Introduction

Since Francis Scott Fitzgerald had his masterpiece The Great Gatsby published in 1925, it had won many favorable praises. Now people keep reading it and the researches on it are inexaustible. For a long time, The Great Gatsby was classified as "a book of roaring Twenties," a product of the times. Most criticisms seek its particular meaning against the background of history. Structuralist analysis differs from the criticisms on the matter that it is no longer the description of a particular work, but the establishment of a theory of the structure or general laws within literature itself. Structuralism sees itself as a human science whose effort is to understand in a systematic way the fundamental structures that underlie all human experience and all human behaviour.

Introduction to Structuralism
First of all, essential knowledge on structuralism must be introduced. Structuralism is one of the humanistic thoughts that have great impact on the 20th century, which rises to its prominence in France through the application of the Saussurian linguistics to the study of the cultural phenomena by the French anthropologist Claude Levis-Strauss. Structuralism argues that a specific domain of culture may be understood by means of a structuremodeled on languagethat is distinct both from the organizations of reality and those of ideas or the imagination. Besides, it is Roman Jacobson who first brings forward the concept of binary oppositions, which is the essential principal adopted in the analysis of The Great Gatsby. For him, human mind naturally operates to oppositions and the binary oppositions in story structure reveal its meanings. Later, Greimas applies this principle in the narrative analysis. He observes that human beings make meaning by structuring the world in terms of two kinds of opposed pairs and he believes that this fundamental structure of binary oppositions shapes our language, our experience and the narratives through which we articulate our experience. Literature offers the most obvious manifestation of Structuralism in action and Structuralism mainly deals with narrative. In terms of narrative analysis, both Greimas and Todorov think there exists, at a deep level, a "grammar" of narrative from which individual stories ultimately derive. The stories

can be X-rayed through the "grammar." Both of them focus on the "unity" and "wholeness" of the fiction, the integration of content and form. But they separately emphasize the "semantic" and "syntactic" aspects of narrative: Greimas is interested in content, Todorov, form. These two must be joined together to form narrative and the "grammar" explored in thesis can be completed.Binary oppositions function as the basis of Structuralism, on which Greimas' theory rests. Greimas observes that human beings make meaning by structuringthe world in terms of opposed pairs. He believes that this fundamental structure of binary oppositions, that is, the oppositional structure, shapes our language, our experience, and the narratives through which we articulate our experience. The ultimate goal of Greimas' research is the establishment of the basic plot model. But the trial is not considered successful because the categories of opposition are analyzed simply on the surface level. Thus another level of "syntactic" analysis is required and Todorov's research achieves the goal.Todorov's idea is that "the whole text can be seen as a kind of sentence-structure." His analysis of stories reveals two fundamental units of structure: propositions and sequences, which function as "sentences" and "paragraphs" respectively and they make up of the text. In this way, characters can be seen as nouns, their attributes as adjectives and their actions, verbs. Then all the actions in the novel are examined to explore the common elements and the pattern structuring them.

Structuralism in The Great Gatsby

In F. Scott Fitzgeralds work, The Great Gatsby, one can see an extreme sense of social stratification through the reality of the fact that different classes do exist. However, when it comes to applying the work of Saussure to Fitzgeralds book, it is particularly important to analyze the emphasis on language and its underlying relationship with the text itself. Within the world of Jay Gatsby, Nick Carraway must contend with learning a new set of phrases and jargon specific to the area of Long Island that he lives in. Nick Carraway speaks differently than the hired help of Jay Gatsby or even the lower social standings of various characters. His education affords him the right to converse freely with whomever he desires. As Saussure points out language is

form and not a substance. It can be freely manipulated to meet Nicks needs. However, one interesting point that The Great Gatsbys world does bring up is the idea of being able to change ones social standing and class. If one does succeed at moving up the social ladder, would it help or harm his or her ability to communicate? For Structuralists, communication is key on such a basic level. Is the world of Jay Gatsby mindful of this communication always? One would allege that they are not, especially since Jay Gatsby is eventually murdered because of one mans conclusions based on circumstantial events.

