The Time And Spatial Narrative In The Great Gatsby

Fitzgerald is one of the representative figures of the "The Lost Generation". As his masterpiece and the representative work of the "Jazz age", The Great Gatsby has the unshakable position in the history of modern American literature. This work is a classic partly because of the exquisite design of the content and theme in accordance with the time feature. However, the unique narrative technique is also a factor that cannot be ignored. There is a fact that the narrative of the plots has to be done in time and space, which are inevitable factors. This thesis discusses the narrative features of The Great Gatsby from the angle of the time and spatial narrative.This thesis consists of six chapters.Chapter One briefly introduces the research background and significance of this novel and the organization of this thesis.Chapter Two displays the research status of The Great Gatsby and the time and spatial narrative.Chapter Three exposits the feature of time narrative from three aspects.This thesis firstly discusses the issue of narrative order based on the theory of Genette, which he called the anachrony. The author broke the original linear order and designed a new one to meet the narrative requirements. And then the thesis discusses the relationship between the length of events in the story and that of the narrative, which was the issue of the narrative duration. The time span of this novel was two years, whereas, almost the entire story occurred in that summer. The narrative employed the acceleration to the events except that of the summer, thus much space was devoted to the plots of the summer. Also, in order to present the lives of the people in three different social classes, the novel elaborated at length on the narrative of the three nights. So the narrative adopted deceleration on the narrative of the three nights to reinforce the artistic appeal of the novel and obtain the aesthetic effects. Finally, the thesis interprets the narrative frequency in The Great Gatsby. The narrative frequency was mainly manifested in the images repeated for times, which promoted the development of the plots. For instance, the eyes of the doctor in the valley of ashes, each time mentioned, were the signal for the changes of the plots.The Chapter Four discusses the spatial narrative in The Great Gatsby from the following aspects.First of all, the thesis elucidates the topographical space and the cultural connotation in this novel. The topographical level is the most clearly spatial level, as well as the level that is closely associated with the natural space. The novel referred to the places including the West and the East, the West Egg and the East Egg. the Long Island, the valley of ashes and New York. And people living in different places endowed the places with their special cultural connotations. Secondly, this thesis discusses the factor of social space. This novel reflected the quite deep discrepancy under the social space, which was almost impossible to solve. Gatsby survived the vicissitudes and tried to bridge the gap but only resulted in his complete failure. And then, the thesis analyzes the textual space in the novel and the effects of the juxtaposed images. The novel adopted the narrative skills such as juxtaposition of the images, repetition and flashback to enhance the artistic appeal of the textual space. For instance, the flashback might upset the original arrangement of the space to form the three-dimensional effect. Meanwhile, the juxtaposed images were coherent to form a whole of the space and maintained the overall structure of the novel, which deepened the theme. Last, this thesis analyzes what aesthetic influence the conversion of the perspectives brought to the space in detail. There were several pieces of memories in this novel, and they referred to the dual heroes----the one of the story and the narrator, which led to the frequent changes of the narrative perspectives. The space presented in the novel might change for the conversion between the narrative-self and the experience-self, the temporal cross-border phenomenon, or the perspectives which converted from the narrator to other characters. Then the artistic effects the author expected were realized.Chapter Five analyzes the relationship of the time and spatial narrative. What should be confirmed is that the time and space cannot isolate themselves from each other. The specific manifestations of that are the temporalization of space and the spatialization of time. In The Great Gatsby, the spatialization of time was presented through the narrative of the synchronic events which occurred in different space, and the narrative switched in the juxtaposed synchronic space to manifest the simultaneousness of the events, improving the development of the plots. Conversely, the narrative can never be isolated from the time. In order to achieve better narrative effect, the author conducted the spatial narrative under the twisted timeline through such techniques as flashback and juxtaposition, which embodied the temporalization of space.Chapter Six is the conclusion, which further summarized the characteristics and the aesthetic significance of the time and spatial narrative.