Abstract:This paper mainly analyzes the author’s controversial senses reflected on the two main characters in The Great Gatsby: Gatsby’s controversial senses on his relation with wealth and on his romantic and tragic love as well as Nick’s yearning and rejected heart to the life in New York and his conflicting attitudes to the loss of morality. What caused the author’s inner conflicts is analyzed through the two characters from the aspects of their family, life and the environment. The complicated feelings and ideas of the author are shown through the analysis. In the end, the paper touches the core of Fitzgerald’s controversial senses, that is, the fact that he found his own spiritual emptiness.

Key words: analysis; controversial senses; impact; spiritual emptiness

　　　At its simplest the novel is about something familiar to most of the readers: a disillusioning, excruciatingly painful experience with love. But it is more than that. The author shows his conflicting feelings through the controversial senses of the two main characters: Nick and Gatsby. Nick once gets attracted by the colorful lifestyle in New York City but at last pulls himself out of the imbalanced life, for he realizes that the people there and their life all lack a moral center. And Gatsby pursues an illusionary dream without realizing that his dream has already ended. All of these show Fitzgerald’s complicated reactions in his heart. The influences from the author’s family, his life and the social environment are contributable to his controversial senses. On the one hand, Fitzgerald longs to become one part of the upper-class and to be rich; on the other hand, he is aware that this kind of life and pursuit actually suggest his spiritual emptiness.