Chapter 14 Fitzgerald · Hemingway

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Chapter 14 Fitzgerald Hemingway
I. Introduction
II. F. Scott Fitzgerald
III. Ernest Hemingway
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1. The Historical Background. a. The First World
War tore up the slogan flags into pieces that
held high among common moralists. b. Moreover,
Russian Revolution stirred up the hatred towards
the current social systems among the youth. No
aspect of life in the Twenties has been commented
upon and sensationally romanticized than the
so-called Revolt of the Younger Generation. c.
The booming of American industry with its
gigantic roaring factories, its impersonality,
and its large scale aggressiveness, no longer
left any room for the code of polite behavior and
well-bred morality fashioned in a quiet and less
competitive age. d. And it was during that period
that a number of sensitive writers found that
since there was little remedy for a country that
was blind and deaf to everything save the glint
and ring of the dollar, the only way out was to
emigrate to Europe. There they began to think of
themselves in the words of Gertrude Stein, as the
Lost Generation.
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2. The Overview of Literature. a. The rise of
the modern American literature Although the
form and ideas of modern American literature had
clearly began to emerge in the first decade of
the century, the First World War stands as a
great dividing line between the 19th century and
contemporary America. Writers of the first
postwar self consciously acknowledged that was,
as Ezra Pound described it, an old bitch gone in
the teeth. Yet in the years between the two
world wars American literature achieved a new
diversity and reached its greatest heights. The
publication in 1922 of T.S. Eliots The Waste
Land, the most significant American power of the
twentieth century, helped to establish a modern
tradition of literature rich learning and all
usive thought. In 1920 Sinclair Lewis published
his memorable
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denunciation of American small-town provincialism
Main Street, and in the same year Theodore
Dreiser began writing his masterpiece of
naturalism, An American Tragedy, F. Scott
Fitzgerald summarized the experiences and
attitudes of the decade in his short stories and
in his novel The Great Gatsby. Earnest Hemingway
wrote The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Armes,
and William Faulkner published one of the most
influential American novels of the age, The Sun
and the Fury. During the twenty years between the
two world wars six American writers who did their
best and most original work won the Nobel Price
for literature.
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b. Lost Generation of the Roaring Twenties
War disfigures and tears away precious lives. Its
horrors embed themselves like an infectious
disease in the minds of the survivors, who, when
left to salvage the pieces of their former
existences, are brushed into obscurity by the
individuals attempting to justify the
annihilation of the world that was. The era
following World War I epitomizes the inheritance
of tribulation and sorrow for the generation that
remains to retrieve some form of happiness - the
lost generation. The Sun Also Rises will maintain
a place in history not only for its literary
merit, but also for its documentation of what
writer Gertrude Stein called the "Lost
Generation."
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After WWI, many young Americans left their native
country, bitter over the war and seeking
adventure. A circle of artistic expatriates
appeared-- among them Hemingway, F. Scott
Fitzgerald, Sherwood Anderson, Ezra Pound, and
Pablo Picasso. Hemingway and Fitzgerald employed
their keen social observation in writing The Sun
Also Rises and The Great Gatsby, respectively,
widely considered the two masterpieces of Lost
Generation fiction.
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1. Life a. Scott Fitzgerald was born in 1896 and
grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota. From boyhood
Fitzgerald experienced both the conflict and the
fluidity of class in American life. b. His mother
nurtured social ambition in her only son, and
Fitzgerald was sent east to a Catholic prep
school, and then to Princeton where he began
career as a writer. c. Fitzgerald met and
instantly fell in love with Zelda Sayre and
married on April 3, 1920. Their life to a great
extent epitomized what Fitzgerald had already
called the Jazz Age. d. Fitzgerald first
published The Great Gatsby on April 10, 1925, a
story set in Long Islands North Shore and New
York City during the summer of 1922. e.
Fitzgerald died on December 21, 1940, in
Hollywood, in Graham's apartment, before the book
The Last Tycoon was finished.