Binary oppositions in The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby is historically a product of times, a typical war novel. With regard to the idea of The Great Gatsby, the novel attempts success in conventional terms: love, money and power. However, in terms of form, this novel is no doubt a good application of binary oppositions from the structuralist perspective. Since binary oppositions shape our experience and each writer's experience will inevitably exert influence on his work, the work can not be analysed in isolation, being totally separated with its author. Fitzgerald's life experience, like his fiction, is a blend of romance and realism, success and failure. The duality of his personality is an undercurrent beneath the novel. Furthermore The Great Gatsby is an excellent embodiment of binary oppositions which underlie its theme, setting, characters and the meaning of symbols: illusion and disillusionment in theme; ideal land and realistic world in setting; insiders and outsiders in characters; superficial meaning and implied meaning in symbols. These opposed pairs serve as good illustrations of the deep oppositional structure underlying the novel.

Binary oppositions in theme

Through reading the whole novel, we will not fail to discover binary opposition in its theme, that is, the tension between illusion and disillusionment, pursuit and loss, dream and reality. As Fitzgerald saw it, the American dream was originally about discovery, individualism, and the pursuit of happiness. In the 1920s depicted in the novel, however, easy money and relaxed social values have corrupted this dream,

especially on the East Coast. The main plotline of the novel reflects this assessment, as Gatsbys dream of loving Daisy is ruined by the difference in their respective social statuses, his resorting to crime to make enough money to impress her, and the rampant materialism that characterizes her lifestyle. Just as Americans have given America meaning through their dreams for their own lives, Gatsby instills Daisy with a kind of idealized perfection that she neither deserves nor possesses. Gatsbys dream is ruined by the unworthiness of its object, just as the American dream in the 1920s is ruined by the unworthiness of its objectmoney and pleasure. Like 1920s Americans in general, fruitlessly seeking a bygone era in which their dreams had value, Gatsby longs to re-create a vanished pasthis time in Louisville with Daisybut is incapable of doing so. When his dream crumbles, all that is left for Gatsby to do is die; all Nick can do is move back to Minnesota, where American values have not decayed.

Binary oppositions in setting

The setting or the background of the seasons in which the novel is designed shows clearly the binary oppositions in the idealistic world and the realistic world, which at the same time serves as a foil to the novel theme in effect. The novel begins with Nick coming to the east in the spring, reaches its climax in the heat of summer, and closes with the falling leaves of autumn. Spring is a season of hope and people are ready to seek for their happiness. As the story develops, struggles and conflicts explode in summer. Summer is usually endowed with romance, a symbol of successful quest, but failure looms and tragedy just comes around the corner. Autumn is the crown of a year, a time of fulfillment and enjoyment, while the great losses await the faithful seeker. Winter hides in the Nick intense nostalgia for the past and for the lost romance world Gatsby represents. The lyric description of the Christmas in the Midwest of his youth sets a melancholy air and a deep sigh to the world. And the tragedy sets in winter which symbolizes the cruelty of reality. Therefore, the story of Gatsby was laid out against a symbolic background of seasons, each corresponding to a phase of the culminating of his life.

Binary oppositions in characters

The major characters in The Great Gatsby can be seen as both insiders and outsiders in respect of binary oppositions. Gatsby leads an affluent life but he insists upon the isolation from the world, devoting himself to the pursuit of his dream. He is an insider among the money-grubbing society, but he at the same time an outsiders of it. Although he stays away from the reach of people, he tries to create a social bridge by throwing lavish parties every week. People of the society barely know about who he really is or what he actually does. Gatsby remains a mystery to the outsiders but attempts to remain loyal to his insider. Gatsby wanted to create a new world of wealth and illusion, so he expelled himself from his parents and changed his name. Moreover, he held the faith that he could achieve his goals and win back his woman only through money, but he finally failed. He lacks of the maturity to realize that Daisy is unworthy of his ideal and she can not be obtained through wealth. Daisy though performs as central figure inside Gatsby dream, she is actually an outsider of it for she lacks the moral basis and the spiritual values appropriate to the dream.

