The World Of Nick Carraway
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is considered by many to be the great American novel.[i] Even though the tale regards the doomed love affair of Jay Gatsby and Daisy Faye Buchanan, the book is as much about the narrator, Nick Carraway, as is it about the enamored pair.
Nick, who happens to be Gatsby’s neighbor and Daisy’s second-cousin, inserts himself into the account by the way he tells the story. As heavy as his presence is, he is only the narrator. Fitzgerald is still the author, and he pulls Nick’s strings.
In other words, Fitzgerald uses Nick, not just as the character to tell the tale, but as a particular kind of narrator to say something about the story and to provide a sub-text the reader needs to understand.
But as it is always the problem of sub-text, the author is reliant upon the perceptive skills of the reader. No writer can stand over the shoulder of those who reads his book and offer his own commentary and explanations.
Before he wrote The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald declares that he wants to write something new, beautiful, simple, and intricate. These last two seem to contradict, so much so that most see the simplicity in the novel and ignore the intricacy.
Even Fitzgerald laments that no one seems to understand The Great Gatsby. It may be this ignored intricacy he wished would be noticed. I believe that this is the sub-text that comes from the narratorship of Nick Carraway.
Fitzgerald writes The Great Gatsby as a contemporary novel for his own time. It is set in 1922 and written in 1924. The Boom of the Jazz Age was a post-war party. It was a decade Fitzgerald called the world’s biggest orgy, and it ended with the Depression. G.I. Joe came home from Europe and danced with his girlfriend, maybe his wife, but ended up having to pay the band more than he could afford.
The world in which Fitzgerald lived is the same world he writes about existing on Long Island. Most have thus labeled The Great Gatsby as a commentary of the excess of the Twenties and the death of the American Dream. While this may be a layer, it must be much more than that.
The let-loose of this decade exchanged homecoming for virtue. Nick is thus a narrator set in a world of dissipation. It is not strange then if Nick is himself immoral. Nick’s struggles with telling the truth, which forces the reader to scrutinize everything he says as narrator and judge it as truth or error. This is done intentionally by Fitzgerald, hence his intricacy.
The Reliability Of Nick Carraway
Nick Carraway is a liar. That is not uncommon, but it comes into play in that Nick is the narrator of The Great Gatsby. This makes the storytelling problematic. But to accuse someone of dishonesty cannot be done lightly, even if it someone who doesn’t really exists. Such a charge must be proven or it becomes nothing more than pointless slander.
Examples of Lying
The novel begins by Nick insisting that he was “inclined to reserve all judgments” (5), and then spends the remainder of the book forming judgments of all the other characters.
Ø Tom is crude
Ø Daisy is shallow
Ø Jordan is dishonest
Ø George is spiritless
Ø Myrtle is sensual
Ø Catherine is worldly
Ø Mr. McKee is feminine
Whether his judgments are accurate does not matter. It simply manifests his basic dishonesty because he continually practices differently than he preaches.
Most of his judgments have to do with Gatsby himself. These are judgments that swing wildly from one end of the continuum to the other regarding approval and disapproval.[ii]
Ø Gatsby “represented everything for which I had an unaffected scorn” (7)
Ø “There was something gorgeous about him” (7)
Ø “Gatsby turned out all right in the end” (7)
Ø “An elegant young rough neck” (53)
Ø “I suspected he was pulling my leg” (70)
Ø “He was running down like an overwound clock” (97)
Ø “You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together” (162)
Ø “I disapproved of him from beginning to end” (162)
Nick’s lies begin even before we get to any other characters, but with his relations to fellow Yalemen while in school, and particularly as it relates to his false claim to reserve judgments. Because he was sought for council Nick becomes the “victim of not a few veteran bores” (5). He concludes this section by observing that “a sense of fundamental decencies is parceled out unequally at birth” (6). These are both the kinds of judgments he asserts never to have made.
When dealing with these bores at college, Nick confesses that he “frequently … feigned sleep, preoccupations or a hostile levity” (5). To pretend to be asleep, busy or irritated is dishonest. In an interesting confession, Fitzgerald gives a clue to Nick’s true nature. Speaking of other men, Nick says, “the intimate revelations of young men or at least the terms in which they express them are usually plagiaristic and marred with obvious suppressions” (6). Nick is still a young man, and so with this, Fitzgerald is cluing us in on Nick’s intimate revelation, which is his role as narrator. His story is plagiaristic and marred with obvious suppressions. In other words, Nick is clearly a liar, particularly as the narrator of The Great Gatsby.