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2. Literary Works a. Novels This Side of Paradise
(New York Charles Scribners Sons, 1920) The
Beautiful and Damned (New York Scribner, 1922)
The Great Gatsby (New York Scribner, 1925)
Tender Is the Night (New York Scribner, 1934)
The Last Tycoon originally The Love of the
Last Tycoon (New York Scribners, published
posthumously, 1941) b. Short Story
Collections Flappers and Philosophers (Short
Story Collection, 1920) Tales of the Jazz Age
(Short Story Collection, 1922) All the Sad Young
Men (Short Story Collection, 1926)
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3. A brief introduction to his masterpiece, The
Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby is the best novel
of Fitzgerald. As a novel with strong tragic
flavor, it keeps in step with the time and its
criticism of America society is really
penetrating. The novel shows the disillusion of
American Dream in the 1920s. At that age, it
was impossible for Gatsby to succeed. The novel
also shows that in the American society of 1920s,
the commons were in total depravity. It tells us
that there is no way to go from money to love,
from material to spirit. In a split world, love
could neither make up the split nor replace the
value. It is full of realistic meaning even
today.
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The clues of the novel are very clear, while the
specific events are mysterious. In it, we can
fully enjoy the glamour of art. In addition, the
novel is intensely lyrical. With colorful musical
elements, the author composed a tragic song,
leaving a lot of questions for us to think
about. 4. The Jazz Age What repeats frequently
in the majority of his books describes the period
from 1918-1929, the years between the end of
World War I and the start of the Roaring
Twenties ending with the rise of the Great
Depression, the traditional values of this age
saw great decline while the American
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stock market soared. The focus of the elements of
this age, in some contrast with the Roaring
Twenties, in historical and cultural studies, are
somewhat different, with a greater emphasis on
all Modernism. The age takes its name from jazz
music, which saw a tremendous surge in popularity
among many segments of society. Among the
prominent concerns and trends of the period are
the public embrace of technological developments
(typically seen as progress)cars, air travel and
the telephoneas well as new modernist trends in
social behavior, the arts, and culture. Central
developments included Art Deco design and
architecture. In addition, many amateur artists
began to aspire including Duke Ellington,
Picasso, etc.
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III. Ernest Hemingway 1. Life a. Ernest
Hemingway (1899-1961), born in Oak Park,
Illinois, started his career as a writer in a
newspaper office in Kansas City at the age of
seventeen. b. Before the United States entered
the First World War, he joined a volunteer
ambulance unit in the Italian army. Serving at
the front, he was wounded, was decorated by the
Italian Government, and spent considerable time
in hospitals. After his return to the United
States, he became a reporter for Canadian and
American newspapers and was soon sent back to
Europe to cover such events as the Greek
Revolution.
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c. During the twenties, Hemingway became a member
of the group of expatriate Americans in Paris,
which he described in his first important work,
The Sun Also Rises (1926). Equally successful was
A Farewell to Arms (1929), the study of an
American ambulance officers disillusionment in
the war and his role as a deserter. Hemingway
used his experiences as a reporter during the
civil war in Spain as the background for his most
ambitious novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940).
d. Among his later works, the most outstanding
is the short novel, The Old Man and the Sea
(1952), finally brought him onto the stage of the
Nobel Prize in 1954.
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• 2. His main works
• The Sun Also Rises (1926)
• A Farewell to Arms (1929)
• Green Hills of Africa(1935)
• For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940)
• The Old Man and the Sea (1952)
• 3. Hemingways themes ----grace under pressure
• War and influence of war on people, with
  scenes connected with hunting, bull fighting
  which demand stamina and courage, and with the
  question
• how to live with pain
• how human being live gracefully under pressure.

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4. Hemingways hero----code hero Hemingways
hero is an average man of decidedly masculine
tastes, sensitive and intelligent, a man of
action, and one of few words. That is an
individualist keeping emotions under control,
stoic and self-disciplined in a dreadful place.
These people are usually spiritual strong, people
of certain skills, and most of them encounter
death many times.
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5. Hemingways style a. simple and natural b.
direct, clear and fresh c. lean and economical d.
simple, conversational, common found, fundamental
words e. simple sentences f. Iceberg principle
understatement, implied things1/8 pricinple g.
symbolism
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