The Great Gatsby; An Analysis
Professor: T. Timperman
Student Don DuPay
Novel analysis 1st Draft
Due: 12 November 2013
After having read Ernest Hemingway's “A Moveable Feast,” I couldn't help but become interested in his compatriot writer, F. Scott Fitzgerald. Hemingway's recounting of the automobile trip through France in Fitzgerald's open-topped car, drinking bottle after bottle of wine was sad and at the same time hilarious.
The image of two drunks driving recklessly about in a car with the top literally torn off seems like something out of a Woody Allen comedy. (Open-topped because Fitzgerald had a minor fender bender and then later decided to tear the top off.) This scene, from A Moveable Feast could easily have been one incorporated into Fitzgerald's novel “The Great Gatsby.” where dozens of the rich, (and the pretending to be rich) nightly invade Jay Gatsby's lavish, catered, parties on James Gatz's—his real name—Long Island beach front estate.
There are several opposing themes, or cross currents, inherent in The Great Gatsby. The most obvious of course is the theme of social class and the juxtaposition of the haves and the have not's. The manner in which the sheltered rich, use the lesser people, interact with and ultimately disdain the poor, that are forced to live on the sharp edge of a lavish community, is pictured here for readers to see. This edge is as sharp and un-blended as the trimmed edge of Gatsbys lawn.
There are distinct codes of conduct for the rich and the poor, during this less flexible time in America, when social classes rarely mixed.
At Jay Gatsby's home, there is not nearly as much social exclusion as would normally exist in everyday situations for the rich and the poor of the town.
At the wild parties he throws, everyone is equal as long as they look the part and no questions are asked about the source of their wealth. Appearances are the price of admission to Gatsby's parties, beginning with the automobile in which you arrive in.
Beautiful clothes and jewels, even if they don't belong to the wearer, constitute the requisite costume, for access to the glittering and superficially joyful world of Jay Gatsby and his counterparts. Artifice and deception are also themes in the piece, and they are explored through the use of fashion.
The poor of the town, desperately attempting to mingle with the more well heeled learn that if they look the part of their rich neighbors, they too will be invited to one of Gatsby's wonderful parties, in which the sumptuous food and liquor never cease flowing.
People like Mr. Wilson of course, will not be allowed access to Gatsby's world, because of their poverty and lack of social capital. But others, if they are young enough and attractive enough, all they must do is look the part and they will be shown in the door graciously.
Even Gatsby's servants have an air of entitlement and superiority, basking in the halo of their employer's wealth and good fortune. Their uniforms are costumes in their own right, denoting their role as subservient but they are also cut and sewn with the finest care and attention to modern standards of excellence and beauty. To be a servant at Gatsby's house, one had to look as impeccable as the carefully maintained lawns and grounds of his estate. But to be a servant at Gatsby's house also meant, to the other working class in the community, that you were somehow a notch above them. You were a servant but a servant for Jay Gatsby.
The theme of time spent and time lost is also saturated in the novel. The entire story takes place over the summer of 1922. The lost exuberance of youth is a theme that is returned to again and again by Fitzgerald, and it is reasonable to think that this is a preoccupation Fitzgerald experienced himself, as an individual. Somehow the joy of the future and the unknown, has been replaced with a feeling of hopelessness, cynicism and despair. “Innocence and youth having been spent or sacrificed, in other words he knew that the curve of human experience tended inexorably toward atrophy, dissipation and ruin.” (Steinbrink, pg 159).
Most fascinating is the character of Daisy Buchanan. She is a capricious, superficial southern woman, seemingly concerned only with appearances and the finer things in life. Yet, beneath her sparkling facade, exists something deeper.
She is often made out to be a sociopath in literary criticism of The Great Gatsby, but she is more complex and one who is capable of human suffering.