Binary oppositions in symbols

The Great Gatsby is rich in symbolism which functions in various ways. For instance, the color of gold and silver, white and green are endowed with deep meaning that go beyond the concerns of plot and characterization. Silver and gold are the most prominent colors in the novel, which are associated with the direct displays of wealth. They are so shining in Gatsby parties and seem to make all things possible, but in fact it is just the illusion created by money. Besides, Daisy color is white, since she wears white dresses and recalls her white girlhood. In contrast to Daisy purpose, the meaning of purity and naivety the color white connotes is denied by the emptiness and sophistication which Daisy is characterized by. In addition, the color of green, is the symbol of hope and promise and ultimately the green light at the first chapter is made paralleled to the green breast of the new world, at the end of the last chapter, uniting the hope and promise of Gatsbys dream and that of

America itself. But the sacred green light becomes nothing more that a burning bulb at Daisy dock, a symbol of corruption and depravity.

The Great Gatsby is symmetrical

In many ways, F. Scott Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby (1925) is so carefully organized that the novels structure seems to draw attention to itself. A brief description of the texts structural symmetry should illustrate this point. The narrative revolves around Jay Gatsbys pursuit, attainment, and loss of Daisy Fay Buchanan. As we learn in "ashback, this failed quest is a replay of the same pursuit, attainment, and loss of the same beloved that occurred in Gatsbys youth, before the novel opens. Each failed quest occurs during the compressed period of a few months, and in both instances Gatsby disguises his true origins, so there is a kind of narrative symmetry between the structure of fictional past and fictional present. Another kind of structural symmetry is produced when Gatsby is reunited with Daisy in chapter 5, which is at the physical center of the novels nine chapters and at the temporal center of the narrative action: it is late July, the midpoint between Nicks first visit to the Buchanans new home in early June, when the history of the summer really begins, and Gatsbys death in early September. In addition, the narrative unfolds in a pattern of similarly structured triads, bounded at the beginning and end of the novel by narrator Nick Carraways meditative re"ections on the events he recounts: Opening: Narrators opening meditation (chapter 1) I: The world of wealth described (chapter 1) II: The world of poverty described (chapter 2) III: Intersection of I and IIrich and poor mingle at Gatsbys party (chapter 3) I: Nick hears story of Gatsbys past (chapter 4) II: Nick hears story of Daisys past (chapter 4) III: Intersection of I and IIGatsby and Daisy reunite at Nicks house (chapter 5) I: The eternal triangle appearsTom, Daisy, and Gatsby at Gatsbys party

(chapter 6) II: The eternal triangle explodesthe confrontation scene in the New York hotel room (chapter 7) III: Intersection of I and IIthree disasters result A. Myrtle Wilsons death (chapter 7) B. Gatsbys death (chapter 8) C. George Wilsons death (chapter 8) Closing: Narrators closing meditation (chapter 9)

The novels narrative grammar

Of course, any of these narrative patterns could serve as a starting point for a structural analysis of The Great Gatsby. The particular structure is at the foundation of all the others: the novels narrative grammar, which is illuminated, I think, by the use of Tzvetan Todorovs schema of propositions. As youll recall, according to this framework we try to discover how the text is structured by the pattern of relations among recurring actions (which are analogous to verbs) and attributes (which are analogous to adjectives) associated with particular characters (which are analogous to nouns). In other words, we try to discover how the text is structured by the repetition of the same grammar, the same formula, the same sentence, so to speak. In the case of The Great Gatsby all the action can be reduced to three verbs: to seek, to find, and to lose. These three verbs produce, in turn, the repetition of two related sentences, or narrative patterns: (1) X seeks, finds, and then loses Y, or simply (2) X seeks but doesnt find Y. (X = the character in question; Y = a desired person, object, state, or condition.) In both cases, of course, the overall narrative formula is the same: 1. Attribute: X lacks Y 2. Action: X seeks Y 3. Attribute: X lacks Y

(either because X doesnt find Y or because X finds but then loses Y) This formula structures the text as a whole by structuring the narratives of the main characters. The seek-find-lose grammar can be seen as the modern novels rejection of the traditional seek-and-find quest formula. This narrative grammar offers us an interesting application of Northrop Fryes theory of mythoi. For in The Great Gatsby, this grammar produces a narrative that embeds the mythos of summer (Gatsbys story, the genre of romance) within the mythos of winter (Nicks story, the genre of irony). And although the mythos of summer is eventually overridden by the mythos of winter, the latter structure remains haunted by the former.

