外国语学院学生毕业论文

题 目 THE NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES IN

THE GREAT GATSBY

《了不起的盖茨比》中的叙述技巧

专 业 英 语

班 级 01332

学生姓名 章 学 成

学 号 34

指导教师 方 文 开

2005 年 05 月 10 日

Catalogue

Abstract 3

摘要 3

1. Introduction 4

2. The new and unique point of view 5

2.1 The Point of View of “I” as Witness 5

2.2 The Transgression of the Point of View 6

2.3 The Shift of the Point of View 8

3. The Exquisite Arrangement of Spatio-temporal Structure 9

3.1 The Narrative Time 10

3.2 The Spatial Structure 12

4. Conclusion 13

Bibliography 15

2

Abstract

As a perfect work of modern narrative art, Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby,

with the union of its content and form, fully presents the author’s effort for the

development of traditional narrative techniques. Through using the new and

unique narrative point of view and the exquisite arrangement of spatio-temporal

structure, the author creates dramatic effects to strengthen the specific artistic

charm and highlight the novel’s concept content. This article explores the

narrative features in The Great Gatsby in terms of “I” as witness, the

transgression and the shift of the point of view to demonstrate the special and

distinct techniques in the point of view and also analyses the exquisite

arrangement of spatio-temporal structure of The Great Gatsby from the

perspective of narration key words.

Key words: the point of view, narrative person, spatio-temporal structure,

narrative time, The Great Gatsby

摘 要3

作为一部叙述艺术的精品之作，费茨杰拉德的《了不起的盖茨比》以其内

容与形式的完美统一，有力地体现了作者对传统叙述技巧的发展。通过对新

颖独特的叙述视角和独具匠心的时空结构的安排，作者使小说产生与众不同

的戏剧效果，加强了作品其艺术感染力，同时也深化了作品的思想内容。本

文从第一人称见证人叙述视角、视角越界及视角转换等三个方向探讨作品中

独特的叙述视角，从叙述学分析其别具一格的时空结构。

关键词: 叙述视角；叙述人称；时空结构；叙述时间；《了不起的盖茨比》

THE NARRATIVE TECHNIQUES

IN THE GREAT GATSBY

1. Introduction

The Great Gatsby is considered not only the most prominent work of F. Scott Fitzgerald,

but also one of the most outstanding novels in Modern American Fiction. The detail on art

world in the novel profoundly reveals the hollowness of the American worship of riches and

the unending American dreams of love, splendor and gratified desires. It is a symbol for an

age. On the art form, it characterizes clarity, imposing and proficient and still enjoys high

reputation about it now.

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Born in Saint Paul, Mirnesota, in 1896, Fitzgerald was the only son of a socially

prominent and genteelly poor family. With the financial aid of relatives he entered Princeton

University. In 1917, he left before graduating to serve in the US Army in Alabama, where he

became engaged to Zelda Sayre. After his discharge from the army in 1919, he took a job

with an advertising agency and worded on short stories and a novel at night. Eventually his

first novel, The Side of Paradise was accepted for publication and appeared in March 1920. It

was an instant success and brought Fitzgerald fame and wealth. In the same year Fitzgerald

and Zelda Sayre were married. They plunged into the gaudy, wealthy society of their

generation. The couple lived so extravagantly that they frequently spent more money than

Fitzgerald earned. In order to earn more money, Fitzgerald continued to write. In 1922 he

published his second novel, The Beautiful and Damned, and a collection of short stories,

Tales of the Jazz Age. In 1925, Fitzgerald managed to complete The Great Gatsby. It was a

critical success but a commercial failure. His next novel, Tender Is the Night (1934) was

received coldly mainly because America was deep in the Great Depression and nobody

wanted to read about expatriates in France. Battered by the failure of the book and Zelda’s

mental breakdowns, he drank to excess and grew seriously ill, died in 1940.

The Great Gatsby is a story about American dreams. Nick Carrawlly, a young man from

the Middle Western American, leaves home to East American for live. During his adrift life,

he knows the fiction’s protagonist Gatsby and eyes the whole process of Gatsby’s tragedy.

