THE NOVELS OF SCOTT FITZGERALD: A STUDY OF THEME AND VISION THESIS FOR Ph. D. IN ENGLISH LITERATURE BY ATTIA ABID UNDER THE SUPERVISION OF PROF. AZIZUDDIN TARIQ DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH ALIGARH MUSLIM UNIVERSITY ALIGARH (INDIA) 1995 .^OvJ^ 2 9 AUG 19S6 T4717 DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH AND MODERN EUROPEAN LANGUAGES ALIGARH MUSLIM UNIVERSITY ALrGARH-202002 INDIA Dated: May 04, 1995 This is to certify that Mrs. Attia Abid has completed her Ph.D. thesis on " The Novels of Scott Fitzgerald: A Study of Theme and Vision " under my supervision. Mrs. Abid'sthesis is satisfactory and original work based on her study of the subject. Professor A. Tariq (Supervisor) CONTENTS PREFACE 1 CHAPTER I THE AGE, THE GENRE, THE ARTIST 1 CHAPTER II THE VISION OF PARADISE 77 CHAPTER III FAILURE AND DISENCHANTMENT 147 CHAPTER IV THE BRAVE NEW WORLD 205 CHAPTER V DECADENCE OF AMERICAN SOCIETY 303 CHAPTER VI THE END OF THE DREAM 365 CHAPTER VII FAIRYLANDS FORLORN 430 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 444 PREFACE PREFACE We Indians take up an assignment with the blessings of our parents, teachers and elders; on completing it, we again seek their blessings and express our earnest gratitude. I am no exception. However, during the course of my work, I met some people who turned out to be well-wishers, friends and even angels in disguise. From the vantage point of achievement, when I look back nostalgically, I miss many "familiar faces", and reminiscence with Charles Lamb: How some they have died, and some they have left me. And some are taken from me; all are departed; All, all are gone, the old familiar faces. On the other hand, I also cherish those who are by my side, and I thank God Almighty for their companionship. My mother, brother, sister, husband, children and family members gave me all the co-operation and encouragement needed; they couldn't have done more. The irony is that I can't thank them; for how does one thank ones very one? I can just say that my achievement is actually theirs; they deserve the laurels. li I am extremely fortunate that even twenty-five years after my Masters, I have the benediction of two Professors that taught ne way back in 1970, and in 1994 brought me from darkness to light. I refer to Professor Azizuddin Tariq and Professor Maqbool Hasan Khan. Professor Azizuddin Tariq, former Chairman, Department of English, was also my Supervisor for M.Phil., and, during the course of my Ph.D., he retired, but inspite of that he continued to give me as much time as before. His guidance, encouragement and co­ operation are invaluable. I will not even attempt to express my gratitude because no words are there that can convey my feelings. He has lived upto the adage that a 'guru' is a friend, philosopher and guide. Professor Maqbool Hasan Khan, Chairman, Department of English, gave me unflinching support; he was like a ballast during hours of uncertainty and doubt. I can never forget the help and encouragement extended not only by him but by Afsar Apa also. If one is lucky to have such teachers as Professor Azizuddin Tariq and Professor Maqbool Hasan Khan, one's faith in the profession remains unshaken. They are role models, and I am proud to simply state that I have been their student. There are some other teachers that I must also mention because on every occasion they have found opportunities to boost my morale. I remember with respect and affection Professor Jafar Zaki, former Chairman, Department of Ill English, and Ms Shahnaz Hashmi. Professor Zakia Siddiqui, Principal, Women's College, has been a source of strength and inspiration; her faith and confidence have made a world of difference. In the Slough of Despondency, one of the helping hands was Mrs Najma Akhtar, former Controller of Admissions and Examinations. Her support and encouragement, by word and deed, opened 'magic casements' for me. Words would be a mere apology for my sentiments. Had it not been for ASRC, Hyderabad and The American Centre, Delhi, I could not have achieved anything. Their co­ operation and efficiency have helped me sign off in time. I am obliged and grateful to them. I remain indebted to Mr. Moinuddin Alvi, Blessing Computer Centre, who so patiently and deligently transcribed my scrawl onto the Computer. An American student of mine once gave me a plaque with the following words inscribed on it: Thanks is such a little word no bigger than a minute. But there's a world of meaning and appreciation in it. iv On this momentous occasion I extend the same to all the aforementioned "personalities" and "personages" with a simple word coming from the deepest recesses of my heart THANKS. I hope it will not seem presumptuous to say that I can offer nothing except a prayer for each and everyone May God bless them all with His choicest blessings. Tennyson rightly said: Yet all experience is an arch