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. 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. 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.
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. It
makes the story more reasonable and infectious and creates “harsh critics and
deepened connotive meanings”. 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”. 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 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 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 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 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.
2. 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 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 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 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. 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.
3. 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.