Open Access
American Research Journal of English and Literature
ISSN (Online): 2378-9026
DOI: 10.46568/arjel
Status Anxiety or Cultural Anxiety? : Gatsby’s Troubles Revealed by Foregrounding
Abstract
Halliday claims that foregrounding refers to the highlighting of linguistic features that contribute to the overall meaning
intended by the writer in a text. According to Mukarovsky and Leech, foregrounding can be achieved through deviation
and parallelism. To date, there have been a few stylistic studies on foregrounding in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.
Nevertheless, these studies have primarily focused on the thematic and aesthetic effects created by foregrounding. By
analyzing The Great Gatsby from a foregrounding perspective, it is demonstrated that foregrounding is an effective tool
for revealing the protagonist’s inner world. This study aims to prove that Gatsby’s anxiety, which is exposed through
deviation and parallelism patterns, is not just status anxiety but cultural anxiety that has been overlooked by previous
critics who have primarily focused on the psychological aspects of the protagonist. Furthermore, Gatsby’s inability to
alleviate his cultural anxiety highlights the plight of all urban residents resulting from the interplay between intellectual
relationships and a money economy. It is argued that applying Bhabha’s mimicry theory to understanding the essence
of Gatsby’s anxiety revealed by the foregrounding patterns, and exploring the reasons for his inability to escape his
anxiety through Simmel’s theory of the metropolis and mental life, is of great significance for revealing the inner world
of American people in the 20th century.
