Abstract:

By means of making a sketchy exploration of Gatsby’s short, yet splendid life full of twists and turns, this article aims at interpreting the triple tragedy in The Great Gatsby from three aspects: namely, the tragedy of love, the tragedy of destruction of American Dream, and the tragedy of the age when moral depravity and spiritual emptiness overran, which helps readers get a better understanding of the cause of Gatsby’s tragic life.

Key words: Fitzgerald; American dreams; social barriers; Jazz Age

摘要：

本文旨在通过主人公盖茨比辉煌而又曲折短暂的人生的探究，从三个方面解读《了不起的盖茨比》中主人公盖茨比人生的三重悲剧性，即：盖茨比的爱情悲剧，“美国梦”破灭的梦想悲剧以及其所处“繁华掩盖下的精神虚空、道德堕落”的时代悲剧，从而来帮助读者更好地理解小说中主人公盖茨比悲剧人生的根源。

关键词：菲茨杰拉德; 美国梦; 阶级鸿沟; 爵士时代

1. Introduction
1.1 F. Scott Fitzgerald and His Works
F. Scott Fitzgerald, regarded as one of the most wildly known and esteemed American writers of 20th century, enjoys a high reputation throughout the world for his prolificacy and writing techniques. He fully deserves his title of poet laureate and the spokesman of the Lost Generation due to the artful writing skills and the life and characteristics of people he has revealed in his books which vividly represent the epicurean, indulging, and immoral ethos of that age. As his friend, the famous writer Ernest Hemingway once said in his book, A Movable Feast, “His talent was as natural as the pattern that was made by the dust on a butterfly’s wings.”(E. Hemingway, 1964)  F. Scott Fitzgerald came from an upper-middle-class family in Saint Paul, Minnesota. When he was thirteen years old, he began to show his incipient writing talent and a keen early interest in literature by means of having his first piece of writing published in school newspaper. His later artistic development at Princeton University was suspended when he dropped out of school to join the army.