Seeks, finds, and then loses structure

Of course, the master plot of the novels seek-find-lose formula is the story of its title character, Jay Gatsby. As we noted above, he seeks, finds, and loses Daisy twice: once in his youth, before the novel begins, and again during the summer that Nick lives next door to him on West Egg. In addition, the narrative of Gatsbys pursuit, attainment, and loss of Daisy is accompanied by the narrative of his pursuit, attainment, and loss of the new life he sought when he changed his name from James Gatz to Jay Gatsby. His seek-find-lose story is thus repeated not merely in two different time periods but in terms of two different goals: love and social status. Both are lost to him, of course, when he dies. Furthermore, Gatsbys narrative provides the framework on which the narratives of the other characters are strung, so to speak: it is in the unfolding of Gatsbys story by Nick that the other stories are told. Daisys story mirrors not only the seek-find-lose pattern of Gatsbys narrative but its repetitive quality as well. As we learn in "ashback, the young Daisy Fay sought excitement, found it in the form of her love for Lieutenant Jay Gatsby, then lost him to the war. Next she sought emotional security, found it in the form of marriage to Tom Buchanan, then lost it when she soon discovered that he was chronically unfaithful to her. Finally, she craves the attention that she isnt getting from Tom, finds it in Gatsby, and loses it when he dies (or, perhaps more precisely, when Tom reveals that Gatsby isnt the man Daisy thought he was).

Similar seek-find-lose grammars structure the narratives of Tom Buchanan, Myrtle Wilson, and her husband George. As a young man, Tom sought ego gratification, found it in his career as a college football hero, then lost it when he graduated from college. As a married man, Tom seeks a similar kind of ego gratificationthe adoration of inferiorsby seducing a series of working-class women, the latest incarnation of which is Myrtle Wilson. In each case, however, the ego gratification lasts only as long as the affair, so Tom continually returns to the position of the unfulfilled seeker. Analogously, Myrtle Wilson seeks escape from the boredom and economic poverty of her marriage, finds it in Tom Buchanan, then loses it when she is killed in the hitand-run accident. Of course, even if she had lived she would not have succeeded in marrying Tom. His intention to avoid a permanent commitment to Myrtle is evident in his lie to her that Daisys Catholicism would never permit her to divorce him. Operating as a shadow behind Myrtles seek-find-lose narrative is that of George Wilson, who sought love, found it in his marriage to Myrtle, and lost it when she became unfaithful to him with Tom (or, perhaps more precisely, when she learned that George didnt own the suit in which he was married). As a backdrop to these seek-find-lose grammars is a subset of seek-find-lose: seekbut-dont-find. We see this pattern operating in Georges pursuit of financial security, which is an impossible dream, and in Jordans pursuit of social and financial security, which seem ever to elude her grasp just as the winning putt remains, of late, just beyond her reach. The grammar of seek-but-dont-find also structures the setting in the form of the numerous minor characters who populate it. Mr. McKee seeks but doesnt find success as a photographer. Myrtles sister Catherine seems a permanently dissatisfied seeker: her trip to Monte Carlo was a financial disaster; her solid sticky bob of red hair, complexion powdered milky white, and rakish painted eyebrows blurred by the plucked hairs growing back are a fashion disaster; and her search for a good time seems merely to take her from one scene of drunken chaos to another. Even Gatsbys innumerable party guests have the air of dissatisfied wanderers, coming to his mansion from parts unknown, seeking something new in the latest dances, and seeking excitement, or perhaps just escape from their dissatisfaction, at the bottom of a bottle.

