy's green light at the Long Island pier is undoubtedly one of the main images in the book. Gatsby's faith is in that green light, his future wonderland, his lifelong dream, and Gatsby often looks at it at night in solitude, stretching out his arms to embrace it - a symbol of youth and love, as if it were Daisy incarnate. Though it seemed to be drifting away, Gatsby made a desperate attempt to hold on to it. Every weekend Gatsby intends to Daisy's residence across the West Egg Island in the luxury of the white marble villa held all night in a grand party, entertaining guests from all directions. He wanted to show off his wealth and social status to attract Daisy back to his side. However, in this process Gatsby ignored a crucial point, the attempt to exchange wealth and status for love itself is contrary to the true meaning of love. The only thing he gets out of the woman he recovers from money is a false sense of love. His American dream was an unattainable mistake from the beginning, a mistake that led to his tragic end. He finally sacrifices his life for Daisy, for his ideal. As at the end of the novel, Nick is again reminded of this green light that Gatsby believed in, which seemed so close that he could hardly grasp it, but in reality was out of reach, his dream having passed far away.

When Nick first meets his cousin Daisy at Tom's house, Daisy is all in white, and the light that emanates from her body makes the whole house shrouded in a soothing, pale hue. The color white undoubtedly belongs to Daisy in the novel. It is this seeming purity, beauty, virginity, innocence y attracted Gatsby, the pure image of Daisy as a young girl in white has made an indelible impression on his heart. Become Gatsby obsessed with life, but always unable to reach the dream. Although in Nick's arrangement, Gatsby eventually met the sweetheart Daisy, but wake up Daisy's old love is not a piece of Gatsby's infatuation, but his villa interior luxury decoration and Gatsby's own luxury lifestyle. By this time Daisy is no longer the Daisy of her day; circumstances have corrupted her completely. In the material world of the East, the desire for money and materialism has long distorted her into a greedy, empty, selfish vulgar woman. Even if Gatsby possessed more wealth, it would not be able to save her corrupted soul. Put another way, the color white also symbolizes laziness, shallowness, ignorance, and uselessness, which is the essence of Daisy. Gatsby's American dream can never be complete and full. In order to win Daisy's love, he desperately trying to make money, after obtaining a large amount of money and material wealth, luxury and extravagance, night and day life can not hide his emptiness. His deepest yearning for the pure Daisy becomes his spiritual pillar of support. However, the cruel reality once again gave him a severe blow. This once again deepens the theme of the dashed American dream.

Red and white are the colors of Tom and Daisy's mansion. Since the white color symbolizes Daisy's personality traits, the red color undoubtedly demonstrates Tom's selfish, arrogant, savage and cruel personality more perfectly. Tom's superior family background makes him proud and arrogant, and Fitzgerald describes in the novel that he always pushes away everyone in front of him savagely, and the image of a red reckless bull pops up on the paper. Although he was married to Daisy, he often had rendezvous with his lover. After noticing his wife's affair with Gatsby, he goes so far as to bring her to Gatsby to prove that Gatsby cannot do himself any harm. Hypocritical conceit is evident from this point on. Finally, when he learns that his wife has unintentionally run over her lover with her car, out of jealousy of Gatsby, he maliciously instigates the lover's husband to brutally kill his rival. In essence, he is the real murderer with blood on his hands. Red color in the novel for the image of Tom to draw a complete conclusion.

Yellow is also a color that has to be mentioned. This symbol of money, power and wealth is always associated with death in the novel. Daisy was driving Gatsby's yellow sedan when she ran over Tom's lover in a panic. The moment Gatsby is killed by Wilson and falls into the swimming pool, Fitzgerald describes him as a falling leaf into the yellow jungle. Perhaps through this connection, the author wants to tell readers that sometimes money is the source of evil that leads us to death.

One of the most striking artistic features of this novel is the perfect combination of symbolism and storyline, and the structure of the work. It plays a crucial role in characterization and the expression of the author's emotions. The use of symbolism makes this work reach the artistic illusion of light and dark, confusing and foggy. The work reveals the rich temperament and style of the poet and dreamer. It also provides infinite possibilities for readers to interpret this monumental work.

The comparison of symbolism in Norwegian Wood and The Great Gatsby

Li Ke (College of Arts and Letters, Jilin University, Changchun, Jilin 130012)

Haruki Murakami's creations have been y influenced by Western literature, especially the creation of the famous modern American novelist Fitzgerald's deepest influence on his creation, and Murakami Haruki has been respected for his work. Murakami Haruki once praised him as "my teacher, my university, my literary colleague". Therefore, Haruki Murakami's creation was inevitably influenced by Fitzgerald, and traces of the influence of The Great Gatsby can be clearly found in his masterpiece Norwegian Wood, which also embodies the characteristics of Japanese literature that are different from The Great Gatsby.