This begins with the intimate revelation of his own background. He says, “My family have been prominent, well-to-do people in the middle-western town for three generations” (7). Despite this claim, his father can only afford to support him for one year (7). And when the Buchanans ask Nick about the rumor of his engagement, he asserts that he is too poor to marry (24).
He notes that his family claims Scottish nobility, but the reality is that his grandfather’s brother, the one responsible for his family line, immigrated here in 1851 and sent a substitute to the Civil War (7). Simply put, immigrants aren’t noble, or they’d remain in the old country. And as Nick is supposed to look like this ancestor, he acts like him as well by sending a substitute tale in place of the truth.
The family history is built on dishonesty. During that disconcerting ride with Gatsby to the Manhattan for lunch, Gatsby claims to have gone to Oxford with a young man in a photo who is now the Earl of Doncaster (71). This is a noble title that also belongs to the Duke of Buccleuch, the alleged ancestor of Nick. Since so much of this conversation is false, which we shall soon discover, it is just as likely that this is false, and even inserted merely in Nick’s retelling.
When confronted with Nick’s basic untruthfulness, some may recall that Nick says about himself, “I am one of the few honest people I have known” (64). Nick Carraway insisting he is honest is like Quinten Compson claiming that he does not hate the South. You an almost bank on the opposite being true.
Think of the stereotypical used car salesman who carries “honest” as a nickname. Just as you wouldn’t rely upon Honest Jake, the Used Car Salesman you can Trust, no one should believe that Nick is honest just because he says so. If anything, this should be a red flag that makes us wary of anything he says.[iii]
The Drive to Lunch
The drive from Long Island to Manhattan is the hinge of veracity upon which the entire book swings. This passage tells us that not only is Jay Gatsby a liar, but so is Nick Carraway. Gatsby tells Nick his life story so that he will not fall for any of the false rumors going on about him (69) Gatsby makes several claims about himself.
Ø Gatsby comes from a wealthy Midwestern family
Ø All of his family is dead
Ø He was educated at Oxford
Ø His ancestors were educated there
Nick eventually claims to believe all to this, even though he doubts it as it is being told. The most incredible part of this exchange is when Nick asks Gatsby what part of the Midwest he comes from. Gatsby answers, “San Francisco,” to which Nick simply replies, “I see” (70).[iv]
Nick’s response is more bizarre than Gatsby’s answer. Not only is San Francisco not in the Midwest, but Nick never challenges this remark. It is as if Gatsby is saying that all of his claims are as true as San Francisco is a Midwestern town.[v] Nick’s response is his agreement to go along with the lie. Gatsby has his story which is just as real as his name, one sprung from his own Platonic conception of himself. Our narrator Nick has agreed to be his accomplice.[vi]
The individual claims Gatsby affirms regarding himself are easy to dissect. First, he says he came from a wealthy family. This is as much a lie as when Nick says the same thing about himself. When Gatsby shows Nick his house, he tells him that it took three years to earn the money to buy the house (95), which may be true, but contradicts his claims of inheriting his wealth. Nick asks about this seeming contradiction.
The problem with lies is the difficulty of consistency, and here Gatsby is caught in a lie, which he tries to explain away. Gatsby says he did inherit money but lost in the big panic of the war, whatever that means. He says that he owned drug stores, but doesn’t now (95).
In the days of prohibition grain alcohol was sold over the counter, supposedly medicinally, at certain kinds of drug stores. This seems to be the kind of stores Gatsby owned, which makes him nothing more than bootlegger, just as Tom claims.
Nick’s willingness, even his eagerness, to lie on behalf of Gatsby is evident in one particular paragraph. In an attempt to lump all of the rumor together about Gatsby and tell the reader to forget them all, Nick starts with, “He’s a bootlegger” (65). Two things stand out about this claim. First of all, it’s true. Second of all, no one ever claimed this about him.
Nick moves on to one of claims of Gatsby’s past, but packages it in idiocy as if to say the claim is absurd. He notes, “One time he killed a man who found out that he was nephew to von Hindenburg and second cousin to the devil” (65). Nick intentionally lumps the truth of his bootlegging with the clear error of his German political ties.
Instead of being wealthy, Gatsby’s folks were “shiftless and unsuccessful farm people” (104). Nick meets his father, Henry Gatz, just before the funeral. Not only is he not wealthy, but he is also not dead, even though Gatsby said as much. Despite this, Nick lies and tells Henry, “He never told me definitely that his parent were dead” (172).
Gatsby’s claims about college seem to be some of the most interesting as they play out in the book. He chokes on “educated at Oxford” like the phrase bothers him (69). It should bother him, seeing that he did not even spend two full semesters there. When Tom confronts him on his Oxford education, Gatsby says, “I only stayed five months. That’s why I really can’t call myself an Oxford man” (136).
