The Great Gatsby
The Great Gatsby was published in 1922 by F. Scott Fitzgerald. At first glance, the novel appears to be a simple love story, but further examination reveals Fitzgerald's masterful scrutiny of American society during the 1920s and the corruption of the American dream.
F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1926) is, at first sight, a novel about love, idealism and disillusionment. However, it soon reveals its hidden depths and enigmas. What is the significance of the strange "waste land" between West Egg and New York, where Myrtle Wilson meets her death, an alien landscape presided over by the eyes of T J Eckleburg whose eyes, like God's, "see everything"? And what are we to make of the novel's unobtrusive symbolism (the green light, the colour of American dollar bills, which burns at the end of Daisy's dock, the references to the elements - land, sea and earth - over which Gatby claims mastery, the contrast between "East" and "West"), or its subtle use of the personalised first narrator, the unassuming Nick Carraway?
It is a novel which has intrigued and fascinated readers. Clearly, as a self-proclaimed "tale of the West", it is exploring questions about America and what it means to be American. In this sense Gatsby is perhaps that legendary opus, the "Great American Novel", following in the footsteps of works such as Moby Dick and Huckleberry Finn.
We will return to this aspect of the novel in more detail later on. However, we also need to be aware that it is a novel which has much to be say about more abstract questions to do with faith, belief and illusion. Although rooted in the "Jazz Age" which Fitzgerald is so often credited with naming, it is also a novel which should be considered alongside works like The Waste Land, exploring that "hollowness at the heart of things" which lies just below the surface of modern life.
Eliot himself remarked that the novel "interested and excited me more than any new novel I have seen, either English or American, for a number of years". Viewed from more distant perspectives it is possible to see Gatsby as an archetypally tragic figure, the epitome of idealism and innocence which strives for order, purpose and meaning in a chaotic and hostile world. In this sense Gatsby contains religious and metaphysical dimensions: the young man who shapes a "Platonic vision of himself" and who endows the worthless figure of Daisy with religious essence, eventually passes away into nothingness, with few at the funeral to lament the passing of his romantic dream.
This article is about the novel. For the film, TV and opera adaptations, see The Great Gatsby (disambiguation).
The Great Gatsby
Cover of the first edition, 1925.
Author F. Scott Fitzgerald
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Novel
Publisher Charles Scribner's Sons
Publication date April 10, 1925
Media type print (hardback & paperback)
ISBN NA & reissue ISBN 0-7432-7356-7 (2004 paperback edition)
The Great Gatsby is a novel by the American author F. Scott Fitzgerald. First published on April 10, 1925, it is set in Long Island's North Shore and New York City during the summer of 1922.
The novel chronicles an era that Fitzgerald himself dubbed the "Jazz Age." Following the shock and chaos of World War I, American society enjoyed unprecedented levels of prosperity during the "roaring" 1920s as the economy soared. At the same time, Prohibition, the ban on the sale and manufacture of alcohol as mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment, made millionaires out of bootleggers and led to an increase in organized crime. Although Fitzgerald, like Nick Carraway in his novel, idolized the riches and glamor of the age, he was uncomfortable with the unrestrained materialism and the lack of morality that went with it.
来自Wikipedia百科的介绍(书籍简介):
Although it was adapted into both a Broadway play and a Hollywood film within a year of publication, it was not popular upon initial printing, selling fewer than 25,000 copies during the remaining fifteen years of Fitzgerald's life. It was largely forgotten during the Great Depression and World War II. After its republishing in 1945 and 1953, it quickly found a wide readership and is today widely regarded as a paragon of the Great American Novel. The Great Gatsby has become a standard text in high school and university courses on American literature in countries around the world, and is ranked second in the Modern Library's list of the 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century. Time included the novel in its TIME 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005
The Great Gatsby的情节总结(Wikipedia):
The story is presented as a recollection of Nick Carraway, a young man from a patrician Midwestern family. Nick graduated from Yale in 1915; after fighting in World War I and an unsatisfactory postwar return to the Midwest, he moved to New York City to "learn the bond business" in "the spring of twenty-two." Nick declares that, following his father's advice, he avoids judging people: a habit that has caused trouble, exemplified by events concerning a man named Gatsby.
