本文是一篇文学论文，文学作品是作家用独特的语言艺术表现其独特的心灵世界的作品，离开了这样两个极具个性特点的独特性就没有真正的文学作品。（以上内容来自百度百科）今天为大家推荐一篇文学论文，供大家参考。
Introduction
0.1 Introduction of F. Scott Fitzgerald
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald (1896-1940), one of the best writers of the LostGeneration, the speaker of the Jazz Age, and the excellent chronicler of the American1920s, is a brilliant star in American literary circle of the 20thcentury. Although hiswriting career is just about twenty years, Fitzgerald has created five classic novels, 178short stories and many non-fictions, which secure him a permanent place in Americanliterature. His works present vividly and objectively the social morality, life style,spiritual values and cultural characters, revealing the young generation’s disappointmentand disillusionment of the American Dream in a profound way. Henry Steel once saidthat Fitzgerald is “the most gifted of all the novelists of the twenties, the incomparablehistorian of gilded youth, of the jazz age, of the rich and the near rich, of the greatprosperity and the great disillusionment.” (Commager 1950:265)F. Scott Fitzgerald’s life experience is closely related to his literary creation. Hewas born in a middle-class family in St. Paul, Minnesota. His mother Mollie is from aprestigious merchant family in the local place while his father’s failure in business leadsto a hard life for the family, never having a fixed residence. When Fitzgerald was a child,his household was supported by Mollie’s family. Although his family was not rich, helived in the summit avenue section of St. Paul, inhabited by the wealthiest residents ofthe city, which made him feel like an outsider neither belonging to the upper classpeople nor the average civilians. Deeply influenced by these experiences, Fitzgerald haddeveloped a strong desire to ascend to the upper class. Meanwhile, the traditional familyatmosphere provided Fitzgerald with good education in embracing the enlightenment ofliterature and art. His mother often took him to attend the upper class meeting, whichhad great impact on his aesthetic temperament and interest. In addition, his parents knew the significance of good education, so they valued Fitzgerald’s education. At theage of 12, Fitzgerald was sent to a famous private school, St. Paul School, where hepublished his first story The Mystery of the Raymond Mortgage and some other shortstories in the school magazine, and exhibited his aptitude in literary writing.
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0.2 Introduction of Tender Is the Night
Tender Is the Night is the last novel Fitzgerald has completed. As early as 1925,Fitzgerald shared the plan for this novel with his good friend Maxwell Perkins, to whomhe wrote in a letter: “the happiest thing I have is of my new novel---it is somethingreally New in form, idea, structure, the model for the age that Joyce and Stern aresearching for, that Conrad didn’t find.” (Bruccoli 1995:168) Having such a high spirit ofmaking it the greatest work that had ever been published, it took Fitzgerald nine years tofinish the novel, which was off and on intermittently. During the nine years, the writingplan had been changed too many times, and the final version is rather different fromwhat he wanted to write at the beginning. With the severe impact of the GreatDepression, Tender Is the Night got the cold shoulder after publication, because thetheme of it is not what people were interested in. Nevertheless, many famous writersand critics praised his narrative skills, preeminent imagination and crafty wording. AsErnest Hemingway professed in a letter, “Tender Is the Night is mixed up but absolutelyexcellent. Most of the novel is wonderful; it is a novel that the more you read it, themore interesting you think it is.” (Bruccoli 1994:162)
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Chapter One Freud’s Structural Theory of Personality
Sigmund Freud is a well-known psychiatrist, psychologist and the father ofpsychoanalysis. His psychoanalytical theories, including personality theory, playessential roles in the area of psychoanalysis all over the world in the past and present.Before we discuss the novel Tender Is the Night, it is quite necessary to know somethingabout Freud and his fundamental concepts.
1.1 Introduction of Freud’s Structural Theory of Personality
Freud’s psychoanalysis consists of three parts: Instinct Theory, PsychologicalAnatomy and Structural Theory of Personality. The success of Structural Theory ofPersonality results in his long-term clinical working on psychopath. In the early period,Freud believed that there were two parts in our personality, namely consciousness andunconsciousness. Consciousness is a small part as the “surface of the mental apparatus”(Freud 1960:8) that can be sensed and recognized directly. Unconsciousness is “a thinslice of total mind that like an iceberg, the larger part of it existed below the surface ofawareness” (Hall 1979:54), and it is difficult to sense the activities of unconsciousness.Consciousness and unconsciousness can be regarded as a river, in whichunconsciousness is the source while consciousness is the flow. Consciousness is thedevelopment and deformation of unconsciousness, while unconsciousness is the basisand foundation; closely connected with each other, these two elements can mutuallytransform one into another. However, as the study develops in depth, Freud found thetheory insufficient and inadequate, so he revised it in the 1920s.