Nick seems to see some sort of verification in this remark, when the reader sees more obfuscation. While he truthfully tells Tom that this technicality is why he cannot call himself an Oxford man, it hasn’t stopped him from claiming that before.
Among all the rumors regarding Gatsby, rumors that begin with “I heard” or some sort of qualifier, Jordan says, “He told me once he was an Oxford man” (53). Unless Jordan also deserves to be branded a liar, when she seems to be the truthful foil to Nick, this shows Gatsby to be the one who lied to her. Also, Meyer tells Nick, “He’s an Oggsford man” (76). Clearly, he heard Gatsby make the same claim that Jordan did, which shows Gatsby to be a complete liar, and Nick his complicit promoter.
That drive to the city is important for a few reasons. Not only is Nick introduced to Meyer and informed about the subject of an afternoon tea with Jordan, Nick is initiated into a world of duplicity Gatsby had been living with for the past few years. Gatsby lies to Nick, let him know it was a lie, and Nick agrees to repeat the lie with a simple “I see.” This is based on more than Nick’s general dishonesty, but he has his reasons that are all his own.
The Relationships of Nick Carraway
Understanding literary sub-text involves seeing what is clearly written that is not explicitly written. Fitzgerald leaves us plenty of sub-text regarding Nick Carraway and his relationships. More to the point, Fitzgerald leaves the verbal breadcrumbs for the reader to follow and understand that Nick is homosexual, or at least, bisexual.
This bears on his basic narratorship and how the reader perceives the telling of the story. Some of the exposition may approach bawdiness, which I do not intend, but is necessary for making the case. Also, this is not Fitzgerald composing this simply to be titillating, but for reasons that have to do with the story.
Suggestive Evidence
The manner in which Nick describes men is odd for someone entirely heterosexual. Take as an account Nick’s pictures of Tom. When he goes to the Buchanans for dinner and Tom had been riding his horse, Nick comments on Tom’s “effeminate swank of his riding clothes” (11).
Nick adds to this how Tom “seemed to fill those glistening boots” (11). Fitzgerald plays on the notion of the size of a man’s feet and its indication of his endowment. This is something a man shouldn’t be thinking about another man. Further, Nick says, “you could see a great pack of muscles shifting” (11).
At dinner with the Buchanans and Jordan, Daisy tells Nick, “You remind me of a – of a rose, an absolute rose” (19). A rose has often symbolized a female reproductive organ. This is Fitzgerald’s attempt to hint at Nick’s lack of true masculinity.
At one point Nick says he is lonely and can sense loneliness in others. The example he gives is clerks who must dine alone (62). It seems Nick likes to seek out lonely men and relieve their isolation. Nick tells us of himself as he faces a new decade of living: “Thirty – the decade of a promise of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know” (143). A heterosexual man would think about the list of single women.
And then there’s Gatsby, of whom he says, “there was something gorgeous about him” (6). Men do not call other men “gorgeous,” especially at this time.
Something A Bit More Explicit
The closest thing the reader has to a “smoking gun,” so to speak, is Nick’s “lunch” with Mr. McKee. Note that Nick describes him as a feminine man, not as an effeminate man (34). To call a male a feminine man is to call him a homosexual. That is beyond dispute.
After the party at Tom and Myrtle’s apartment, Nick and McKee share an elevator where McKee asks Nick to join him some time for lunch. After this, the elevator operator asks McKee to keep his hands off the lever, and McKee feigns ignorance of having touched it. We don’t know explicitly what he was doing with it. But we do know that he is doing something with his hand on this lever, a clear phallic symbol.
The very next sentence reads, “I was standing beside his bed and he was sitting up between the sheets, clad in his underwear, with a great portfolio in his hands” (42). There are two men in a bedroom. One is standing beside the bed (no mention of his dress) and the other in lying in the bed in his underwear. It seems this lunch was nothing more than a homosexual encounter.
Nick’s Women
Some may wonder about the apparent women in Nick’s life, and if that extenuates anything. Keep in mind that being with a woman is not proof one is not homosexual. Remember that McKee was married. Also the claim about Nick’s sexuality is that he is homosexual or bisexual. But even his relationships with women prove odd upon closer examination.
First of all, there is a girl back in Louisville. When the Buchanans ask if Nick were engaged, he denies it, calling it a libel (24). A libel is more than an untruth. It is to claim something about someone that is false because it cannot be true, and runs counter to the nature of that person. Typically a libel is also considered derogatory. There is something about Nick’s nature that he cannot marry a woman, and for anyone to claim such is thought of by Nick as almost an insult.