Nick explains that in 1922 he was renting an inexpensive bungalow sandwiched between two mansions in West Egg, a seaside community of wealthy parvenus on Long Island Sound. Directly across the bay was East Egg, inhabited by members of the "old aristocracy", including Tom and Daisy Buchanan. Daisy is Nick's second cousin once removed; Nick knew of her husband Tom, a celebrated polo player at Yale. Nick describes the Buchanans through a visit to their opulent East Egg mansion: although phenomenally wealthy, Tom's glory days are behind him; he is a brutish, overbearing dilettante and Daisy, although engaging, cheerful, and attractive, is pampered and superficial with a largely ignored three-year-old daughter. Nick detects a strain in the relationship and Daisy's friend Jordan Baker, a well-known lady golfer, tells him that Tom has a mistress in New York City.
Tom offers Nick a lift to the city and on the way they stop at a shabby garage owned by George Wilson, where Nick is introduced to the owner's brassy wife, Myrtle Wilson. Her colorless husband George has no suspicion that she is Tom's mistress. Nick passively accompanies the couple to their urban love-nest, where Myrtle presides over a pretentious party that includes her sister Catherine. Catherine approves of the extramarital affair and informs Nick that both lovers cannot stand the people they married and would marry each other if Tom's wife was not a Catholic who "doesn't believe in divorce", something Nick knows to be untrue. Nick finds the evening increasingly unbearable but is unable to leave until Tom breaks Myrtle's nose in a spat. Nick, drunk, leaves with Chester McKee, a would-be artistic photographer. After a very strange night of drunkenness, Nick wakens to blearily go off to his job as a bond salesman.
Nick's next-door neighbor is the wealthy and mysterious Jay Gatsby, who every other weekend throws lavish parties hosting hundreds of people. Nick receives a formal invitation from Gatsby's chauffer and attends. The party is wild and fun, but he finds that none of the guests know much about Gatsby and rumors about the man are contradictory. Many have never even met their host, as the parties are open and guests often attend uninvited. Nick runs into Jordan Baker, but they are separated while searching for Gatsby. A man strikes up a conversation with Nick, claiming to recognise him from the US Army's First Division during the Great War. Nick mentions his difficulty in finding their host and the man reveals himself to be Gatsby himself, surprising Nick, who had expected him to be older and not as personable. Gatsby invites Nick to more get-togethers, and an odd 'friendship' begins.
One day Gatsby appears in a magnificent yellow roadster and drives Nick to New York City, irritating him with the odd statement that Jordan will be asking Nick for a favor on Gatsby's behalf. Gatsby then presents a clichéd description of his life as a wealthy dilettante and war hero to an incredulous Nick, but the latter is convinced when Gatsby displays a Montenegrin war decoration. Gatsby then introduces a bemused Nick to underworld figure Meyer Wolfsheim. Nick then sees Tom and tries to introduce Gatsby, but Gatsby disappears.
Jordan reveals to Nick that Gatsby fell in love with Daisy before the war and hosts parties in the hope that she will visit. Gatsby has asked Jordan to ask Nick to get him a meeting with Daisy. Nick agrees: the reunion is initially awkward, but Gatsby and Daisy begin a love affair. An affair also begins for Nick and Jordan, but Nick knows of Jordan's shortcomings and predicts that their relationship will be superficial.
