Enchanted
Places:
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| "This first full-length study of
Fitzgerald’s domestic and urban settings not only traces the changing
pattern in his artistry but also restructures the scope and depth his
representation of the Jazz Age America. Exploring his parabolic imagery of
home, bars, schools, city, and Hollywood, the book shows how his setting
contributes toward the thematic profundity and aesthetic richness in his
writing." |
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© 1997 Dr. Aiping Zhang |
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Introduction |
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This book analyzes an essential, but relatively uncultivated, part of the artistry in Fitzgerald’s fiction: his use of domestic and urban settings. Through exploring the imagery of home, bars, schools, city, and Hollywood, Fitzgerald presents a panoramic view of the social and psychological landscape of his time, a view that is philosophically adequate and aesthetically satiating. Most of Fitzgerald's novels and stories start as a romance of love or a fantasy of extravagant glamour, but as the settings and the interplay between characters and the places they live are carefully examined, an emblem-like quality is discovered in their deceptively simple configuration. The first full-length study of Fitzgerald's unparalleled representation of Jazz Age America, this book analyzes an essential, but relatively uncultivated part of the artistry in Fitzgerald's fiction: his use of domestic and urban settings. Fitzgerald's use of these settings as a rich source of imagery objectifies social trends and individual desires. Each setting is no longer just a locale, or a site for a story's action, but a sophisticated device, an integral part of the story designed to convey a unique vision of life in a profound way. Such parabolic quality, the author argues, gives Fitzgerald's fiction enormous possibilities of temporal span and multiple situations, as well as a microcosmic capacity for containing the complexities of reality. Enchanted Places is second of the series, Contributions to the Study of American Literature Acknowledgements
Dr. Aiping Zhang received his doctorate degree from Harvard University and is currently the Graduate Advisor for the English Department at California State University, Chico. He has published articles on Mark Twain and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and contributed to anthologies and reference books. Dr. Zhang currently teaches courses in American literature and multiculturalism. Other Fitzgerald Resources F. Scott
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