The Buchanans insisted that they heard the rumors and thought them reliable. After lying about having any knowledge about what they were saying, Nick says, “Of course I knew what they were referring to, but I wasn’t even vaguely engaged. The fact that gossip had published the banns was one of the reasons I had come east” (24). Nick seems almost repulsed by the notion of marriage to a woman. Later in the novel, Nick says he must write a letter to this girl, and his reason is clear: “there was a vague understanding that had to be tactfully broken off before I was free” (64).
There was the brief relationship with an office girl from Jersey City, as well as imagined affairs with strange women, (61). but these amount to nothing either way. The main woman in Nick’s life during the summer of 1922 is Jordan Baker. A good look at how Nick sees her does not deny his homosexuality, but rather highlights it.
When Nick first meets Jordan, he says of her, “She was a slender, small-breasted girl with an erect carriage which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet” (15). It sounds like he’s describing a young man or teenage boy, even adding an odd cadet reference. If Nick were ever attracted to Jordan, it’s because she reminds him of a guy.
Even their attempt at romance fell short.
Ø “She held my hand impersonally” (47)
Ø Later at the same party Nick lost Jordan, but found her again, and he was glad to go with her since she was well known (62)
Ø He wasn’t in love, but felt a tender curiosity (62)
Ø “She had deliberately shifted our relations, and for a moment I thought I loved her” (63)
Ø “Unlike Gatsby and Tom Buchanan I had no girl whose disembodied face floated along the dark cornices blinding signs and so I drew up the girl beside me, tightening my arms” (85)
Ø In Nick she met another careless driver, and she rebukes him for not being honest and straightforward with her (186)
Ø Nick clearly was not honest with Jordan concerning his homosexuality. Nick replies to Jordan, “I’m five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor” (186)
These texts demonstrate two people who had the potential to become a couple. Nick seems to come close, but not close enough, to falling completely for Jordan. All they have is a relationship of proximity, curiosity, and dishonesty.
The Object Of Nick’s Affection
Others have noticed Nick’s homosexuality and his lack of reliability as a narrator. But I have yet to observe any scholar or commentator combine these two ideas. Nick Carraway is dishonest because he is homosexual.
Note that I am not saying all homosexuals are lairs. Nick in general has been shown to be a liar. But it already been pointed out that Nick has agreed to be Gatsby’s propagator.[vii] The reason Nick agrees to lie on behalf of Gatsby is because he is in love with him, and by this he colors the tale to protect Gatsby.
Remember that in the beginning Nick says about Gatsby that “there was something gorgeous about him” (6). Nick could have been impressed with what Gatsby has done with himself, or he could have just fallen for his good looks, much the way Daisy did.
Nick remarks that, “Almost any exhibition of self-sufficiency draws a stunned tribute from me” (13). Gatsby exemplifies self-sufficiency if ever one did. But it could have been something more basic and sensual. Nick agrees with Wolfshiem’s statement Gatsby is “Handsome to look at and a perfect gentleman” (76).
Even on the ride to the city for lunch with Wolfshiem while Gatsby is spinning his yarn for Nick, he finds it hard to swallow. But something that might have coerced him to agree was the way Gatsby looks. Nick says, “For a moment I suspected he was pulling my leg but a glance at him convinced me otherwise” (70). Notice that it wasn’t the evidence that convinced Nick, but looking at Gatsby.
The closest thing Nick gets to a declaration of his feelings for Gatsby is near the end when he tells his neighbor, “You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together” (162). Regardless of whether Nick ever had a romantic relationship with a woman, he evinces enough signs of homosexuality, either latent or expressed, to make the reader wonder if his unreliable narratorship has anything to do with it. Nick clearly lies on behalf of Gatsby, and it seems apparent that has a passion and compassion for him that compels to act as he does in telling the story.
Who Killed Myrtle Wilson?
If we are going to believe that Nick lies on behalf of Gatsby, then there had better be some important falsehoods or else Fitzgerald is wasting a perfectly good tool. I argue that there are two great lies Nick tells to protect Gatsby. The first one is that Gatsby drove the so-called “death car” that killed Myrtle Wilson.
The Night Of The Accident
Gatsby tells Nick about what happened, Gatsby begins by saying he drove, which is true. But when he pauses, Nick asks if Daisy drove and Gatsby confirms this, at least, according to Nick the narrator.
The story doesn’t make sense. Gatsby supposedly says that he let Daisy drive his car to calm her down. Today we have luxury cars, but the vehicles of the ‘20s were difficult to drive. Gatsby admits he drove after the accident. If driving is such a balm to the nerves, then he should have let Daisy continue to drive.