Later, Daisy invites Gatsby and Nick over to her mansion and the three, accompanied by Tom and Jordan Baker, depart for a hotel in the city at Tom's suggestion. Tom also insists that he and Gatsby switch cars; he takes advantage of Gatsby's compliance by flaunting Gatsby's roadster to George Wilson. At the hotel, Tom eventually notices Gatsby's love for Daisy and, in front of Gatsby, Daisy, Nick, and Jordan, confronts Gatsby about his affair with Daisy. Gatsby urges Daisy to say that she never loved Tom; Daisy says that although she did love him, she still loved Gatsby as well. Tom mockingly tells Gatsby that nothing can happen between him and Daisy. Gatsby retorts that the only reason Daisy married Tom was because he (Gatsby) was too poor to afford to marry Daisy at the time. Tom is angered and for the second time in the novel he visibly loses his composure. Tom then alleges that Gatsby is a bootlegger and expresses his loathing of him. Gatsby tries to defend himself to Daisy, but Nick and Tom observe that he fails and that Daisy is now beyond his reach. Confident that he has bested Gatsby, Tom tells Daisy to drive off with Gatsby in Gatsby's car, while Tom takes his time getting home in the company of Nick and Jordan.
The suspicions of George Wilson, husband of Tom's mistress Myrtle, have also been aroused and he too has been arguing with his wife. Myrtle runs outside only to be struck and killed by Gatsby's car, which is driven by Daisy. Daisy and Gatsby speed away. Later, Tom, Jordan, and Nick notice a commotion by the garage on their way to East Egg and stop. George Wilson, half-crazy with shock, rants about having seen a yellow car and Tom tells Wilson privately that the yellow car was not his (as he said earlier) but was Gatsby's, but Wilson does not seem to listen and Tom, Jordan, and Nick leave. The half-crazed Wilson, however, later makes a mental connection between the driver of the car and Myrtle's lover and resolves to pursue it.
The following day Nick learns the truth about the accident while breakfasting with Gatsby by his pool. Gatsby is depressed, unsure of whether Daisy still loves him and hoping for a call from her. Seeing himself as Gatsby's closest friend, Nick advises Gatsby to leave for a week. "They're [Daisy, Tom, Jordan] a rotten crowd," Nick says, "You're worth the whole damn bunch put together." Gatsby smiles the irresistible smile that Nick describes as having "faced—or seemed to face—the whole world, then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor".
Wilson appears at the Buchanan mansion with a gun, finding Tom packing to escape with Daisy. Tom, unaware of Daisy's culpability, names Gatsby as the driver of the car that killed Myrtle. Wilson finds Gatsby floating in his pool and kills him before committing suicide nearby.
Gatsby's funeral devolves upon Nick, whose attempt to find other mourners is virtually fruitless; not even Gatsby's shady business associates will attend. Apart from Gatsby's servants and Nick, the only other mourners are "Owl Eyes" (a Gatsby party guest) and Gatsby's father, Mr. Gatz. Left in the past by his son, he shows Nick a well-worn photograph Gatsby sent him of his mansion and a notebook from Gatsby's youth that he feels illustrates his son's drive and ambition.
Nick severs connections with Jordan (who claims to be engaged to another man), and, after a brief run-in with Tom, Nick returns permanently to the Midwest, reflecting on Gatsby's dreams and the sad and cyclical nature of the past.
当品读完一部作品后,大家一定都收获不少,需要好好地就所收获的`东西写一篇读后感了。你想好怎么写读后感了吗?以下是我为大家收集的了《不起的盖茨比》英文读后感范文(精选3篇),仅供参考,大家一起来看看吧。
The Great Gatsby I read, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the well-known American writer, was published by Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press in 2004, with 225 pages.
The book is a novel. It is a story told by Nick about a man named Gatsby. The author gives the reader a vivid love story with a tragic end. The story can be interpreted many ways. The fall of the American dream is one major theme.