Certainly the most well-developed seek-but-dont-find narrative in the novel is that of Nick Carraway. Nicks summer in New York is just the latest in a series of unsuccessful pursuits. His experience in World War I apparently involved the pursuit of excitement from which he returned more empty-handed than when he left: I enjoyed [World War I] so thoroughly that I came back restless. Instead of being the warm center of the world the middle-west now seemed like the ragged edge of the universeso I decided to go east and learn the bond business. As his narrative reveals, of course, his venture in the bond business, and in the East in general, also follows the seek-but-dont-find pattern: he abandons both within a few months of his arrival in New York. Neither is his search for the right woman successful. He leaves his hometown, in part, to escape a woman he was feeling pressured to marry. He apparently cares so little about the woman at work with whom he has an affair that he allows her brothers mean looks in [his] direction to drive him off. And his relationship with Jordan Baker is rather clearly an infatuation with no staying power: he tires of her as soon as he tires of the Buchanans. Nicks most important seek-but-dont-find pattern, however, seems to be his unfulfilled search for a purpose in life. Throughout his narrative, Nick seems at loose ends. At the age of thirty he is still without a stable career, without a serious love interest, and without a home of his own. And he feels their lack acutely: Thirty the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning briefcase of enthusiasm, thinning hair. In fact, hes still being supported by his wealthy father, who agreed to finance [him] for a year while he learned the bond business. Its no wonder he seems so fascinated by Gatsby, for Gatsby has, to an extreme degree, the quality Nick lacks most, the quality he is unable to acquire despite his best efforts: purpose. It might be interesting to think of the seek-findlose grammar of The Great Gatsby as the modern novels rejection of the traditional quest formula. The traditional quest is structured by a seek-and-find grammar. Even if the hero dies achieving the goal of his quest, or attempting to achieve it, the world is transformed in some way by his effort: something important is found. Thus, the basic plot formula Todorov isolated consists of an attribute transformed by an action: (1) attribute (for example, the protagonist is unsuccessful), (2) action (he seeks success), (3) attribute (he is successful or, at least, has learned something

important as a result of his quest). The traditional quest is thus redemptive in some way. As we have seen, in Fitzgeralds novel, the characters attributes are not transformed by the heros action nor by their own actions. At the novels end the characters have the same attributethe same lackwith which they began, and apparently nothing is learned in the process. Gatsby is dead, presumably without having admitted to himself that Daisy has abandoned him and without living long enough to benefit from that insight had it occurred. Myrtle and George are dead, without having learned anything from their experience. The last time we see Jordan, shes putting up her usual false front, lying to Nick that she is unmoved by his withdrawal from their relationship and is engaged to someone else. Finally, Tom and Daisy, true to form, "ee the chaos they helped create, retreat[ing] back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together. The only exception to this rule is Nick, who is transformed by his experience in New York. As the narrative opens, he is very optimistic, feeling that life was beginning over again with the summer. Hes excited by his new job and his new life in New York. By the end of the summer he is utterly disillusioned, abandoning his plans for a new career and a new life in the East: When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. However, Nicks transformation is not redemptive. Although he certainly learns something important about human nature over the course of that summer, the lesson produces in him a dark vision of human life. His attitude, as the novel closes, is hopeless and despairing: So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. If the traditional quest formulaseek-and-find (or seek-and-be-transformed) can be associated with a worldview that includes the possibility of redemption, then perhaps the seek-find-lose (or seek-but-dont-find) grammar can be associated with a worldview in which redemption is impossible or highly unlikely. The Great Gatsbys seek-find-lose grammar re"ects the modern novels rejection of the traditional quest formula is compatible with the way in which I think Fitzgeralds novel requires us to apply Northrop Fryes theory of mythoi. For according to Fryes

framework, The Great Gatsby embeds the structure of romance (Gatsbys narrative, the mythos of summer, the quest) within the structure of irony (Nicks narrative, the mythos of winter, realism), and the second structure offers a kind of running commentary on the first, which, by the novels close, forces Nick to realize that the structure of romance (Gatsbys narrative) is no longer possible in the modern world. That is, in Fitzgeralds novel, the structure of irony contains and eventually overrides the structure of romance .