Also, he tells Nick that he is hanging around the Buchanan place in case Tom gives Daisy any trouble about the afternoon. More than likely he watches to see if Tom will come after him. If Daisy actually did drive the death car, she never let Tom know. He did not react that night in any manner hostile toward her. When Nick runs into Tom in October, Tom gets it right when he says, “He ran over Myrtle like you’d run over a dog and never even stopped his car” (187).
More Than A Hit & Run
Not only did Gatsby drive the death car, it is arguable that it wasn’t an accident. While driving through the Valley of Ashes on their way into the city, Gatsby and Nick pass Wilson’s Garage. Myrtle is standing outside as they pass. Nick says, “I had a glimpse of Mrs. Wilson at the garage pump with panting vitality as we went by” (72).
This gives Nick the perfect opportunity to tell Gatsby about the woman they just passed and the affair she is having with his second-cousin’s husband. Clearly Gatsby knew all about Tom and Myrtle. Outside of the Buchanans, Gatsby tells Nick, “He might think he saw a connection in it” (152).
This remark is absurd if Gatsby knew nothing about Myrtle. But also this is Fitzgerald’s way of letting us know that there was some sort of connection. It wasn’t Daisy going after her husband’s mistress, but Gatsby, who blames Tom for taking Daisy from him, taking Myrtle away from Tom.
Fitzgerald’s Foreshadowing
The notion that Gatsby drove the death car is brilliantly foreshadowed earlier in the novel. After the first party, a car drives into the ditch and loses a wheel. The owl-eyed man gets out of the car and insists he knows nothing about driving. He is rebuked for driving when he obviously shouldn’t have. Owl-eyes responds, “I wasn’t driving. There’s another man in the car” (59).
This is Fitzgerald letting us all know that there will be another automobile accident where the driver will be a matter of mistaken identity. This is referring to the mistake of thinking Daisy drove the death car just because Gatsby says she did, or more to the point, narrator Nick claims that Gatsby says she did.
Who Shot Jay Gatsby?
Nick’s second lie has to do with Gatsby’s death itself. Even after his death, Nick is trying to do the best he can to protect Gatsby’s reputation by how he reports his murder. Anyone would agree that to be killed by some madman is less of a scandal than to be assassinated by a gangster. Gatsby was not shot by George Wilson, but by Meyer Wolfshiem, or more than likely, on his orders.
The Circumstances
We are asked to believe the following set of circumstances if we are to hold that George shot Gatsby.
Ø George owns a garage, but is too poor to own a car, and yet he owns a gun
Ø He is mentally and physically exhausted from the tragedy of the night before
Ø He walks many miles over several hours
Ø After this long walk following a sleepless night, George is composed enough to shoot with a clear eye and a steady hand
Ø He is such an expert marksman that he can shoot Gatsby while floating on an air mattress upon his pool and never puncture the mattress
Ø Such trauma would leave only a thin red circle of blood in the water
It is more likely Wolfshiem gave the order for the servants to kill Gatsby. They assassinated him elsewhere and placed his body on the pool air mattress. George stumbles upon this grizzly scene and is then shot since he is a witness. He is then made an easily available patsy.[viii]
The police left the case in its simplest form (171). They probably knew of Wolfshiem’s involvement. Nick lets us know that the cops are crooked. When Gatsby is pulled over, the policeman lets him go by simply showing a card (72-73). The card had to do with a favor Gatsby once did for the Commissioner, one that might have involved Wolfshiem’s influence.
The Assassin
Wolfshiem himself is an interesting character. He tells the story of a friend of his named Rosy who was assassinated outside of the Metropole. Wolfshiem says he warned Rosy not to go outside, but he did anyway.
During all of this, Wolfshiem makes the most absurd remark: “It was four o’clock in the morning then and if we’d of raised the blinds we’d of seen daylight” (75). This is along the lines of San Francisco being in the Midwest, and is a clue that what he says is untrue. It seems clear that Rosy died at the orders of Wolfshiem, but he retells it as is best for his dead friend.
As Nick and Gatsby talk about Wolfshiem and his involvement in fixing the 1919 World Series, Nick asks why he hasn’t been arrested yet. Gatsby replies, “They can’t get him, old sport. He’s a smart man” (78). It seems Wolfshiem knows how to get involved in criminal activity without ever being bothered by the police. This might explain why Wolfshiem did not want to attend Gatsby’s funeral. He does not want any further possible link between himself and his former associate and friend, Jay Gatsby.[ix]
Wolfshiem’s Reasons
Gatsby is involved in a side hustle involving bonds. Gatsby invites Nick to get in on it and make a bit more money, but Nick refuses (87-88). Gatsby insists Nick will not have to do any business with Wolfshiem, and that the bond scam is confidential.