Here are the top four characters. Gatsby, the protagonist, has an obsessive love with Daisy. He struggles for her attention, for her joyance, and most importantly, for her herself. It turns out what he struggles for is only an allusion, a shadow, and a dream, just out reach of his hand. He pays “a high price for living too long with a single dream” (Fitzgerald, 200). Special attention should be paid to Nick, the narrator. He is “one of the few honest people” that we ever known in the novel (Fitzgerald, 70). Therefore, we can, first of all, trust his narration. As Daisy’s cousin and Gatsby’s neighbour, he then exists as a connection of the two. Another function he plays is that being an observer, he can evaluate and criticize our protagonist objectively. Daisy and Tom make a perfect couple. Daisy, though born a beauty, is sensual and “her voice is full of money” (Fitzgerald, 152). Then Tom, both physically and spiritually, is vulgar. Tom and Daisy lead a luxurious and profligate life.
The following is the plot of the novel. Gatsby and Daisy loved each other. However, Gatsby was too poor to marry Daisy. He went to war in Europe. When he came back he found Daisy had married Tom. He earned substantive money illegally, and came to New York City, and bought a house, and held parties, which were luxurious out of imagination, in order to draw Daisy’s attention. Finally he knew Nick, his neighbour, was Daisy’s cousin, and came to him for help. Under Nick’s arrangement, Gatsby met Daisy five years after they parted. After Tom had learned that there was something between Gatsby and Daisy, he attacked Gatsby that the latter did drugstore business in the face of Daisy and Nick, and asked Daisy back to his arms. Later, Daisy, driving, killed Myrtle, Tom’s lover by accident. However, Tom told her husband, Wilson, that it was Gatsby who was Myrtle’s lover and killed her. Consequently Wilson shot Gatsby to death and took his own life as well. After Gatsby’s depressing funeral, Nick decided to go back to the Middle West. After all, Gatsby, Daisy, Tom and he himself were all from the Middle West.
When The Great Gatsby was published, T. S. Eliot praised it was the first step of American novel had token since Henry James. I like this novel, which is not hard to understand but not easy to appreciate. First, it is a novel about dreams. Young men, maybe young women as well, without fortune and outlook may lack everything but dreams. Yet how their dreams will turn out to be is completely another thing. We notice in Chapter 9, Gatsby’s SCHEDULE, which is marvelously similar to Benjamin Franklin’s schedule, and then we are reminded of the American dream. That is a dream, as James Truslow Adams has remarked, “of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement” (“What is the American Dream” ). The generation of Franklin succeeded through their personal struggle. Unfortunately, this was never true to men like Gatsby, who lived in the 1920s America. Gatsby does have ambition, but he is a hero in an improper time where money is the sole criterion of success. Fitzgerald links Gatsby “with a world that no longer exist, a world that has been lost in back rush of time, a world that offers more in promise than has been realized in fact” (Lehan). It is the dream that deceives him into living with sufferings; and it is the dream that even makes him die willingly.
Besides the decline of the American Dream, another theme of the novel, in my opinion, is that there exists no true love in a world where ruthless materialism prevails. Notwithstanding “the love Gatsby has for Daisy seems to be the only pure impulse in a corrupt world” (Lehan), his love has no opportunity to flourish. Daisy finally chooses to follow Tom, and they escape, “and let other people clean up the mess they had made” (Fitzgerald, 222). About love, Fitzgerald says through one of his characters, “There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired” (Fitzgerald, 95). The love between Nick and Baker, if it exists, can support this point as well.
In terms of craftsmanship in American literature, The Great Gatsby can be said one of the most consummate. It is a work making good use of symbolism. First, the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock represents Gatsby’s hope and dream for the future. It is yet only an illusory dream which he will never reach. It is not more real than the stars in the sky. Second, the Valley of Ashes symbolizes “the moral and social decay that results from the uninhibited pursuit of wealth”. Third, the eye of Doctor T. J. Ecklebury’s in a billboard represents “God staring down upon and judging American society as moral wasteland”. Each symbol has more than one interpretation, with which I will not try to bother here.