I

"The word 'symbol' is derived from the Greek word for a wooden token cut in two and held in half by each party. 'the use of a form as a representation of an abstract idea', i.e., the broad meaning of the word 'symbol' that is popular to this day." The most fundamental characteristic of a symbol is the use of a form to represent an abstract idea, or the use of a "sign" to represent something other than it. The creation of Norwegian Wood imitates the characteristics of symbolism in The Great Gatsby, and shows many similarities and even identities.

First of all, in The Great Gatsby, the first time Nick meets Gatsby is on a night in June, when Gatsby is standing on the lawn, "gazing at the silvery starry sky "4 and "stretching out his arms towards the dark sea", and "the twilight across the sea". Across the sea "in the twilight only to see a little green light in the distant dock side flickering", this light is no other than his heart, "the most beautiful woman" Daisy's home dock light, is his hope and his "dream with a mysterious color". "a dream with a mysterious color". Because, for Gatsby, "in the past he and Daisy were so far apart, compared to that green light seems to be extraordinarily close to her, like the moon next to a small star close to Daisy's side", he put his infinite love and thoughts are on this green light, and even "with the passion of creation into a reverie, and even". With the passion of creation into a reverie, but also constantly embellished and rendered, with every floating feather to decorate their dreams." However, when Daisy returned to him, he found that "Daisy was not as beautiful as he had fantasized", so the green light also "gradually lost the charm of the old days of that kind of fascination". It can be said that the green light is beautiful because of Daisy's beauty, and dim because of Daisy's dim, it is Daisy's incarnation. This green light and the end of the novel "a new world of fresh turquoise place" echo, symbolizing Gatsby's personal struggle of ideals, hopes, goals, direction, so "Gatsby faith in the green light".

In Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami also uses the imagery of light. On the night that "I" visited Naoko in Amelia, there was this touching scene: "I walked through the forest of mixed trees, sat down on the slope of a hill, and looked in the direction of Naoko's house. It was easy to find Naoko's room, just a dim light flickering in the depths of a window that was never lit. I stood still and stared at the tiny light. It reminded me of the last flickering of a candle in the wind. I wanted to cover and guard that light with my hands. I gazed long and steadily at the flickering light, as Gatsby had watched the little points of light on the other side of the river all night long." ⑤ In the hero's mind, this light, like Naoko, is the final resting place of his soul and the permanent support of his spirit. Naoko was the girlfriend of Kizuki, my only good friend, and Kizuki's death caused "a part of me that might be called adolescence to be lost forever and completely," so "I" I "went into my own shell" and "disdained" the outside world. However, meeting Naoko made me feel "an emotion I had never felt before" and "an intimate and cozy mood", and "I" and she "felt the same way". I felt "inseparable" from her, and "tasteless" without her. She became the solace of my heart and soul, and our walks on the street were "like a religious ceremony for the salvation of the soul". Our street walks were "like a religious ceremony to save the soul". Thus, "my" lonely heart found a harbor, and Naoko's "quiet, elegant and clear love" was just like the wavering light in the wind, giving "my" heart a gentle comfort and solving "my" problems. It soothes my helplessness and loneliness. Therefore, this light symbolizes the lover and spiritual support of the main character.

Secondly, if the light, as an inanimate object, symbolizes the hero's hope, ideal, and spirit, then the creature can symbolize the hero's life itself and the gesture of existence more y. In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby's villa is "a magnificent building modeled after a town hall in Normandy. There is a tower on one side of it, and a few sparse ivy plants climbing on it give it a layer of new turquoise color". These ivy plants are like Gatsby himself: he is thirsty for the aristocratic beauty Daisy, chasing after wealth and status, and trying hard to climb up to the upper class. The gesture of ivy "climbing" vividly depicts Gatsby's image: he was born in poverty, but he was "highly sensitive to the prospects of life", and had "a marvelous gift of hope for the future! "From an early age, he knew how to set up a "schedule" and a "general personal code" for self-discipline. His encounter with Daisy made him "realize the magical power of wealth to keep people young", and his separation from Daisy inspired his "ambition to rise to greatness", which drove him to grab money by any means necessary. He buys a mansion and throws huge parties every weekend to show off his wealth and status after his success. However, there are only a handful of rich people who have transformed themselves from a penniless poor boy into a bourgeois nouveau riche, so he is as weak as "a few sparse ivy plants", and compared with Tom's "Georgian colonial villa", his "palace" is "a palace" of "a few sparse ivy plants". Compared with Tom's "Georgian colonial villa", his "palace" is "filled with an atmosphere of emptiness and desolation, which puts the figure of the master in a desperate situation of complete isolation". The "sparseness" doomed him as a tycoon could not compete with the hereditary aristocracy represented by Tom, and he would eventually be disillusioned. His death seems to be an accident, but in fact it is the inevitable result of this disparity of power.