Nick uses a special narrative form to describe a story of this poor Mid-Westerner Jay Gatsby.

The young Gatsby loves Daisy who has married Tom Buchana, a brute of a man, for his

various criminal activities, including bootlegging, seeks out Daisy and Tom. Drawn by his

wealth and his devotion, Daisy becomes his mistress. When as a hit-and-run driver she kills

Myrtle, a wife of a garage man and Tom’s mistress. Gatsby tries to protect her. He is shot

when Tom in a fit of jealousy betrays him falsely to Myrtle’s husband. At his death, all of his

so-called friends abandon him.

In this novel, Fitzgerald gets the context and form to connect perfectly. Through using

the new and unique narrative point of view and the exquisite arrangement of spatio-temporal

structure, the author creates dramatic effects to strengthen the specific artistic charm and

highlight the novel’s concept content. All these things appear fully the author’s effort for the

development of traditional narrative techniques.

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2. The New and Unique Point of View

The point of view means “the narrator’s perspective to tell stories, and the reader’s basic

rule to judge the world in stories” (Li Jianxin 2003:105). It prescribes narrator’s scope to

narrate, often used with narrative person. The narrative person not only makes clear teller’s

position but also demonstrates the narrative way the teller takes. Before the 20th century,

fiction’s narration was always adopted sole narrative person to tell stories, using first person

or third person. As far as the point of view, omniscience almost monopolized the narrative

market. From the beginning of the 20th century, novelists’ eyes on fiction tended from “its

traditional society and ethic values to artistic performance” (Wu Weiren 1990:162). The

narrative of modern fiction is not content with sole narrative person in whole fiction and

broke out it to take two or multiple foci of narrative person. So it turned up some new

phenomena in narrative features like the transgression and the shift of the point of view. The

Great Gatsby, as a bright pearl in the world literature, embodies the narrative features of

modern fiction and also reveals Fitzgerald’s mature artistic skill.

2.1 The Point of View of “I” as Witness

The whole story of Gatsby is based on Nick’s memories, using the first person “I”. Nick

is not only the teller of the story, but also a key character in the story. He is a witness of many

things. This narrative way is called “‘I’ as witness” (Pilip Sterik 1967:125) in Pilip Stevik’s

The Theory of the Novel. It makes the story more reasonable and infectious and creates

“harsh critics and deepened connotive meanings” (Wu Weiren 1990:219). As a morality

criticizer, Nick instead of the author judges every character in the story including him

himself. This way of narrative strengthening story’s reality and theme, makes the story as an

integral whole and invulnerable. In the novel, Nike is “both in and out of the story” (Xu Dai

1992:105). Because of his multiple positions, he is in the story. Nick is the protagonist

Gatsby’s neighbor; Daisy’s brother once removed; Tom’s classmate in college and the

sweetie of Daisy’s close friend, Jordan. He is a tie, which joints many contradictions and

conflicts between characters and a key figure in the complicate relation’s net, being

everywhere and everything. Fitzgerald lets him use curious eyes to view Gatsby’s actions and

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holds sympathy to suppose Gatsby’s thoughts. This creates distinct art effects. Nike is out of

the story because those contradictions and conflicts are no business to him. He can take an

objective and calm attitude to value them. Through Nike’ eyes, readers learn everything

happened in the story. Nike shows the charm and glamour, the degeneration and

disgracefulness in the upper class in front of readers. As a witness who “has strong flexibility

and broad and various information” (Pilip Sterik 1967:125), he can observe Gatsby’ actions

standing far from him and get lots of information about Gatsby identity from people’s

guesses and gossips in the party. He also can witness the desolate sight after Gatsby’s death,

which makes a comparison with Gatsby’s flashy live during his lifetime. This tragic effect

cannot be taught by other narrative ways.

Using “I” as witness to narrative the story, Fitzgerald let readers feel things directly in

the story. But as a writer he hides himself behind the case. “This non-individualistic

technique makes the novel get a true effect” (Booth 1997:302). Besides, using a character in

the story as the narrator and the first person to tell the story let readers experience personally.