Then the language of The Great Gatsby deserves to be mentioned. The language is elegant and graceful, and sometimes it could be compared to a poem’s language. In one of Gatsby’s grand parties, “people disappeared, reappeared, made plans to go somewhere, and then lost each other, searched for each other, found each other a few feet away”(Fitzgerald, 44). Then when Daisy was singing with the music in a husky, rhythmic whisper, she brings out “a meaning in each word that it had never had before and would never have again” (Fitzgerald, 135). Then Gatsby “stretched out his hand desperately as if to snatch only a wisp of air …” (Fitzgerald, 191). More examples shall not be quoted. The description of views of the evening and moonlight should be specially noticed.
In relation to our life, how shall we do with our personal dreams? Man, as he grows, becomes realistic. This process is like when we put a piece of paper into a glass of water, the paper is gradually soaked and suddenly falls into the bottom. Then it is like an artichoke flower, peels off one petal after another, and finally withers. However, without dreams, what can man hold? The Pandora’s Box opened; everything flew out, leaving only hope at the bottom. Hope, thence, stays forever for the despairing people, even when they have nothing else.
Finally, the fiction urges me to think about what kind of life we are willing to have? All the four principle characters are from the Middle West and come to live in the East. Many in China come from the countryside and pursue the urban life. Nick never feels he is a part of the East, and if Gatsby has felt, he would not be dead. The relation between countryside and urban life deserves reconsidering, especially in the contemporary Chinese context.
It is my pleasure to recommend this novel to my friends. Another well-known American writer, who was contemporary with Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemmingway’s words are of service, “Gatsby was a great book. I’ve read it twice in the last five years. It gets better with each reading” (Hemingway, Gregory). I would like to read it twice when time is available.
The Great Gatsby is a significant classic in America literature and Fitzgerald is also considered as a chronicler of the “Jazz Age”. The women characters play an important role in revealing the theme of the novel. Especially the figure Daisy and the contradictions in her has aroused my interests to think carefully about the reason why she would choose that when her ideal ran into the reality.
Daisy was once a lovely, elegant and innocent girl when she was “Daisy Fay”. Though Gatsby was a penniless lower class young man, she fell in love with him crazily and happily. While she changed and showed her darker side gradually. She noticed the importance of wealth and position, so she chose to marry to Tom Buchanan though she did not love him as much as Gatsby at that time. Besides, Daisy considered her daughter as a doll and continued playing with those guys. Even until the end, her former lover Gatsby who was wealthy and renowned then came back to her. Considering Gatsby’s illegal sources of money and his inglorious past, Daisy refused to go with Gatsby finally. What annoyed me the most is the plot that Gatsby was murdered because of the misunderstanding of Wilson while Daisy did not attend his funeral. She may have many scruples when her ideal life was disturbed by the cruel reality. Actually everyone may become confused and perplexed when we face the confliction. Also everyone has his own choice. But the point is how much we can afford when confront the result that happened after our decision.
The slang “Make friends with local tyrant” is very popular nowadays. We ought to think about the hidden reason for its popularity after we scoff at it. With the fast development of economy, more and more people are lost themselves just like the young generation after the World War Ⅰ. Their value has been or is going to be changed completely. They don’t know what exactly right is and what exactly they are supposed to do. Some students play online games in the dormitory rather than go to the classes. Some staff has become a workaholic in order to deal with the life pressure. Some married stars betrayed their families without remembering their oath. It seems that the whole society has ran out of the regular track. So it is high time that we calmed down and reflected ourselves. What exactly is our final ideal and how could we make it a reality?
Honestly speaking, nobody could live in the society without money. And obviously, almost everyone has been aware of the necessity of money. So no wonder people are struggling and fighting to get more money. But what if the life with plenty money is different from the life we used to dream of? As far as I’m thinking, it is definitely that life is more cruel that we thought and it is impossible that life goes as we designed. We can not own everything that we want to have. What we could do and what we could change is just ourselves. Our choices, our goals or our attitudes all have an impact on the final result. The change may be pretty small, but we ought to believe that the miracle will definitely show up as long as you stick to your ideal goal. So when your ideal is disturbed by the reality, don’t let your original step be disturbed as well. Just follow your heart and be yourself. And I believe that you will finally achieve your goal in the near future.