Romantic quest
In the real world, furthermore, a woman doesnt always wait for her knight in shining armor, even when she knows who he is. Sometimes she marries Tom Buchanan instead. Even when she has a second chance at happiness, because her knight is faithful to her to the end, a small bend in the road to true love might send her scurrying home, as Daisy scurries back to her selfish, brutish, unfaithful husband. And when her knight dies protecting her from a charge of hit-and-run homicide, she might leave town before the minister arrives for the funeral. In the real world, a man doesnt always remain faithful to his woman, even when hes married to her. Sometimes he has frequent extramarital affairs and parades them in public places, as Tom does with Myrtle, and sometimes he breaks his mistresss nose. Here, bad guys like Tom Buchanan and Meyer Wolfsheim call the shots. A simple, honest man like George Wilson is deceived by his wife and manipulated by her lover into killing an innocent man. And a great sportswom[an] like Jordan Baker, who Gatsby believes would never do anything that wasnt all right, cheats at golf, lies about damaging a borrowed car, and deal[s] in subterfuges . . . in order to keep that cool, insolent smile turned to the world and yet satisfy the demands of her hard, jaunty body. Perhaps most important, in the real world the death of a romantic hero is not a martyrdom that saves humanity. Its a sign that humanity is beyond saving, beyond hope. And once that sign is given, Nick knows there is nothing to do but go back home: forget his plans for the future, give up his optimism, cut his losses, and get out. In this way, Nicks narrative, grounded in the structure of irony, closes the door, so to speak, on the romantic tale it tells, that is, on the structure of romance. In

other words, in The Great Gatsby, the ironic structure associated with the modern novel overrides the structure of romance as if to say that romance is no longer possible.

Symbolic expression
This process finds its symbolic expression in the confrontation scene between Gatsby and Tom in the New York hotel. According to the romantic formula, it is here that the hero wins his bride and reveals his true origins, which are royal or associated with some kind of important parentage. Instead, Gatsby reveals, with Toms help, that his true origins are far beneath those of his beloved, and the result is that she abandons him. Thus, from the perspective of Fryes theory of mythoi, the romantic formula jumps the track, ceases to function, and the void is filled by the only structure left in the narrative: that of irony.

The structure of irony

The structure of irony does not succeed, however, in eradicating the structure of romance. Instead, the structure of irony is haunted by the very structure it overrides. Perhaps because he knows that romance is no longer possible, Nicks narrative is marked by an intense nostalgia for a lost past, for the lost world of romance that Gatsby represents. We see this longing in his lyric descriptions of a virginal, idyllic past: descriptions of Daisy and Jordans beautiful white . . . girlhood in Louisville and of Christmas in the Midwest of his youth, with its street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark and the shadows of holly wreaths thrown by lighted windows on the snow. This nostalgia for a lost innocence, a lost paradise, for the mythos of summer, the genre of romance, reaches its climax in Nicks closing description of a literal paradise forever gone. As Nick sits on the beach the evening before his return to Wisconsin, he muses on the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors eyesa fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had

made way for Gatsbys house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.

The mythos
This passage is emblematic of the structural process that occurs over the course of the novel: the mythos of summer (romance, the successful quest) is overridden by the mythos of winter (irony, the complexities of reality), which remains haunted by the loss of the structure it has overcome. In The Great Gatsby, then, we see the operations of quite a complex structure. We see a narrative grammar consisting of seek-find-lose and its subset, seekbut- dontfind. This grammar re"ects a worldview associated with the modernist period and with the modern novels rejection of the traditional seek-and-find quest. Analogously, the text is structured by a struggle for dominance between two very different literary genres: romance (the mythos of summer and the genre to which Gatsbys narrative belongs) and irony (the mythos of winter and the genre to which Nicks narrative belongs). The genre of romance is overcome by that of irony in the novel, although, throughout the text, the former haunts the latter in the form of the narrators lyric descriptions of a lost past, a romantic, paradisal youth.

Conclusion
From the analysis above, it is obvious that binary oppositions can find its full application in the novel The Great Gatsby in the perspective of structuralism. In other words, the opposed ideas brought forth by the binary oppositions structure the novel theme, setting, characters, and symbols. This analysis has attempted to illustrate two aspects of structuralism that sometimes seem in conflict: its reliance on formulaic description, which derives from its commitment to the kind of objectivity associated with mathematics, and its philosophical grounding as a

science of humanity, which requires us to speculate on the relationship between the structural formulas we describe and the world in which we live. Although this second aspect is often forgotten in the practice of structuralist criticism, it is the dual nature of structuralism that, for many of us, makes it exciting.

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