“Daisy lives with a perpetual illusion of recreation, transparent even to herself; she supposes that the meaning of life can be restored or revived by proper superficial ministrations, as rhinestones are added to an old gown. Thus she instigates senseless and innervating trips to the city, speaks thrillingly of dismal and mundane topics, and is charmed by Jay Gatsby's devotion, without fully comprehending its meaning.” (Steinbrink, pg 161). In the novel, Gatsby himself is not happy being a “dirt farmer,” (Steinbrink, pg 162) and eventually finds himself in the company of Dan Cody, who teaches him how to be a bootlegger and is ultimately responsible for Gatsby's great wealth. Dan Cody is described as a “the pioneer debauchee,” (Fitzgerald, pg101)
Prohibition doesn't exist on Gatsby's estate, which constitutes the huge draw for the townspeople, being that prohibition is currently the law of the land. Gatsby uses his wealth and new home only to attract Daisy Buchanan, the object of his obsession, whose estate across the bay has a pier with a green light, on the dock, which glitters intermittently as he stands sentinel, watching, waiting and dreaming. Gatsby focused on the alluring green light as he devised a plan to bring Daisy to his estate so he could finally win her hand, now a new man, a millionaire and a gentleman. It is seduction based on subterfuge. “He would bring Daisy back to 1917. He would obliterate her marriage and her motherhood. He would restore her virginity.” (Steinbrink, pg 165)
The Great Gatsby attempts by its characterizations to show the disparate manner that the rich and the poor differ with regard to behavior, ethical beliefs and values. Within the entire book, there is a spoken resentment of the rich, and the manner that the protagonist, Carraway, disassociates himself on a moral level is interesting. It is basically Fitzgerald speaking through him about his own beliefs.
Jordon is a perfect example of the flighty and commitment fearing attitude common among many of Fitzgerald's more well-off characters. She is fun, amusing, and exquisite to look at, much like Daisy, but she is also removed, indifferent and dishonest, even willing to cheat at Golf. Dishonesty to achieve status or success is not in question by Gatsby's friends. Only appearances count.
Carraway is intrigued by Jordon but ultimately her calculated lack of feeling turns him off. He sees her as not much different than the competitive and brash Tom Buchanan, who is perfectly content with the current status quo, as it serves him well and gives him power.
The novel ends with the murder of Jay Gatsby, as he enjoys a rare moment of recreation in his pool. He finally lets down his guard and attempts to enjoy a quiet moment and is killed in the process.
Gatsby is believed to have killed Myrtle in a hit and run, by her husband, when in fact, it was Daisy who had done so. All the suffering characters in the film come to unfair, and tragic ends.
Gatsby is murdered, Myrtle is accidentally killed and Mr. Wilson then commits suicide in his all consuming despair over his wife's death. All of these characters come from humble beginnings and are familiar with the social caste system, alive and well in America at that time. They are complex, yet sympathetic characters, and their circumstances and station in life are juxtaposed by the oddly fortunate manner that Daisy and Tom Buchanan can simply fall back into the safety of their money, and run from the disaster they helped create.
The work is a blatant indictment on the rich, depicting them as morally inferior, and the main character to receive this moral evisceration in literary criticism is generally Tom Buchanan. He receives the brunt of the attacks and is called selfish, shallow, hostile and abusive. Despite Tom's brashness and disinterest in the lives of those less fortunate, he feels genuine love for Myrtle, one of the have nots in the story. With only sexual currency to offer him, she is provided with a place to stay, while in town, clothing, a new dog and other essentials by him and he seems to feel real tenderness for her.
Tom Buchanan is generally described in literary criticism as a one dimensional character but when Myrtle is killed, he is emotionally distraught, shocked and bereft. Still, Fitzgerald's attack on the rich, who are somehow different and morally less attuned, continues when Carraway bumps into Buchanan in NY. “I couldn't forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him, entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made...” Though this attack seems reasonable, it also rejects the complexity of Tom and Daisy. They were married and had a daughter, aged three, Pammy.
The book ends with the specter of the horrible events at Gatsby's estate seeming to fall away from everyone else's memory but Nick Carraway. He cannot forget or forgive those who destroyed his friends life and the lives of the other's who died. Any thought of Gatsby includes remembrances and images of the estate and all that it represented. It becomes a ghost house, empty and forever as it was.
Works Cited
Fitzgerald, F., S. (1925). The Great Gatsby. Scribner Publishing Company.
Steinbrink, J., (1980). “Boats Against the Current; Mortality and the Myth of Renewal in
The Great Gatsby,” Twentieth Century Literature. Vol. 26, No. 2. Pg 157-169.