Similarly, in Norwegian Wood, there is a creature that symbolizes the character's existential gesture and image of destiny, which is the firefly given to "me" by the "death squad". It was emitting a weak, shallow light at the bottom of an empty bottle of instant coffee, and had none of the vitality that "I" remembered as "dragging a much more distinct and brilliant stream of light in the summer night". When "I" put it out, after a long time of left and right temptation, it suddenly realized that it seems to get up and fly, "suddenly opened his wings ...... quickly trailing the light ring, as if to regain the lost time! "The first thing I'd like to say is that I don't want to lose the time I lost. This poor little thing is not the main character in the book? Small, weak, lonely, helpless, "like a lost soul, wandering in the darkness of the heavy night". 1969 "I" is in such a kind of uncertainty: "The people around me have been far ahead, but I and my time are in the same situation. Only I and my time are crawling back and forth through the mire. The world around me is facing all the vicissitudes of change", "and I am moving breathlessly through this mire, with nothing in front of me, nothing behind me, but a dim mire that stretches out endlessly." At the same time, other characters in the book, like this tiny firefly, burning with the light of life, lonely, weak, in the dark road of life, struggling or gone: Kizuki, Naoko, Hatsumi committed suicide, Reiko has a mental illness, Midori "sometimes hated everything to death," even the "" springtime" Wing, "the good-looking" Wing, "the good-looking" Wing, "the good-looking" Wing, "the good-looking" Wing, "the good-looking" Wing, "the good-looking" Wing" Wing, "the good-looking" Wing" Wing. Even Nagasawa, who is "happy", "carries his cross on his back as he crawls along the path of life". All of them are struggling to find answers to their conflicts with the world and with themselves.

Once again, generally speaking, the scene, as the time, place and condition for the occurrence and development of the characters' activities and events, only provides the stage for the existence and activities of the characters and the basis for the development of the story. However, in The Great Gatsby, the scene of "Grey Valley" not only has the above functions, but is also very symbolic, which implies the background of the whole novel. At the beginning of Chapter 2, there is a wonderful description of the "Valley of Dust": "Where dust grew like wheat in the hills and grotesque gardens; where it piled up in the shape of houses, chimneys and smoke, and finally transformed itself magically into dusty crowds, who Moving through the dim dust, they were at last completely covered and swallowed up by the dust and smoke that filled the air." The dusty and smoky "valley of ashes" symbolizes the perverted social environment and the spiritual desolation of the people in the novel. After World War I, the American society was so materialistic that people lost their spiritual home and became the "lost generation", who lived like walking corpses, without faith, without virtue, but only the pursuit of material things and the fulfillment of desires. In the work, Daisy is pretentious and vain, even her voice has "a kind of gold coin ringing"; Tom is "too selfish for his stout body, so that his wild ambition is not nourished and becomes empty"; Jordan Baker is "dishonest to the extent that it has reached the point of dishonesty". "dishonest to an incurable degree"; the "moth-like" guests at Gatsby's dinner parties, who enjoyed his hospitality while "spreading behind his back a few bitter rumors against him". ". These "dusts" were the very things that "devoured Gatsby's mind and the cloudy dust that accompanied his dreams", so that when Gatsby finally arrived in this land "after a long road", he was not surprised to find that he had to go back to his home in the middle of nowhere. So when Gatsby "after a long road" finally came to this piece of land, "the old dream has long been gone", and "the dark land ...... is stretching forward in the night", so that the valley of gray is the background of the novel, it serves as the social environment and atmosphere of the novel, it is the background of the novel. It epitomizes the social environment and atmosphere of the novel, and shrouds the whole text.

