Impressionistic Features In Francis Scott Fitzgerald's Short Stories

Francis Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) is regarded as one of the greatest American writers in the 1920s and considered as a member of the"Lost Generation". His novels and short stories are widely accepted as the representation of the Jazz Age. He contributed a lot to the development of American literature by his special use of visual art in his works.The purpose of this thesis is to explore the impressionist features in his short stories choosing three of his most famous short stories as the example– The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, The Diamond as Big as the Ritz and Winter Dreams. Impressionism is a universal trend of thought developed from art to literature and other fields from 19th century in western world. The impressionists pay more attention to the description of the transient mental impression and the effective unity of the light and colors by using the fragmentation and juxtaposition.Chapter one focuses on the impressionistic composition of Fitzgerald's short stories. Fitzgerald perfectly combines two impressionist features, fragmentation and juxtaposition, to keep the balance between the detailed fragments and the overall structure. In this way, it makes the themes of his short stories more significant in limited length. Chapter Two is concerned with the impressionistic light and colors. In Fitzgerald's short stories the colors are employed, which are closely related to the changes of the natural light. This is one of the unique techniques of the impressionistic colors. Fitzgerald is good at using this technique to improve the impression of the characters, the environment and even the inner world of the characters. Chapter Three explores in details with the use of transient impression in Fitzgerald's short stories.Fitzgerald successfully represents the reality of the inner world of the characters by using the short thick strokes to juxtapose some transient impressions like the moment-capturing episodes and the fleeting vague backgrounds. It is hoped that the study of the impressionist features in Fitzgerald's short stories can make some contributions to appreciate the beauty of the characters and themes of Fitzgerald's works from the aesthetic aspect, and it can also explore a new way to taste the inner reality of America in his works for the readers.