At the beginning of the review, I am afraid but I need mention that I read The Great Gatzby from my paper book, not online, so it might be a little strange in the record of my reading history and also the lack of comments.
After reading the novel, I sympathized deeply for Gatzby, who dedicated almost his whole life into pursuing Daisy, but eventually was shot down for Daisy’s fault, and also Nick, who narrate this heart-broken story to us. But I believe that all is destined, not only his success, but also his miserable, dramatic ending.
First, Gatzby meant to be succeed, which was determined by his personality. He was such an absolute perfectionist, fairly speaking, a paranoiac, that he never accept he was inferior to others in all kinds of aspects. He scheduled his life when he was young in order to achieve his goal. He couldn’t live like Tom who dissipated his time on women, also couldn’t like Wilson live so meaninglessly, and his ambition made it impossible for him to be content with common life. After the moment he denied his poor family background, changed his name into Jay Gatzby, he either succeed, or die.
No matter how, he will succeed. I always believe it because his characteristic promised.
And I also believe Gatzby would fall in love with a lady with a celebrated background. Because he was a perfectionist , he must long for a charming, wealthy, graceful aristocracy. Daisy was just a representation of perfection, a concrete thing in his dream.
However, Daisy falls far short of Gatzby’s ideal. She is beautiful and charming, but also fickle, shallow, and hypocritical. She is careless person who smashes thing up and then retreats behind her money. She allows Gatsby to take the blame for killing Myrtle ever though she herself was driving the car. Finally, rather than attend Gatsby’s funeral, Daisy and Tom move away, leaving no contact address.
Gatzby knew exactly what kind of person she was. And the very beginning of the novel, he said “Her voice is full of money”. But how can it matter? His puzzle of life would be incomplete without Daisy, and as we know, he was such a paranoiac that never let it happen. It’s impossible for him to restart.
Gatzby’s obsession about Daisy and Daisy’s characteristic determined the trend of plot.
So, it is destined.
And not only from the plot development we can say Gatzby’s fate was destined, but also from the writer himself. Technically, Gatzby wasn’t a only fictional character, but also the reflection of writer, Fitzgerald himself. He also had a complex relationship of his own. His own experience made him believe that there’s a huge gap between the “natural” rich and the ”new” rich.
In rich boy, his another novel, he showed his attitude directly:
Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand.
They think, deep in their hearts, that they are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves. Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They are different.
Because of the poverty and adversity they had been through, they always cherish the first glamorous thing dropping in their life. Some of them even take it as the highest goal in life, like Gatzby who considered Daisy as his whole world. When their dream faded out gradually, they might behave like Gatzby, deceive themselves to protect their “little green light” in their heart until their hearts are beaten to pieces by reality.
At last, I want to use the final sentence in The Great Gaztby as the end, which I consider as the most profound ending I have ever read and inspire me a lot. Gatzby’s dream was always behind him, from the moment he met Daisy and fell in love with her. So what he did was just striving hard back into the past against the current of time, like the ending says:
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
The Great Gatsby
重点词汇
Great
英 [ɡreɪt] 美 [ɡreɪt]
adj. 伟大的,著名的;大型的,巨大的;(数量或程度)极大的,很大的;美妙的;身心健康的,精力充沛的;重要的,重大的;热心的,热衷的;和蔼的,随和的;(外)曾祖(或曾孙)的;<爱尔兰>(二人)亲近的,亲密的;擅长……的。
adv. 很好地,很棒地。
近义词:
greater
英 [greɪtə(r)] 美 [ˈɡreɪtər]
adj. 较大的(great的比较级)。
短语
Greater London 大伦敦 ; 大伦敦地区 ; 大伦敦市 ; 大伦敦区。
范文:It's a story said about a man named Gatsby.he lost his heart to a grirl wealthy women named Daisy when he was young.But he lost her at that time because he was poor and he forced to the war.When he come back from the war.