All of these make the story more vivid and persuasive.

2.2 The Transgression of the Point of View

Though “I” as witness can bring vivid and persuasive effect on readers, it has some

shortcomings. The narrator can only describe things which he knows but cannot walk into

other characters’ minds and gains their thoughts. This hinders the narrator to reveal

characters’ inner being avoiding readers to learn their’ figures more clearly. Thus, the

narrator must transcend his narrative limits to present things. This phenomenon is called the

transgression of the point of view. In The Great Gatsby, when Nike has a perspective to

Gatsby, Daisy, Tom and other characters in his or other’s opinion, he has surpassed his

narrative limits as a first person narrator. There are many obvious cases about such

transgression.

In chapter five, after the statement of the sight of Gatsby and Daisy’s reunion after five

years, Nike comments Gatsby using the tone of first person “I”.

As I went over to say good-by I saw that the expression of bewilderment had come

back into Gatsby’s face, as though a faint doubt had occurred to him as to the quality of his

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present happiness. Almost five years! There must have been moments even that afternoon

when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams-not through her own fault, but because of the

colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown

himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every

bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of five or freshment can challenge what a man

will store up in his ghostly heart (Fitzgerald 1982:128).

In this comment, the statement “Almost five years!” likes Gatsby’s heart saying. It is

Nike’s supposition to Gatsby’s inner being. Normally speaking, Nike cannot know it as a

first person narration. Thus, the narrator transcends his narrative limits here. But after this

transgression, the narrator leads readers into Gatsby’s mind and lets readers catch Gatsby’s

emotion changes. In this way, readers feel reasonable about Gatsby’s feeling—“a faint doubt

had occurred to him as to the quality of his present happiness” and faithful about the

narrator’s comment.

In chapter six, when Nike pictures a date of Gatsby and Daisy before five years, he

himself is something like a vidicon to show Gatsby’s actions firstly. But later, he states “Out

of the corner of his eye Gatsby saw that the blocks of the sidewalks really formed a ladder

and mounted to a secret place about the tree—” (Fitzgerald 1982:148). From here, there

appears the transgression of the point of view. The narrator leaps out his narrative limits to

make a perspective to the character’s inner being. Because when he narrates like a vidicon,

he cannot go into character’s mind to learn about theirs thoughts. Again, through the

transgression the narrator successfully joints Gatsby’s ideal ambition and his pursuit for

Daisy’s love closely, making readers know clear that Daisy is Gatsby’s chasing lover, more

important, she is the avatar of Gatsby’s dream. Such special narrative skill appears again in

the following paragraph. In the beginning, Nike tells things also like a vidicon. But when he

says –“He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her

perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God” (Fitzgerald

1982:149), he is becoming a omniscient narrator who knows everything because these are

Gatsby’s inner being, others cannot learn. But from “then”—in next sentences “then he

kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was

complete” (Fitzgerald 1982:149), the omniscient narrator goes back again like the vidicon to

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tell things. After these twice transgression of the point of view, the narrator again finely lets

reader know well about Gatsby’s contradictive feelings at that time. Truthfully speaking, if

there are not these transgressions, readers could only observe Gatsby as a looker-on. They are

not able to appreciate the content of Daisy’s symbolic meanings for Gatsby and Gatsby’s

contradictive feelings in the process of getting this symbolic thing. In fact, the main line of

Gatsby’s beautiful dream for his pursuit and his contradictive feelings on this road go

through all along The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald highlights this line by the transgression. It is

very important for developing the novel’s theme.

2.3 The Shift of the Point of View

Unlike the transgression of the point of view, the shift of the point of view is another

special figure in The Great Gatsby. The latter is “legal” while the former is “illegal”. It is an

expedient measure to use the transgression little range and temporarily when needed. But

when the narration needs from one point of view to another largely for a long time, the

transgression is incompetent but only the shift of the point of view can do. In The Great

Gatsby, the shift mainly presents in the first person narration, though limited in essence,

tending to be omniscient or partially omniscient.

