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Introduction
Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsby
Francis Scott Fitzgerald is now hailed as a representative author of the LostGeneration, the Poet Laureate of the Jazz Age and an outstanding chronicler. However,his literary career is so full of twists and turns. His first novel This Side of Paradise(1920) and the second one The Beautiful and Damned (1922) were both made thebestsellers. However, the critical reception of the second was disappointing. Anxiousabout making little progress while enjoying the fame and fortune, he made up hismind to write “something new - something extraordinary and beautiful and simple andintricately patterned” (Bruccoli 170) when he was planning his third novel, The GreatGatsby. Unfortunately, it didn’t sell well until the 1940s when interest in it began topick up in earnest. It was after his death that his fame, after a period of declination,has increased thanks to the Fitzgerald Revival.It’s worth analyzing the artistic techniques in Gatsby because this work showsFitzgerald’s maturity in artistic style. It marks a transition of his writing style, atransition from Wellsian aesthetics to the Jamesian one. In his early period of literarycreation, he was influenced by the British realist writer Herbert George Wells whoadvocates the novel of saturation which encompasses whatever the writer is interestedin at the time of writing (Tredell 196). However, his masterpiece Gatsby creativelyemploys what Henry James calls for: the novel of selection which means to chooseonly salient details that enrich the theme and enhance the fictional illusion (Tredell196). “By the time he wrote The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald had completely shifted hisallegiance” (Miller Jr 1) from Wells to James.
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Impressionism from Painting to Literature
If we are to understand the term “literary impressionism” better, we have to startfrom where impressionism originated. Impressionism originally refers to a style ofpainting characterized by blurred outlines but brilliant colors in the late 19th centuryFrance. The artists at that time preferred painting landscape and contemporary life to painting historical or mythological scenes. In pursuit of expressing ephemeral feelingsand impressions, they tended to capture kaleidoscopic colors in the sunlight. In 1874,a French journalist, Louis Leroy, used the word "impressionist" in ridicule of theaffronting formlessness of a painting by Claude Monet, Impression-Sunrise, andtherefore, the artists defiantly adopted it. The main representatives of impressionistpainting include Edward Monet, Claude Monet, Camille Pissarro, Alfred Sislley andPirre Auguste Renoir (Rewald 1). These painters, instead of painting conceptually,produced their works in a perceptual way. They tried to look at the world afresh and toshow what they actually saw. For example, a tree, intrinsically green, might appearred at sunset. Instead of painting a tree, impressionist painters painted the effect of atree.There are several conspicuous artistic features of impressionist painting. First,impressionists capture transitory and instantaneous impressions of nature as theyactually perceive in a single fleeting moment (Rewald 219). Second, impressionistsput much emphasis on the importance of the effects of light and colors in theirchanging qualities (Rewald 219). They are interested in the function of light and theoptical effects caused by it. They also believe that colors are conditional under thenatural light and that new hues could be created by putting pigments and dots togetherwithout mixing them. Third, impressionists prefer to simplify their compositions,omitting details to achieve an overall striking effect (Rewald 219). In a word,impressionist paintings are characterized by brilliant colors, vibrant surface andblurred outlines.
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Chapter 1 The Impressionistic Narrative
As noted earlier, impressionist writers tend to render their stories in the way lifemakes impressions on brains instead of narrating in an organized and logical way. Inorder to achieve this aim, they usually compose their works with the technique ofverbal collage which includes fragmentation, defamiliarization, juxtaposition andconsequently an unearned increment. Vaguely divided, these skills usually overlapwith one another. It is in order to achieve a certain effect that impressionist writersjuxtapose seemingly unrelated fragments which actually play important roles. “It doesnot choose surfaces and fragments over depths and wholes but makes surfaces showdepths, makes fragments suggest wholes” (Matz 1). Fitzgerald is expert in expressingthe thematic meaning through the technique of verbal collage. To be specific, theillusory nature of the distorted American Dream is better conveyed through thefragmented and juxtaposed narrative. The fragmented narrative allows thecharacterization of Gatsby as a mysterious and vague figure which is symbolic of theimpossibility of realizing the American Dream. Likewise, the juxtaposed narrativealso brings out the sense of disillusionment. The juxtaposition of Gatsby’s past andpresent as well as that of night and daytime make the conflict of romantic dream andcruel reality come into prominence.