The hustle falls apart and different players are arrested. All this happens just around the time that Gatsby dies. It’s interested that this is a hustle that does not involve Wolfshiem, even though Wolfshiem himself lets Nick know that he and Gatsby always work together (179).[x]
Apparently, Gatsby was branching out on his own, and the attempt failed. Possibly it failed because Wolfshiem was not involved. Regardless, Wolfshiem would rather risk a hit than an investigation into Gatsby’s affairs, an investigation that would likely expose Wolfshiem to all sorts of illegalities.
Gatsby’s New Servants
Gatsby replaced his servants with Wolfshiem’s people to prevent gossip of Daisy’s visits. At least that is what he tells Nick. Clearly these are not trained domestics but thugs in training.
Ø The grocery boy said the kitchen was a pigsty (120)
Ø Those in town said they weren’t servants (120)
Ø The day of shooting there was dust everywhere (154)
Ø It was musty and had not been aired for days (154-155)
Ø Nick tells us that, “The chauffer, he was one of Wolfshiem’s protégés – heard the shots –afterward he could only say that he hadn’t thought anything much about them” (169)
Two things are very clear: George could not have shot Gatsby while Wolfshiem could have and gotten away with it. Also, he seems to have his reason for wanting Gatsby gone. Nick tells us what the police pronounced and partakes of the same lie. The police are protecting Wolfshiem, while Nick is defending Gatsby and his reputation.
What Made Gatsby Great?
With a book title like The Great Gatsby, readers necessarily want to know what made Gatsby Great. One can almost hear Fitzgerald’s title being announced by a circus ringmaster or sideshow barker. There is a clear amount of theatrics to Gatsby, that is for sure.
Ø His mansion, fashioned after the Hotel de’ Ville in Normandy, (9) is the perfect stage
Ø Owl-eyes compares Gatsby to Belasco, a well-known theatre producer at the time (50)
Ø Gatsby’s parties provided performances (54-55)
Ø His beautiful shirts and cool suits are costumes (98, 125)
Ø Tom refers to Gatsby’s car as a circus wagon (128)
Ø Most important, Jay Gatsby is a fictional character whose life is acted out by James Gatz
Beyond the on-page drama, Nick’s very active role as narrator contributes to this greatness. Even though Fitzgerald is the author, Nick is the immediate story teller. One may even attribute the title to Nick as well as the narrative.
Nick alters and suppresses the real story to make Gatsby emerge as unsullied as possible, which is difficult for what Gatsby does and what happens to him. But beyond these bendings of Nick, there is something grand about the personae of Jay Gatsby, even admirable. These are the things that contribute to Gatsby being Great.
Erasure
But there must be another level to this notion of Gatsby’s Greatness. Beyond the theatrical it’s hard to see. Jay Gatsby is a liar, a criminal, and an adulterer. It’s difficult to call this Great.
The only way we can refer to him as Great is forget everything we know about him. This is clearly what Nick did. Before Nick leaves to go back to Louisville, he notices something unusual about Gatsby’s mansion: “On the white steps an obscene word, scrawled by some boy with a piece of brick, stood out clearly in the moonlight and I erased it, drawing my shoe raspingly along the stone” (188).[xi]
This is the only way Nick can conceive of Gatsby as Great. Keep in mind that “Gatsby … represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn” (6). Yet in spite of this contempt, Nick can say “Gatsby turned out all right in the end” (6). There’s something about Gatsby where he cannot be thought of a Great until the end of the story.
Notice that it was just after Nick erased this obscene word that he goes to the beach and has his epiphany about Gatsby and the Dutch sailors. Nick does more than erase one obscene word from a step, he erases all of Gatsby’s obscenity, and only then can he think of Gatsby as Great, only then can he turn out all right in the end. And Nick expects us to erase from our minds all of the obscenity we know about Gatsby.
The book is full of images of erasure and vanishing.[xii]
Ø At the first party there are “gins liqueurs and cordials so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too young to know one from another” (44)
Ø There were “casual innuendos and introductions forgotten on the spot” (44)
Ø Many of Gatsby’s guests never met him (45)
Ø Nick and Jordan can’t find Gatsby (49)
Ø Owls-eyes says books are real but the pages aren’t cut (50)
Ø Emptiness flowed from windows after the party (60)
Even the many rumors about Gatsby indicate a type of disappearance.