In Norwegian Wood, there is also such a "background", that is, the "well". In the beginning of the novel, there is an independent scene: "I" and Naoko are walking in a picturesque meadow under the blowing of the golden wind in October, and Naoko tells "me" the story of a well. In the depths of the meadow, there was a deep well, but no one knew exactly where it was, so if someone fell in, there was no way to save them, and it happened more than once, "once every three years or two years. It happens once every three or two years. People suddenly disappear and can't be found. So the people in the area said, "I'm sure they fell into the well in the grassy field. Here, the "well" symbolizes the background of death that envelops the whole work. The main characters of the work live in Japan in the late 1960s, when the young students experienced the failure of the school movement, and their spirits were so desolate that they were passive and decadent, giving up on themselves, and even despairing of the world and taking life lightly. In the work, many characters are like falling into a well and disappearing in the grass, suddenly committing suicide and leaving this world: Kizuki, Naoko, Naoko's sister and uncle, Hatsumi ...... The shadow of death hangs over the whole text, "in the age of youth, which is so well lived, but everything revolves around the axis of death". I was so happy to be alive and youthful that everything revolved on the axis of death. Therefore, after Kizuki's death, I gradually realized that "death is not the opposite of life, but exists forever as a part of life," just as the well and the meadow are one and inseparable. "Death is already contained in the being that is 'I'", and "each of us breathes it into our lungs as if it were a fine dust while we are living". The well waits motionless and "open-mouthed" for those who accidentally fall into it, and death is always watching us and waiting for the opportunity to devour those who have lost faith, courage and joy in life. People walking on the grass where there is a deep well in an unknown place have to be always on the lookout for the danger of falling in, and the characters in the novel, living in that era, have to fight against the temptation of death or the whirlpool of the dark forces deep inside themselves. Therefore, the scene of the well is a background of the whole text, a vivid portrayal of the atmosphere of the times and the lives of the characters in the novel.

Two

Haruki Murakami did not stop at simple borrowing and imitation, but fully developed the national style of Japanese literature, which is mainly reflected in two aspects.

One is the symbolism of the characters. In The Great Gatsby, "the use of symbols makes his (Fitzgerald's) work 'transcend the narrow world of the individual, link the subjective with the objective, magnify the personal experience and give it representation.'" (6) In Gatsby's legendary life, we can indeed see Fitzgerald's shadow: poor at an early age, sponsored by relatives to go to college, and finally made a name for himself through personal struggles. But Fitzgerald did not limit himself to depicting his personal experience, he gave Gatsby a social significance: Gatsby symbolizes and represents the realization and destruction of the American dream of "personal struggle".

And in Norwegian Wood, although "I" also represents a large number of Japanese young students in the late 1960s who have lost their ideals, are spiritually empty, lonely and decadent, and even self-abandonment, what is more reflected in "I" is the life experience of Haruki Murakami himself. Murakami Haruki's own life experience, interests: 20 years old in college, experienced the school wave movement, studied theater, listening to rock and jazz, love of foreign literature. It should be said that in Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami inherited the tradition of private novels in Japanese literature, and his creation is essentially a kind of self-expression, a kind of self-reflective psychological dissection, and a warm reminiscence of the life around him and romantic imagination. Therefore, in the afterword of the novel, he called it "a private novel".

The second is the method of symbolism. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald made excellent use of impressionistic scene descriptions, making the imagery have a strong sense of picture. In Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami uses extremely delicate descriptions to strengthen the moral of the symbolic images. Take "The Well" for example, although I only heard Naoko tell me the story about it and "never actually saw it", its appearance became an inseparable part of my mind, and I could even describe it in detail. These detailed and vivid descriptions make the readers feel like they are there, and they can't help but feel their hairs stand on end, and y realize the horror of the "well". This kind of delicate expression in Haruki Murakami's works is precisely the development of the traditional characteristics of Japanese literature, which is euphemistic and meticulous, and rich in feminine beauty. In his writing, all kinds of imagery through subtle and detailed description to achieve "to convey the character's rich and varied, small and subtle psychological feelings, interests and moods, to create a heart-wrenching sadness, pity and long rhythmic artistic mood" (8) of the creative intent and wonderful effect.

From this, it is not difficult to see that, behind the strong Western cultural atmosphere and wonderful Westernized forms of expression of Haruki Murakami's novels, his cultural heritage is purely Japanese: the nature of private fiction, the beauty of the sorrow, the two major themes of death and sexuality, the impermanence of the concept of life and death, that is to say, Haruki Murakami's characters, the value of its frame of reference is the Western way, the American style, but the cosmology is the Eastern way, the Japanese concept of the universe. That is to say, although the value reference system of Haruki Murakami's characters is Western and American, his cosmology is Eastern and Japanese.