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1.2 Summary
In the process of personality development, if it is a healthy personality, it containsid, ego, and super-ego in it. In this case, his personality depends on the part that has themajority of inner energy in the energy system. However, if one has mental illness, hispersonality is incomplete, or there is something wrong with his id, ego or super-ego.Fitzgerald has given the character sketch of Dick Diver: “the novel should do this.show a man who is a natural idealist, a spoiled priest, giving in for various causes to theideas of the haute Bourgeoisie, and in his rise to the top of the social world losing hisidealism, his talent and turning to drink ad dissipation. background one in which theleisure class is at their truly most brilliant and glamorous such as Murphy.” (Fitzgerald1995:147) In Tender Is the Night, the changes in Dick Diver’s personality are coincidentwith super-ego, ego and id expounded in Freud’s Structural Theory of Personality,which is different from the formation of personality. Since Dick Diver is a healthyperson with a mature personality, id, ego and super-ego are all existing in a goodbalance in his personality. What’s more, Fitzgerald showed the readers the fallingprocess of a perfect young man. Therefore, if we want to explore the inner factors ofDick Diver’s fall from the perspective of personality, it is better to study him in theorder of his personality changes. As the representative of morality and ethics in theturbid Jazz Age, Dick Diver has a perfect personality that super-ego plays the dominantrole in the energy system in the first phrase of the story, and he comes to save thedepraved upper class with his own moralities. Because of this, the author shows Dick Diver’s perfection in morality, seldom presenting his id and ego to readers. The secondphrase appears when Nicole broke down for the first time. In this period, dominated byego, Dick is exhausted by Nicole’s illness, and starts to stay away from her in spirit.Dick Diver starts to accept Warren’s money, forgetting his duties and original beliefs.The third phase appears when Nicole breaks down for the third time. Facing dual blowson emotion and career, Dick begins to release his inner desires and impulses, includingsexual desires and destrudo. In this period, Dick becomes a drunkard that everyonewants to stay away from. In that corrupted and perverted society, failing to balance theinner conflicts of id, ego and super-ego is the main reason that tragedy befalls himfinally.
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Chapter Three Dick Diver’s Ego..............34
3.1 Struggle of Dick Diver’s Ego in Marriage Life...........34
3.2 Dedication of Dick Diver’s Ego to Friends.................37
3.3 Sufferings of Dick Diver's Ego from Emotion and Career.......43
3.3.1 Heavy Blows on Emotion........44
3.3.2 Heavy Blows on Career...........47
3.4 Dick Diver’s Fights against Blows.................48
3.5 Summary.....50
Chapter Four Dick Diver's Id......53
4.1 Sexual Impulse Driven by Dick Diver’s Id................. 54
4.2 Self-indulgence Driven by Dick Diver’s Id.................56
4.3 Summary.....61
Chapter Four Dick Diver's Id
“The dark, inaccessible part of our personality, what little we know of it, we havelearnt from our study of the dream-work and of the construction of neurotic symptoms,and most of this is of a negative character and can be described, only as a contrast to theego.” (Freud 1966:91) Freud holds that id, composed by life instinct and death instinct,is the most initial part of personality. Life instinct mainly refers to libido or sexualinstinct, representing love and constructive power; while death instinct often manifestsitself as the desire for destruction, aggression, exploitation, and competition, etc.,representing the underlying destructive power of life itself. Being opposite but unitaryto each other, life instinct and death instinct can transfer into each other. Sexual anddeath instinct coexist in a connective way. What’s more, both of them must remain arelatively stable state in one’s personality. If one accumulates too much energy in theaspect of sexual instinct, he has to balance the structure and energy of his spiritual worldin a way of transforming sexual instinct into life instinct to a certain degree. If deathinstinct takes the dominant position in control of one’s behaviors, it will lead toself-injuries and self-mutilation behaviors or even suicide when it acts on the spiritualworld; when it acts on the outside world, it will cause hateful attack and murder to otherpeople.After the later period of Dick’s personality development, he expressed his sexualinstinct and death instinct keenly and vividly. The previously promising and nearlyperfect young man who followed the guide of social norms and traditional moralitiesturned into a peevish and wired man that attacked not only himself but also others like ahedgehog. Based on the theory of life instinct and death instinct, this chapter tries toanalyze how Dick’s id defeats his super-ego and ego, gaining the upper hands to controlDick’s personality ultimately.#p#分页标题#e#
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Conclusion
As one of the most prominent American writers in the Roaring Twenties, F. ScottFitzgerald has created five great novels and many brilliant short stories in his shortlifespan. His huge success can be better explained by what he said in his essay “OneHundred False Starts”: “Mostly, we authors must repeat ourselves---that’s the truth.”(Fitzgerald 1933:13) Among all his novels, Tender Is the Night is the mostautobiographical one. Compared with The Great Gatsby, Tender Is the Night has drawnrelatively less attention from critics and scholars the world over. However, according toF. Scott Fitzgerald, he has placed the highest expectation on this novel, in which theprotagonist Dick Diver is obviously modeled on Fitzgerald himself. Based on theprevious studies on this novel, this thesis tries to analyze the process of Dick’sself-indulgence and degeneration in light of Freud’s Structural Theory of Personality.At the beginning of the story, Dick’s personality is manipulated by his super-ego.His perfect personality is formed on account of his father’s inculcation, the strict schooleducation and his simple life experience. Born in a declining family, Dick has a burningdesire to bring honor to the family and become a great man. His good qualities attractthe beautiful patient Nicole with whom he falls in love. Dick, a young man with loftyideals, marries the wealthy Nicole with mental illness and becomes a member of theupper class. After marriage, Dick’s super-ego gains the upper hand in his personality tocontrol his behaviors. In the face of Nicole’s wealth, Dick works hard to earn his ownliving and keeps on leading his life thriftily. On the spiritual plane, he tries to show hisbest part to others and please everyone with his good instincts.
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References (abbreviated)