In chapter two, when the narrator pictures Tom’s mistress, he uses the shift of the point

of view. It is a rumor for Nick about Tom having a mistress, so when he states about this

event, it is reasonable for him to use the omniscient narrative. But quickly, the omniscient

narrative tends to the first person narrative –“Though I was curious to see her, I had no desire

to meet her—but I did.” (Fitzgerald 1982:31). Here, this changes result on the development

of the story’s plot for The Great Gatsby is about the story of Gatsby not of Tom. Thus, in

order to not be far away from the center event and let readers’ attention focus on the latter

narration, the narrator must change the narrative eyes to avoid enlarging readers’ observation.

In chapter seven, where the narrator Nike presents Daisy and Gatsby’s emotional

reactions after Gatsby and Tom’s direct conflict, he firstly uses the eye of “I” to observe

Gatsby, Daisy and Tom, then instead by the eye of “he”. It is to say that the point of view

tends from the first person narration to the omniscience. Through this change, the narrator

makes readers know clear that after Tom’s malicious attack, Gatsby’s dash is shortened and

Daisy’s emotional direction changes accordingly, from Gatsby to Tom again. As a symbol for

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Gatsby’s pursuing ideal, Daisy’s gradual cowering means Gatsby’s pursuit disperses little by

little until nothing. The narrator and readers all know it, but Gatsby himself knows nothing

about it, more exactly speaking, he is unwilling to know it. From this point, his shift makes

up for the point of view of first person’s shortcoming. More important, it usefully adjusts

narrative distance effectively satirizes Gatsby’s hopeless pursuit and reaches a satiric effects.

In the same chapter, there are also some phenomena of the shift of the point of view in the

event of Daisy’s driving killing Tom’s mistress Myrtle. When the event happened, Nike was

not at hand. His narration about the event is not his experience but from a character in the

story named Michaelis’ description. In order to tell this story, Nike gives up his eyes but

makes use of the characters and then lets readers observe the whole story through the

character’s eyes. This shortens the narration distance and builds a feeling of experience

personally for readers and also reinforces the narrative truth.

The similar shift phenomenon also appears in other place in the novel. Here does not to

present one by one. One more which needs to mention is that the shift from one point of view

to another is the narration requirement for observing character’s inner being, developing

story’s plot and producing narrative truth. Such requirement fulfills by these changes in The

Great Gatsby. All of these turn up Fitzgerald’s novel’s narrative features.

3. The Exquisite Arrangement of Spatio-temporal Structure

The exquisite spatio-temporal structure is another narrative technique in The Great

Gatsby. As to the temporal narrative arrangement, the novel follows the seasonal cycle in

time sequence but adjusts the speed and order of particular time, thereby characterizing itself

by the non-linear development of story, a strategy widely adopted in modern fiction. As to

the spatial arrangement, the contrast of East and West, East and West Eggs, and New York

and Foul Dust in the novel, constitute the beyond-geographic-sense metaphors, which reveal

and highlight the theme of the novel.

3.1 The Narrative Time

The narrative time is one of the most important research parts for narrative theorists.

The traditional narrative works press on the description and reproduction to the truth of real

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life, lacking some temporal arrangement skills—omission, abbreviation, extension, pause,

flashback and so on, while the modern fiction broke away from the form of linear narration,

beginning to extend or shorten the narrative time. Fitzgerald was lived in 1920s which was

called “the transformation from traditional fiction to modern fiction” (McMichael 1980:64).

In his novels, there are some new points on the narrative time.

Like other modern fiction, The Great Gatsby reflects author’s concerns on the time. In

the novel, Fitzgerald arranges the narrative time skillfully. The whole story is based on

Nike’s memories for the experiences in the East with two year’s time-span. It is almost

omission for Nike’s life when he came back from east. Unusually, Nick’s East’s experience

exactly completes a seasonal cycle. According to Northrop Frye’s literature meanings in

seasonal cycle, for instance, spring means “revival and refreshing” (Wu Zhizhe 1997:90). In

the novel, Nike goes to East restlessly after coming back from the war field. It is just in the

spring at that time. Nike feels that he himself is becoming “an exploiter” and has a new life

and hopes in a new area. There are some senses of relaxing and joyful between the lines.