wherethro' Gleams that untravell'd world, whose margin fades Forever and forever when I move. Completion of Ph.D. is just stepping into the sea of knowledge; its just the beginning. Had my father been in our midst today, he would have quoted Robert Frost: The woods are lovely, dark and deep; But I have promises to keep; And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. THE NOVELS OF SCOTT FITZGERALD: A STUDY OF THEME AND VISION CHAPTER I THE AGE, THE GENRE, THE ARTIST O life unlike to ours! Who fluctuates idly without term or scope. Of whom each strives, nor knows for what he strives. And each half lives a hundred different lives. Who wait like thee, but not like thee in hope. (Mathew ArnoId) CHAPTER I The Age, The Genre, The Artist Background of the Age On one side lies America precloiBinant3Y agricultural concerned vith domestic problems; conforming intellectually at- least, to the political, economic, moral principles inherited from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.... On the other side lies the Modern America, predominantly urban and industrial, inextricably involved in a world economy and politics, troubled with the problems that had long been thought peculiar to the old world; experiencing profound changes in population, social institutions and technology trying to accommodate its traditional institutions and habits of thoughts to conditions new and in part alien.-'^ 1. Henry Steele Commanger, The American Mind (New Haven, 1950), p.41. The world of the nineteenth century, filled with change, teeming with developments, was bent on upsetting the fundamental nature of the social order itself. As the century entered its last two decades, a fundamentally Utopian vision took hold of the American imagination and a mythic view of some distant future engaged the mjnd which was preoccupied with the legend of the "second chance" crystallised in the Civil War. What makes America unique is the quality of its typical institutions and character shaped by the Frontier which remained inexhaustible since the possible search for the vanquished geographical frontier became a viable ideological force in the twentieth century. There were drastic and far- reaching socio-economic changes personified in "R.ig Business", and at the turn of the century, America emerged as the materialistic business civilization. However, the American attitude to wealth is said to be different from that of the Europeans. George Santyana says: The American talks about money because it is the symbol and measure he has at hand for success, intelligence and power; but as to money itself, he makes. loses, spends and gives it away with a very light, heart. Thus, it was not important in itself but it could perfect indivi'dual and social morality. It is perhaps for this reason that they dislike the idle rich, in whose hands, shorn of its philanthropic ends, money becomes tainted wjth acQuisitiveness; they are "the malefactors of great wealth". America lost its innocence yielding to experience and enhanced adult responsibilities; as Henry May said, "our times had been separated from a completely vanished world".' Not only that, there was a discontinuity between a remoter and more recent past: At some point, if not an instantaneous upheaval, there must have been a notable quickening of the pace of change, a period when things began to move so fast that the past, from then on, looked static.^ 2. George Santayana, Character and Opinion in the United States (New York, 1956), p.115. 3. Henry F. May, The End of American Innocence (New York, 1959), p.ix. 4. Ibid., p.303. A cultural revolution was imminent, and it accompanied the intellectual and social discontent that exploded in the 1890s and reverberated till the 1940s, However, World War J acted as a further catalyst and America got involved in aJJ the realities that she had sought to avoid; she was torn from that security in which her domestic life was determined by self interest and political expediency; and became "not only mechanised and urbanised and bureaucratised, hut internationalised as well."^ Another factor responsible for internationaljsation was immigration: While the relatively homogeneous American culture of the mid-nineteenth century was, like all other national cultures of that period seriously affected by the rise of modern industry.... mass immigration added something additional to the destructive impact. The break between cultures of the 1870s and that of the 1920s was thus greater in the United States than it was in England or France.^ 5. Richard Hofstader, The Age of Reform (New York, 1955), p.326. Different institutional forms were shaped by this new phenomenon; the entire economic order catapulted Amerjca into a nation of potential entrepreneurs with a new sociaJ and ethical outlook; the "new economic man" was moulded as a major social type out of the fusion of capitalism and liberalism.