伟大的盖茨比英文读书报告

The Great Gatsby

★ information about the author：

Francis Scott Fitzgerald (1896--1940).As an American author of novels and short stories, he was regarded as one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century.

In his life, he was strapped for money and genius. He used to have both of them, but lost them finally. After his death, some critics said that he died young and lost all the genius because of his corruption and self-abandonment.

He wrote 4 long novels and 150 short stories, including This Side of Paradise (《尘世乐园》，1920), The Beautiful and Damned （《美丽与毁灭》，1922）, The Great Gatsby （《伟大的盖茨比》，1925）, Tender Is the Night （《夜色温柔》，1934）, The Love of the Last Tycoon（《最后一个影坛大亨》，1941）.

★ Jazz Age :

The time between 1918 and 1929 was called the “Jazz Age”. During this time, the World War I was over and the Great Depression in the America hadn’t come yet. The traditional dogma of the puritan disappeared and leading a life of pleasure became popular in the public. This is an age of miracle, of art, of wasting money, and full of taunt. He knew this age’s longing of romantic and its inanity in the root. Everything seemed to be feasible through modern technology. It is also known as “the Roaring 20s”.

★ Plot and characters:

Nick (narrator)— a bond salesman, and neighbor to Gatsby.

Jay Gatsby— a young, mysterious millionaire later revealed to be a bootlegger(私酒制造者).

Daisy Buchanan— an attractive young woman, Nick’s cousin and the wife of Tom Buchanan.

Tom Buchanan— Daisy’s husband, an arrogant “old money” millionaire.

Myrtle Wilson — Tom‘s mistress（情妇）.

George B. Wilson —He was Myrtle’s husband, a mechanic and owner of garage.

The main events of the novel take place in the summer of 1922. Nick, a Yale graduate and World War I veteran from the Midwest – who serves as the novel's narrator – takes a job in New York as a bond salesman. He rents a small house on Long Island, in the village of West Egg, next door to the lavish mansion of Jay Gatsby, a mysterious millionaire who holds extravagant parties but does not participate in them. Nick drives around the bay to East Egg for dinner at the home of his cousin, Daisy Fay Buchanan, and her husband, Tom, a college acquaintance of Nick's. They introduce Nick to Jordan Baker, an attractive, cynical young golfer with whom Nick begins a romantic relationship. She reveals to Nick that Tom has

BOOK REPORT

a mistress, Myrtle Wilson, who lives in the \"valley of ashes\": an industrial dumping ground between West Egg and New York City. Not long after this revelation, Nick travels to New York City with Tom and Myrtle to an apartment they keep for their affair. At the apartment, a vulgar and bizarre party takes place. It ends with Tom breaking Myrtle's nose after she annoys him by saying Daisy's name several times.

As the summer progresses, Nick eventually receives an invitation to one of Gatsby's parties. Nick encounters Jordan Baker at the party, and they meet Gatsby himself, an aloof and surprisingly young man who recognizes Nick from their same division in the war. Through Jordan, Nick later learns that Gatsby knew Daisy from a romantic encounter in 1917 and is deeply in love with her. He spends many nights staring at the green light at the end of her dock, across the bay from his mansion, hoping to one day rekindle their lost romance. Gatsby's extravagant lifestyle and wild parties are an attempt to impress Daisy in the hopes that she will one day appear again at Gatsby's doorstep. Gatsby now wants Nick to arrange a reunion between himself and Daisy. Nick invites Daisy to have tea at his house, without telling her that Gatsby will also be there. After an initially awkward reunion, Gatsby and Daisy reestablish their connection. They begin an affair and, after a short time, Tom grows increasingly suspicious of his wife's relationship with Gatsby. At a luncheon at the Buchanans' house, Daisy speaks to Gatsby with such undisguised intimacy that Tom realizes she is in love with Gatsby. Though Tom is himself involved in an extramarital affair, he is outraged by his wife's infidelity. He forces the group to drive into New York City and confronts Gatsby in a suite at the Plaza Hotel, asserting that he and Daisy have a history that Gatsby could never understand. In addition to that, he announces to his wife that Gatsby is a criminal whose fortune comes from bootlegging alcohol and other illegal activities. Daisy realizes that her allegiance is to Tom, and Tom contemptuously sends her back to East Egg with Gatsby, attempting to prove that Gatsby cannot hurt him. When Nick, Jordan, and Tom drive through the valley of ashes on their way home, they discover that Gatsby's car has struck and killed Tom's mistress, Myrtle. Nick later learns from Gatsby that Daisy, not Gatsby himself, was driving the car at the time of the accident but Gatsby intends to take the blame anyway. Myrtle's husband, George, falsely concludes that the driver of the yellow car is the secret lover he recently began suspecting she has, and sets out on foot to locate its owner. After finding out the yellow car is Gatsby's, he arrives at Gatsby's mansion where he fatally shoots both Gatsby and then himself. Nick stages an unsettlingly small funeral for Gatsby, ends his relationship with Jordan, and moves back to the Midwest, disillusioned with the Eastern lifestyle.

★ What I think and feel:

The Great Gatsby reflects the collapse of the American dream.

In the 1920s, easy money and relaxed social values have corrupted this dream, especially on the East Coast.

To Gatsby, Daisy is an ideal image of holy and pure things, especially for Gatsby.

BOOK REPORT

But what she really cared about was money.

Sarah Churchwell sees The Great Gatsby as a \"cautionary tale of the decadent downside of the American dream.\" The story deals with human aspiration to start over again, social politics and its brutality and also betrayal, of one's own ideals and of people. Using elements of irony and tragic ending, it also delves into themes of excesses of the rich, and recklessness of youth.

Others, like journalist Nick Gillespie, see The Great Gatsby as a story \"about the breakdown of class differences in the face of a modern economy based not on status and inherited position but on innovation and an ability to meet ever-changing consumer needs.\" This interpretation asserts that The Great Gatsby captures the American experience because it is a story about change and those who resist it; whether the change comes in the form of a new wave of immigrants, the nouveau riche, or successful minorities, Americans from the 1920s to modern day have plenty of experience with changing economic and social circumstances. As Gillespie states, \"While the specific terms of the equation are always changing, it's easy to see echoes of Gatsby's basic conflict between established sources of economic and cultural power and upstarts in virtually all aspects of American society.\" Because this concept is particularly American and can be seen throughout American history, readers are able to relate to The Great Gatsby. ★ Something about the American dream:

Historian James Adams:

A dream of being able to grow to fullest development as man and woman, unhampered by the barriers in the old civilizations, unrepressed by social orders which had developed for the benefit of higher classes. ★ Famous sentences:

“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

★ It is the need to fight for what you believe in, show love to the things you care about; a belief of achieving a better life through your diligence, constant efforts, courage, and innovation but not through social status and other people’s aids.