Summer is “a season at zenith of power” (Wu Zhizhe 1997:90). It is used to celebrate hero.

In the summer, Nike acquaints with Gatsby. And through all the summer nights, there are

parties in Gatsby’s blue gardens. Gatsby takes an incomparable way to arrange his feasts and

also takes an incomparable permanence to pursue his dream. At last, he meets Daisy wish-

fulfilled and wins her favor. Though Nike does not make any comment as a stranger, he

names Gatsby “the son of God” (Fitzgerald 1982:153) in a narrative. Nike’s favor for

Gatsby’ spirit coincides in temporal metaphors. Autumn is “the stage of hero’s comedown

and dying process” (Wu Zhizhe 1997:90). When the author arranges Nike and Gatsby’s

farewell, he mentions of Gatsby—“disappeared among the yellowing trees” (Fitzgerald

1982:216), then Gatsby is killed in his pool, above him “the touch of a cluster of leaves

revolved it slowly, tracing, like the leg of transit, a thin red circle in the water” (Fitzgerald

1982:217). Finally, Nike goes back to West. Winter is “the stage of hero dying tragically”

(Wu Zhizhe 1997:90), corresponding to Nike’s mood of disheartening to the East and going

back home after Gatsby’ death.

When the author handles the text processing, he does not arrange the narrative time

equally, but effectively adjusts the speed, extending one season, one day or one point during

his narrative. For example, the first three chapters are mainly about three nights. Chapter one

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is the night of Nike’s visit to Daisy and Tom. Chapter two is mainly about the night of Nike

and Tom and his mistress in New York. Chapter three is the description of the night of Nike’s

attendance in Gatsby’s feast. Nike calls these three nights “they were merely casual events in

a crowded summer” (Fitzgerald 1982:25), but in the story, these three nights takes up a large

description from page one to page seventy-five while other time is omitted. This change of

the speed of narrative time brings a particular narrative effect. The extending description of

these three nights reflects author’s perspectives and thoughts for three kinds of people.

Another feature on the arrangement in narrative time is the order of particular time. In

The Great Gatsby, the author firstly lets Nike catch a lot of gossips about Gatsby, giving the

character a mysterious veil and producing a suspension, then Jodan’s saying about Gatsby

and Daisy’s love story, adding a romantic color for characters. Finally, he uncovers the

character’s veil little by little, opening Gatsby’s various vicissitudes gradually before reader’s

view until his death. Such order disorganizes the time sequence of narration, making the

structure of the fiction has an internal tension. In the description of Nike and Gatsby’s

association, the time directs to “now” while in other people’s description about Gatsby’s

experiences, the time directs to “past”. This two different time directions go through each

other and alternate constantly, disorganizing the linear development of story. Let us make an

analysis and compare the time sequence between in the story and in the narrative words. Here

are things about Gatsby in the story: A. Gatsby’ boyhood (in chapter 8); B. Gatsby’s life

when he was in 17 in Dan Cody’s yacht (in chapter6); C. Gatsby met Daisy and fell love

with her (in chapter4,6,8); D. Gatsby’s experience of visiting Daisy after the war (in

chapter8); E. Gatsby took part in Wolfsheim’s illegal business (in chapter8); F. Gatsby’s

end. The normal time sequence is A-B-C-D-E-F-G. But after the author’s artful handling, the

order presents C-BC-DCF-E-A.

3.2 The Spatial Structure

The spatial structure is very profound and abstract in The Great Gatsby. The contrasts of

East and West, East and West Eggs, and New York and Foul Dust in the novel constitute the

vivid spatial framework.

The early culture of America arose from Eastern Colony. After the Independence War,

American was independence in politics from Britain, but also contacted with them in culture

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and ideology. Along with the culture extending to Middle Western, the Western Culture

presented a new activity and attracted many dream-cherishing exploits because there were

more chances and large free space to them. Thus, “East” and “West” are not only two

opposite geographic meanings, but also two different cultural meaning. In The Great Gatsby,

Nike’s experience from West to East then back to West is not so much the changes in space

as the seeking for the source of spirit and culture.

