T. Elliott, writer and critic, referred to The Great Gatsby, as the novel was first published in 1925, as ?the first step that American fiction [had] taken since Henry James?. Since this date, critics agree to emphasize it as a the most accomplished and mature book ever written by Fitzgerald. The novel was not only praised for its revolutionary topic, based on its ability to render the spirit of the Jazz Age, but more for its destabilizing pattern. In fact, it was immediately sacred as a turning-point in the author's career as well as a major contribution to the elaboration of modern novel. This revolution mainly consisted in a complete different comprehensiveness of the writing of a novel not only as a matter of imagination and style but as matter of pattern and a visceral need for realism. Strikingly, it seems that Fitzgerald intuitively anticipated the critic's judgement through this meaningful remark: ?I'm writing something extremely beautiful and simple intricately patterned?. Such a phrase wonderfully suggests and resumes the main feeling, that still resists several readings of the novel just three quarters of a century after it has been written : the mysterious impression of having touched and captured for a while the short-lived vision of existence, in its pure and burning reality. Fitzgerald succeeded in concentrating in 200 pages the drama of existence through the spirit of a circumscribed period. So, beyond social considerations, which gave rise to varied and numerous critical works, it may be relevant to examine the technical and dramatic devices, that conditioned the nature of the novel, as a living and multi-dimensional piece.
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Sommaire de la fiche de lecture
Monsieur de Fécour, un homme de pouvoir
Une grandeur symbolique
Une physionomie révélatrice, humiliante pour Jacob
Une humiliation directe
La compagnie de Monsieur de Fécour
Une description globale ironique
La déshumanisation de Jacob
La résistance de Jacob
Une scène marquante pour Jacob
Un souvenir fort
Un nouvel apprentissage
Un épisode doublement annonciateur
Extraits de la fiche de lecture
[...] Fitzgerald succeeded in concentrating in 200 pages the drama of existence through the spirit of a circumscribed period. So, beyond social considerations, which gave rise to varied and numerous critical works, it may be relevant to examine the technical and dramatic devices, that conditioned the nature of the novel, as a living and multi- dimensional piece. First, let us highlight the technical means, based on the revolutionary and modern vision of narration, that govern the original construction of the pattern of the novel as a work of selection Second, one might study the skill of the author to combine this principle of selection to an impressionist approach of narration and language, so- called «magic suggestiveness», which abolishes the traditional conception and imposes a fresh vision of relations between the writer, the narrator and the reader. [...]
[...] In a third one, the figure of Gatsby finally emerges in the background of the stage. After having been the single but hidden object of rumors and phantasms, the hero is ready to invest the story. In fact, in the next chapter, he prepares himself for a decisive meeting with Daisy, which is organized through the intermediary of Nick. This private and sober take-aside does not miss to open on a second party by Gatsby, which echoes the first one as its complete antithesis. [...]
[...] However, Gatsby, and American nation was lured by his optimistic faith in repeating the past as in actual fact, did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city. New -York is the place of short-lived pleasures, and mean calculus, as notices Nick, who is surrendered by a mix of repel and degust Nick appears as the only honest person he knows who never falls into vices. From a strict dramatic point of view, although all the characters attempted to drag him into their corruption, he always resisted, and took refuge into imagination. [...]
[...] The Great Gatsby, by F.S Fitzgerald (1925) Analysis T. Elliott, writer and critic, referred to The Great Gatsby, as the novel was first published in 1925, as first step that American fiction [had] taken since Henry James?. Since this date, critics agree to emphasize it as the most accomplished and mature book ever written by Fitzgerald. The novel was not only praised for its revolutionary topic, based on its ability to render the spirit of the Jazz Age, but more for its destabilizing pattern. [...]
[...] Nick's house appears as a neutral land between to opposite worlds, and could be compared to a hidden observatory, from which he can secretly see what is happening by Gatsby or the Buchanans. Nick is the quiet and discrete observer, who tells the story and gives the reader to the situation. He appears as a skilful technical device coined by the author to figure verisimilitude. Nick's eye filtrates the action and carries out a natural selection of the picture, which is dedicated to reflect the highest level of realism. [...]
Philosophie & matières littéraires