Ø Gatsby is the Keiser’s nephew (37)
Ø He once killed a man (48)
Ø He was a German spy (48)
Ø He served in the American army (48)
Ø “He’s a bootlegger” (65)
Ø “One time he killed a man who and found out that he was nephew to von Hindenburg and second cousin to the devil” (65)
There is a continual disappearance with Gatsby in particular in regards to Nick.
Ø Gatsby’s smile vanishes as soon as it becomes significant
Ø “My incredulity was submerged in fascination now; it was like skimming hastily though a dozen magazines” (71)
Ø “I turned toward Mr. Gatsby, but he was no longer there” (79)
Ø “Gatsby looked with vacant eyes” (89)
Ø Nick is reminded of “an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words” that he can’t say, and when he tries, “they made no sound and what I had almost remembered was uncommuniable forever” (118)
Gatsby himself practices his own type of erasure by attempting to remove the past five years and reuniting a relationship with Daisy Faye, just as he had left it when he departed Louisville and shipped out for Europe to fight in the Great War. He insists to Daisy that one can repeat the past (116).
After Gatsby and Daisy are reunited, Nick thinks about how the green light at the end of the Buchanans’s dock will go back to being just a green light and nothing more. He thinks about how “the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever” (98).
Nick adds that this significance, which once was large, now seems “as close as a star to the moon” (98). Just as the significance of the green light vanishes, so does the new proximity. Their new relationship may seem as close as a star to the moon, but in reality that is a great distance covering hundreds and thousands of millions of miles.
This effort by Gatsby to erase the past five years is wonderfully prefigured in the same scene used to foreshadow Gatsby and the death car, the accident outside of his house after the first party. Even though the wheel is off, the driver wishes to try to drive it to the garage. When other partygoers point out his absurdity, he replies that there is “No harm in trying” (60). Gatsby is trying to drive a car without wheels by trying to take Daisy away from Tom just as the driver wants to erase the entire accident itself.
There are attempts at making things disappear on the hottest day in the summer of ‘22 and all of the drama that takes place in the Plaza Hotel. Not only is Gatsby practicing erasure, but so are Daisy and Tom in their own ways. Keep in mind the writing genius of Fitzgerald and his subtle use of setting to make an indelible point to the readers. The heat of the day symbolizes hell, the hell everyone is about to go through.
The only escape for Daisy and her own personal hell is Gatsby himself. On this scorching day, Daisy says to Gatsby “You always look so cool” (125). A new hell is about to begin for Tom, as Nick notes, “There is no confusion like the confusion of a simple mind and as we drove away Tom was feeling the hot whips of panic” (131). Tom is beginning to feel the heat, but his advice is simple: “The thing to do is forget about the heat” (133). To Tom, Gatsby is beneath him and someone not to worry about, which is his version of erasure.
Fitzgerald continually uses the image of vanishing and disappearance to underscore Nick’s narrative efforts to erase all of Gatsby’s obscenity. Only then can Gatsby begin to be considered Great.
White In America
The Great Gatsby was written at a time when racism, nativism, and white supremacism were growing sentiments. It was a time when to be American was to be white, and to be white was to be an American. But this idea of white is more than fair in pigment. It is limited to people from Anglo and Germanic heritages. This leaves out Mediterranean, Slavic, and Baltic countries. Also, this is a white that is Christian, and more specifically, Protestant.
This attitude is seen in certain characters in the novel.
Ø Tom promotes the book The Rise of the Coloured Empires by Goddard (17)
Ø Concerning this book and its subject, Tom says, “It’s up to us who are the dominant race to watch out or these other races will have control of things” (17)
Ø Catherine says, “I almost made a mistake, too. I almost married a little kyke …. I knew he was below me” (38)
Ø Catherine also lies about Daisy being Catholic, but it clearly is an insult (38)
Ø In the Plaza hotel room, Jordan comments that “We’re all white here” (137)
Ø Even Nick tries to secure his Scottish heritage (7)
This racism plays into this notion of erasure in that Gatsby is not white. He is pictured against African-American for comparison, but more than likely, he is Jewish. Nick says that he “would accept without question the information that Gatsby sprang from swamps of Louisiana or lower eastside of New York” (54). These are predominantly non-white parts of this country.
As Gatsby and Nick drive into Manhattan they are passed by a funeral whose mourners appear to be from southeastern Europe. Soon after this they are passed by a white limousine with three modish-dressed blacks. On the tail of these two sights while driving through a non-white portion of New York, Nick feels anything can happen now that they have crossed this bridge. Even Gatsby can happen without any particular wonder (73).
