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Symbolism In The Great Gatsby


However, what makes Fitzgerald great is by no means the "author's voice" in the work, but his marvelous wit to symbolically fuse the individual with the outer-world and the personal emotions with social environment. From the understanding and annotation of the whole age, he saw the fall of American values: American Dream.
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             1. The symbolic meanings of objects in this fiction are overt.Fitzgerald put richer special connotations to objects on the base of their natural symbolic meanings. As we know, books are the symbol of spiritual wealth, nevertheless, the fine books in Gatsby's library whose pages even hadn't been cut were just for decoration, which is very satirical. House is the symbol of material wealth and individual status, however, Gatsby's house which was "a factual imitation of some Hotel de Ville" suggests that Gatsby, the man who had achieved instant richness, imitated old aristocrats and tried to merge into up-classes, which showed his vanity and vulgarity; Tom's "Georgian colonial mansion" is the represent of his status as a hereditary aristocrat; Nick's house, which was "squeezed between two huge places" and was "a weather-beaten carboard bungalow", suggests his position and his envy toward money when he first settled in West Egg. Gatsby's mansion was "sparking new under a thin beard of raw ivy", while Tom's had the lawn "drifting up the side in bright vines", subtly suggesting their common money-pursuit psychology and as well symbolizing the existing difference between them who respectively represented their own class's population and history elements, self-made millionaires, like Gatsby, though from illegal means, are after all "thin"and quite a few; however the property-inherited and self-oriented selfish parasites are "bright" and thriving. .
             Car is like house, tending to be associated with the materialism of American Dream. Nick only had a shabby car; Wilson lived on car-repairing; Tom fooled Wilson by using his bait; Gatsby had two nice yellow cars to receive guests.


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