F. Scott Fitzgerald (I)在线视频

Hello, everyone. Today we will learn Fitzgerald, the author of the novel.

Fitzgerald: A Novelist Molded and Destroyed by Love

The Poor Boy Fitzgerald

The Great Gatsby is the masterpiece of Fitzgerald,

who is an American novelist, the spokesperson of the Jazz Age.

The 1920s in the United States was called the Jazz Age.

In WWI, the United States made a huge fortune

and became the richest, most developed and most powerful country in the world.

The financial center of the world also moved from Britain to the United States.

The automobile industry developed rapidly, and social wealth increased dramatically.

Americans’ ideology and moral values were unprecedentedly liberated,

young people indulged in pleasure-seeking, money worship and hedonism were rampant,

and the gap between the rich and the poor in the whole country was further widened.

In Fitzgerald’s words, “It was an age of miracles, it was an age of art,

it was an age of excess, and it was an age of satire.”

The Great Gatsby has been adapted five times.

The recent and more brilliant ones are the 1974 version

and the 2013 version with Leonardo playing the leading role of Gatsby.

I believe, whether reading the novel or watching the movie,

we will be moved by Gatsby’s persistence and shed tears for his final death.

The story took place in the United States around the 1920s.

It is about a poor boy named Gatsby who rose up successfully through his efforts.

Being obsessed with his dream,

Gatsby, the hero, desired to gain wealth as a symbol of status,

and to marry the daughter of a rich family.

In the end, he died for his dream.

Some people think he is capable, while others think he is foolish.

In a word, his early death is a pity.

The 1920s in the United States was an age of materialism.

Sensuality and moral depravity invaded the entire American society,

and people were indifferent to each other.

On September 24, 1896, Fitzgerald was born

into a middle-class family in St. Paul, Minnesota.

His father was a small furniture businessman, but went into bankruptcy.

His mother was from a typical noble family,

having a privileged life and elegance, but her family’s prestige was waning.

With his grandfather’s reputation, Fitzgerald was able to blend into the rich,

but his poor family made him hard to be accepted by the rich.

Thus, money and wealth became sensitive words to him.

At the same time, the disparity between the rich and the poor also made Fitzgerald feel inferior and insecure,

which became his permanent “trauma”.

In a letter to a friend, he wrote, “I have always been unable to forgive the rich,

which is also the motivation of my life and work.”

Because of this, all the protagonists in his works have a strong desire for money and success.

In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby spent all his life pursuing his dream girl Daisy.

In order to get Daisy, he made money by any means, bought a castle-like house,

and held grand party every night.

In real life, there was really such a girl--Daisy.

Firstly “Daisy” was Fitzgerald’s girlfriend Ginevra,

then his wife Zelda,

or rather the former Ginevra,

for his marriage with Zelda was closely related to Ginevra.

The two women in Fitzgerald’s life have made a great influence on him.

Without them, there would be no The Great Gatsby

and Fitzgerald’s other popular works,

and there would be no this famous novelist Fitzgerald.

But on the other hand, without these two women,

the novelist might not have been so miserable—

He died before his success came true.

This is why Fitzgerald’s experience always makes people sigh,

feel sad and helpless about life;

this is also why when reading Gatsby’s tragedy,

people can’t help but shed tears with complicated feelings.

Seeing Gatsby reminds people of Fitzgerald.

In his works, there is often a shadow of himself.

He even put his life experience into his works overtly,

especially those things that he had been searching but in vain.

For example, the aforementioned wealth and the “Daisy” women in The Great Gatsby

for whom Gatsby sacrificed his life willingly.

From the plot of The Great Gatsby, we can feel

Fitzgerald’s passionate love for a woman, even at the cost of his life,

which is just like a moth flying into a flame.

This determined the author’s own tragedy and the tragic ending of his novel.

The woman is Ginevra.

On January 4, 1915, the 18-year-old Fitzgerald, who was studying in Princeton University,

met the 16-year-old Ginevra, 2 years junior to him, at a new year’s party

in St. Paul, Minnesota, and fell in love with her immediately.

Ginevra is the crown of Chicago’s “Four Golden Flowers”,

with excellent family background and appearance.

The next night, they danced all night,

Ginevra felt “Scott is absolutely perfect” ,

and Fitzgerald had the same feeling for her.

In the following two years, they corresponded with each other

and wrote hundreds of love letters,

but their love ended in vain.

The class difference between the two families

formed an insurmountable gap between the two young people.

In August 1916, Fitzgerald was invited to Ginevra’s home,

which was his last visit.

Ginevra’s father said to him unceremoniously,

“Poor boys shouldn’t think of marrying rich girls!”

These cold words cut off their two-year-long relationship,

brought an indelible disgrace to Fitzgerald,

and made him realize the importance of money, wealth, identity and status.

A few months after their break-up, he received a wedding invitation from Ginevra,

telling him that she was going to marry the son of her father’s business partner.

Fitzgerald did not show up,

but he pasted the wedding invitation and the clippings in his permanent collection book.

In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby collected all the newspaper clippings about Daisy.

I believe that when Daisy turned the yellowing newspaper clippings page by page,

all the readers and audience would be moved by Gatsby’s infatuation with Daisy——

i.e. Fitzgerald’s infatuation with Ginevra.

After their separation, Fitzgerald and Ginevra asked each other to destroy all their letters.

Ginevra did so, but Fitzgerald did not.

At the age of 44, he died of an alcohol-induced heart attack

and was on the verge of bankruptcy. At that time his wife was in a mental hospital.

When his only daughter,19 years old, was sorting through her father’s belongings,

she found 227 pages of typed letters in a folder marked with “Absolute Private”,

all from a woman named Ginevra.

His only daughter sent the letters back to Ginevra,

who, already married, put these letters into her closet.

Her family did not find these treasured letters until her death.

Letters can not talk, but from which we seem to hear the two people

confiding their heart to each other.

It is money, wealth and class difference that have separated the two lovers.

The love experience with Ginevra made Fitzgerald feel painful constantly.

Her magnificent mansion, gorgeous wedding frustrated him badly.

Then he began to pursue money, and wanted to stand out,

he believed it was money that had blocked his way to a happy marriage.

He thought naively: With money, he could revive his past dream and redeem his lost love.

That’s all for this lecture.