He do business in a illegal way,and became a man with a lot money.But it's 10 years ago.And he do everything just for Daisy.And he come back,wanting married with daisy.But at last he was dead for Daisy.But noboby come to his funeral except his father and his friend Nick.And the story was said from Nick'angle of the view.
这是一个关于一个叫盖茨比的男人的故事。他年轻时,他对一个叫黛西的富有女人失去了心。但当时他失去了她,因为他很穷,他被迫参战。当他从战争中回来时,他以非法的方式做生意,他成了一个有钱人。但那是10年前的事了。他做一切都是为了黛西。
他回来了,想和黛西结婚。但最后他为黛西而死。但除了他的父亲和朋友尼克,没有人来参加他的葬礼。故事是从尼克的角度讲得。
英语翻译技巧:
第一、省略翻译法
这与最开始提到的增译法相反,就是要求你把不符合汉语,或者英语的表达的方式、思维的习惯或者语言的习惯的部分删去,以免使所翻译出的句子沉杂累赘。
第二、合并法
合并翻译法就是把多个短句子或者简单句合并到一起,形成一个复合句或者说复杂句,多出现在汉译英的题目里出现,比如最后会翻译成定语从句、状语从句、宾语从句等等。
这是因为汉语句子里面喜欢所谓的“形散神不散”,即句子结构松散,但其中的语意又是紧密相连的,所以为了表达出这种感觉,汉语多用简单句进行写作。而英语则不同,它比较强调形式,结构严谨,所以会多用复杂句、长句。因此,汉译英时还需要注意介词、连词、分词的使用。
Nick came to New York from his Midwest homeland, next to his residence is the luxury house of Gatsby, the protagonist of the book.
A grand banquet is held every night. When Nick and Gatsby met, the story began.
Nick's interest in exploring Gatsby. The result of the inquiry is: Nick realized that Gatsby had a deep feeling in his heart.
Gatsby was not rich when he was young. He was a major officer. He fell in love with a girl named Daisy, and Daisy also had a feeling for him.
After the outbreak of World War I, Gatsby was transferred to Europe. As if by chance, but also by necessity, Daisy broke up with him and married Tom, a son of a wealthy family.
Daisy's life after marriage was not happy, because Tom had another mistress.
Materialistic satisfaction does not fill Daisy's spiritual emptiness. Gatsby was in great pain.
He firmly believed that money had betrayed Daisy's chastity of heart, so he was determined to become a rich man. A few years later, Gatsby finally succeeded.
He built a building opposite the daisy residence. Gatsby spent all his money in the night, trying to get Daisy's attention to save her lost love.
Moved by Gatsby's infatuation, Nick visited Daisy, his long-unconnected cousin, and conveyed Gatsby's thoughts to her.
Daisy always made fun of her meeting with Gatsby. Gatsby was dazed and listened to her at random, and naively assumed that the ending was not the end.
However, the real tragedy is quietly starting at this time.
Daisy was no longer the old lady daisy. Daisy, however, regarded her ambiguous relationship as a stimulus.
Nick finally realized that it was too late. Once Daisy was driving in a state of distraction, she ran over her husband's mistress.
Gatsby took responsibility for protecting Daisy, but Daisy had made up his mind to abandon Gatsby.
Under the provocation of Tom, the husband of his mistress shot Gatsby. Gatsby finally became a victim.
Gatsby did not find the smile on the face of Daisy's face until she died. Gatsby's tragedy is that he devotes everything to his beautiful dream, while Daisy, as the embodiment of his ideal, has only a beautiful body.
Despite Daisy's long-standing love affair, although he clearly heard that "her voice is full of money", he remained unchanged and stubbornly pursued the revival of her old dream.
Daisy and her husband were on the way to Europe when they were holding a funeral for Gatsby. Finally, there is no end.