Nike is from West in a wealthy family, his family’s prosperity corresponded to the

development of West. Nike calls this area where is the dream place for many American—“the

warm center of the world” (Fitzgerald 1982:3). But after the Great War, he loses heart for it

and wants to skip from her. At that time, East has finished the Industrial Revolution. The

property in East gives Nike a new hope. He believes that he is becoming a settle like his

ancestor. Nevertheless, after witnessing Gatsby’s tragedy, he again feels sorry about his

nation’s civilization and back to West. The recurrence of place and action forms the spatial

lock, no way to break out.

The contradiction between “East” and “West” also embody in the conflict of the “East

Egg” and “West Egg” which releases Gatsby’s tragedy and highlights the theme. From the

beginning, the author tries to make metaphors to East and West Eggs. Their physical

resemblances are both like “the egg in the Columbus story” (Fitzgerald 1982:6) but “their

dissimilarity in every particular except shape and size” (Fitzgerald 1982:7). Tom and Daisy

live on the East Egg who are born in rich and powerful families and social status while

Gatsby is on the West Egg who is born in a humble family but cherishes dream and longs for

success. The author arranges an important symbol in the novel that is the green light played

an important role in the process of modeling the protagonist Gatsby’s character. At the end of

chapter one, when Nike goes back home in the evening and sees that Gatsby stares at the

green light—“he stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I

was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily, I glanced seaward—and

distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and faraway, that might have been

the end of a dock.” (Fitzgerald 1982:29)

This green light means the dream and hope to Gatsby, which he adheres constantly all

his life to pursue and seek hard. However, the green light is of puzzled, dangerous and

destructive. When Gatsby closes one more step to it, he also nears to destruction and death.

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The green light arranges at the end of the novel exactly proves this symbolic and ironic

meaning—“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year reached

before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out

our arms farther— And one fine morning—” (Fitzgerald 1982:24)

Another important symbolic temporal location is New York and Foul Dust. As a modern

city, New York is the center of modern civilization. But between this center and West Egg,

there locates a certain desolate area of land named by the author the valley of ashes, which is

full of symbolic meanings. This is the place that “where ashes grow like wheat into ridges

and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and

rising smoke” (Fitzgerald 1982:30). Wilson and his wife Myrtle live in this valley of ashes.

Wilson believes Tom’s words and shoots Gatsby, then suicide; Myrtle degenerates herself as

Tom’s mistress and finally dies under Daisy’s driving. These two tragedies express the

darkness of the modern civilization center. The author connects the depiction of space with

character’s feelings and fully releases the narrator’s disappointment and disgust to this

modern civilization center.

4. Conclusion

To sum up, Fitzgerald is skillful and creative enough to use kinds of distinctive narrative

techniques to enrich the depth of the novel and emphasize the theme. Through using the new

and unique narrative point of view and the exquisite arrangement of spatio-temporal

structure, he successfully makes the novel more charming and splendid in Modern American

Fiction, even in the World Fiction. The famous critic Thomas Stearns Eliot who is known as

his rigor on literature values appreciated The Great Gatsby as “the first step on American

fiction after Henry James” (Poupard 1984:149). Such high comment enough lights us to

recognize correctly the novel’s literature values and the prominent status in American fiction

history.

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Bibliography

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[2]Pilip Sterik. The Theory of the Novel. New York: The Free Press, 1967.

[3]McMichael, George. Anthology of American Literature. New York: MacMillan Publishing

Co. Inc., 1980.

[4]Wu Weiren. History and Anthology of American Literature (2 vols.). Beijing: Foreign

Language Teaching and Research Press, 1990.

[5]Poupard, Dennis & James E. Person (eds.). Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism (14

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vols.). Detroit & London: Gale Research Inc., 1984.

[6]W. C.布斯: 《小说修辞学》，中国社会科学出版社, 1997年。

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[8]徐岱: 《小说叙事学》，中国社会科学出版社, 1992年。

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