1.1Fragmentation
Like Conrad, Fitzgerald advocates the authentic representation of life. Heemploys the fragmented narrative to render the story as life makes various fragmentedimpressions on human brains. This kind of narrative is evident in rendering the imageof Gatsby.Maxwell Perkins, the mentor and muse to Fitzgerald, once commented onGatsby after reading the initial drafts of the novel:Gatsby is somewhat vague. The reader’s eyes can never quite focus upon him.His outlines are dim. Now everything about Gatsby is more or less a mystery,i.e., more or less vague, and this may be somewhat an artistic intention, but Ithink it is mistaken. (28)Very upfront about what he liked, Perkins, in this case, expressed frankly what hedidn’t like, but Fitzgerald replied,Strange to say my notion of Gatsby as vacant was OK. This is a complicatedidea, but I’m sure you will understand. I know Gatsby better than I know myown child. My first instinct after your letter was to let him go and have TomBuchanan dominate the book. (Perkins 33)
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1.2Juxtaposition
The employment of juxtaposition is a striking feature of impressionism.Impressionist painters tend to directly put different pigments side by side on thecanvas without mixing them up beforehand to achieve an effect of blurred outline andvibrant surface. In this way, new hues would usually be created through opticalmixing of those color dots and pigments. Likewise, impressionist writers are inclinedto juxtapose fragmented details to produce profound meaning and at the same timeenhance the artistic appeal. Fitzgerald also applies juxtaposition in the novel to evokereaders’emotion and to express the theme more effectively.Juxtaposition is employed in the arrangement of time, which facilitates theexpression of the theme.The most obvious juxtaposition in terms of time is the one of Gatsby’s past andhis present. As mentioned above, Fitzgerald has rearranged the events of Gatsby’s life.Thanks to the reshuffling of time, a sharp contrast between beautiful dream and cruelreality is formed. The rendering of how he rose from poverty to the present positionwith great hopefulness runs parallel with the process of how he was rendereddisillusioned step by step. The most typical juxtaposition of Gatsby’s past and hispresent is the one of his boyhood anecdote and his funeral in the last chapter.
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Chapter 2 The Impressionistic Treatment of Imagery.....26
2.1 The Juxtaposed Images of Eyes, Owl-Eyed Man and Books........26
2.2 The Light Images............29
Chapter 3 The Impressionistic Use of Colors........ 37
3.1 Green............37
3.2 Blue..... 39
3.3 White............41
3.4 Shades of Yellow............43
3.5 Grey.....45
Chapter 3 The Impressionistic Use of Colors
Originated from painting, literary impressionism shows, to a great extent, theaffinity to visual representation, especially the employment of various colors. Colorsare one of the elements that distinguish impressionist paintings. Different from theintrinsic colors in Baroque paintings, the color of a subject in impressionist paintingsis not original due to the subtle change brought by the environment. Certain visualeffects can be achieved by viewing from afar the impressionist paintings composed ofsmall dots of various colors. Likewise, impressionist writers also attach greatimportance to the impressionistic use of colors in their works, which endows theirworks with so much suggestiveness that they acquire the symbolic force to extend themeaning of the stories. Fitzgerald is no exception. The technique in Gatsby is scenicand symbolic. Again and again, sentences are made visual and memorable with colorwords. And in most cases, these color words, with their symbolic meanings, play animportant role in indicating the disillusionment and the impossibility to climb up thesocial ladder.
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Conclusion
Today, the general consensus of Fitzgerald is that he is the most representativeAmerican writer of the 1920s. The thematic significance and the sophisticated artisticstyle of his masterpiece, The Great Gatsby, are fully recognized.It’s safe to say that Fitzgerald is a typical impressionist writer and Gatsby is atypical impressionist work. Rereading the view on fiction of Conrad, the precursor ofBritish and American literary impressionism, just before the creation of Gatsby,Fitzgerald is profoundly influenced by Conrad. And Gatsby marks his maturity inartistic style. Various impressionistic techniques can be found in the work, such as theverbal collage in terms of narrative and images as well as the smart use of light andcolors.The combination of detailed fragments and overall structure is well adopted inthe work. Fragmented narrative is employed in rendering the image of Gatsby whoseemed to be vague and mysterious. It makes him more like a symbolic sign than aflesh-and-blood man, which suggests his rootlessness and indicates that the way outof the bottom of the society was as mysterious as the image of Gatsby and that thehope of living a better life was as vague as his outline. Juxtaposition is employed inthe arrangement of time. By juxtaposing Gatsby’s past and present, a sharp contrastbetween the youthful dream and the disillusionment is formed. By juxtaposing thenight and the daytime, the conflict between romantic fantasy and cruel reality ishighlighted.Fitzgerald’s arrangement and choice of images are also of impressionisticpractice. Juxtaposition is also employed in the arrangement of the images. Seeminglyunrelated and scattered here and there in the work, the images of Doctor T. J.Eckleburg’s eyes, the owl-eyed man and the books work as a whole to reveal the cruelreality that it was impossible to move into a higher class through hard work, wisdomand self-improvement. “Light is the soul of impressionist paintings, and the soul ofimpressionist literature” (Kronegger 42). Various kinds of light are also used extensively in the novella. The ambiguity of moonlight and sunlight helps show thattheAmerican Dream at that time was so close yet so far, enticing yet elusive, beautifulyet grotesquely flawed. The green light, with its changing and developing meaningthroughout the work, shows Gatsby’s illusion and disillusionment, implying that theAmerican Dream was forever just out of reach.
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References (abbreviated)