Nick witnessed the unreasonable feelings of human reality and was deeply disgusted, so with a tragic mood, he left the noisy, indifferent, empty and false metropolis and returned to his homeland in dismay.
中文版:
尼克从中西部故乡来到纽约,在他住所旁边正是本书主人公盖茨比的豪华宅第。这里每晚都在举行盛大的宴会。尼克和盖茨比相识,故事就这样开始了。
尼克对盖茨比充满探究的兴趣。探究的结果是:尼克了解到盖茨比内心深处有一段不了之情。年轻时的盖茨比并不富有,他是一个少校军官。他爱上了一位叫黛茜的姑娘,黛茜对他也情有所钟。后来第一次世界大战爆发,盖茨比被调往欧洲。
似是偶然却也是必然,黛茜因此和他分手,转而与一个出身于富豪家庭的纨绔子弟汤姆结了婚。黛茜婚后的生活并不幸福,因为汤姆另有情妇。物欲的满足并不能填补黛茜精神上的空虚。盖茨比痛苦万分,他坚信是金钱让黛茜背叛了心灵的贞洁,于是立志要成为富翁。
几年以后,盖茨比终于成功了。他在黛茜府邸的对面建造起了一幢大厦。盖茨比挥金如土,彻夜笙箫,一心想引起黛茜的注意,以挽回失去的爱情。尼克为盖茨比的痴情所感动,便去拜访久不联系的远房表妹黛茜,并向她转达盖茨比的心意。
黛茜在与盖茨比相会中时时有意挑逗。盖茨比昏昏然听她随意摆布,并且天真地以为那段不了情有了如愿的结局。然而真正的悲剧却在此时悄悄启幕。黛茜早已不是旧日的黛茜。黛茜不过将她俩的暖昧关系,当做一种刺激。
尼克终于有所察觉,但为时已晚。一次黛茜在心绪烦乱的状态下开车,偏偏轧死了丈夫的情妇。盖茨比为保护黛茜,承担了开车责任,但黛茜已打定主意抛弃盖茨比。在汤姆的挑拨下,致使其情妇的丈夫开枪打死了盖茨比。盖茨比最终彻底成为了牺牲品。
盖茨比至死都没有发现黛茜脸上嘲弄的微笑。盖茨比的悲剧在于他把一切都献给了自己编织的美丽梦想,而黛茜作为他理想的化身,却只徒有美丽的躯壳。尽管黛茜早已移情别恋,尽管他清楚地听出“她的声音充满了金钱”,却仍不改初衷,固执地追求重温旧梦。
人们在为盖茨比举行葬礼,黛茜和她丈夫此时却早已在欧洲旅行的路上。不了情终于有了了结。尼克目睹了人类现实的虚情寡义,深感厌恶,于是怀着一种悲剧的心情,远离喧嚣、冷漠、空洞、虚假的大都市,黯然回到故乡。
扩展资料:
菲茨杰拉德是美国20年代"爵士时代"的发言人和"迷惘的一代"的代表作家之一。而《了不起的盖茨比》是奠定菲茨杰拉德在现代美国文学史上的地位的作品。
二十世纪末,美国学术界权威在百年英语文学长河中选出了一百部最优秀的小说,其中,《了不起的盖茨比》高居第二位。
在当时的美国社会,或许每一个想要实现梦想,实现价值的美国公民,都受到一些盲目的消费观的影响来纵情享乐;用消费来炫耀自己的地位和财富。
用一些不择手段的消费来达到自己某种目的,而作为对比,出身卑微的盖茨比,有着不同常人的梦想和他自己想要追寻的那盏“绿灯”。
他为了他梦想中那个完美的女孩黛西,努力跻身于上流社会,却依然保持着他自己珍贵的梦想,彬彬有礼的姿态和他绅士的作风,他努力想要活得和梦想中的自己一样。
这部作品刚问世时并没有引起巨大反响,但随着时间的推移,它的文学价值和思想内涵越来越受世人瞩目。
参考资料来源:百度百科-了不起的盖茨比