Gatsby can happen in a manner that makes sense to Nick in a non-white part of the city in the surroundings of non-whites. While at lunch, Wolfshiem tells Nick, “I knew I had discovered (in Gatsby) a man of fine breeding” (76). Wolfshiem is Jewish, and for a Jewish man to speak of another’s fine breeding implies that the other is Jewish, also.
According to certain characters in this novel, Gatsby is not white and he is not a real American. Tom’s fear of the encroaching non-white races symbolizes his dread of losing Daisy to a man like Gatsby. Not only is Gatsby and Daisy’s reunification this actual non-white encroachment, it is also an erasure of Gatsby’s non-white status.
Just before Nick commits to Gatsby’s lie, a lie that has everything to do with winning Daisy back, Nick comments on how Gatsby looks when he comes to pick him up. Nick says, “he was balancing himself on the dashboard of his car with that resourcefulness of movement that is so peculiarly American” (68). Nick is already attempting this racial erasure.
Later as the tea party moves from Nick’s house, Nick talks about Gatsby’s mansion and its previous owner. After he died his children sold the house with the black wreath still on the door. Nick’s explanation for this is, “Americans, while occasionally willing to be serfs, have always been obstinate about being peasantry” (93).
Nick is saying that Gatsby’s pursuit of Daisy, made capital with her reacquisition, is making him American. Gatsby is willing to be Daisy’s servant but he is not willing to be poor. In fact, he knows that he cannot have her as long as he is poor. Gatsby’s wealth is just a means to the ends of getting back with Daisy. She is his American Dream.
To Answer The Question
What ultimately makes Gatsby so Great is this erasure of his non-whiteness and establishment as an American. Jay Gatsby exists in the clearest way of what it means to be an American. He is an American Everyman.
Nick wonders at Gatsby’s capacity for hope. Fitzgerald ties this into the American ideal in his close to the novel. Before Nick leaves West Egg, he looks around and thinks about the wonder that Dutch sailors must have felt when they first saw this New World. This sense of wonder is also expressed as their dreams in this verdant and green world.
Fitzgerald moves then to the green light at the end of the dock of the Buchanan house across the courtesy bay over in East Egg. Remember that the first time Nick sees Gatsby, the playboy is standing on the beach staring at the green light. Fitzgerald ties the Dutch wonder of dreams regarding this new, green republic to Gatsby’s hope when he then tells us that “Gatsby always believed in the green light.”
In his closing words, Fitzgerald associates all of this with you and I with the personal pronoun “we.” The sailors’ dreams and Gatsby’s belief symbolize American hope. Just like Gatsby, someday we will reach out further and we will run faster.
This hope of Gatsby’s didn’t quite work out like he would have liked it. In fact, his hope started after his failure had begun; and still, he hoped. Like the dreamful Gatsby, we beat on, even though our boats run against the current. This is because of what has already been locked in by our past. And yet, we continue to hope.
Americans are indeed the inheritors of these Dutch sailors and all who came to this New World looking for a better life. Scholar comment on how The Great Gatsby addresses the failure of the American Dream, and yet, we as Americans still dream. Bunker Hill didn’t kill the revolution, it fueled it. The dread of 9/11 did not compel us to give up, but pull together a rebuild. We don’t throw in the towel very easily, even when it seems there is every reason to. He is We and We are He, and if Gatsby is Great, then you and I are Great, too.
The Beautiful People
One of the most cherished couples in all of American literature is Daisy Faye Buchanan and Jay Gatsby. Of all the beautiful people one might read, they seem the most adorable. Fitzgerald uses a powerful device to show what makes these people attractive and attracted to each other. Instead of describing many indelible aspects of each, he selects one thing to accentuate and make that beyond spectacular. For Daisy it is her voice, and for Gatsby it is his smile.
Fitzgerald uses Nick the narrator to bring out these aspects for both of these characters. For Daisy it serves as an explanation for why Gatsby fell for her so strongly and worked so diligently to build his wealth to re-obtain her. Regarding Gatsby’s appeal, the reader sees why Daisy fell for him, as well as Nick himself.
Daisy’s voice
Most of the descriptions are for Daisy’s voice, while merely a few describe Gatsby’s smile.
Ø Nick refers to “her low, thrilling voice” (13)
Ø “It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again” (13)
Ø In Louisville Lt. Gatsby looks at Daisy while she was speaking (80)
Ø “The exhilarating ripple of her voice was a wild tonic in the rain” (90)
Ø Just after Gatsby comes in from the rain, Nick says that he hears Gatsby then Daisy’s voice on a “clear and artificial note” (91)
Ø “Her throat (was), full of aching, grieving beauty, (and) told only of her unexpected joy” (94)
Ø “Daisy’s voice was playing murmurous tricks in her throat” (111)
Ø “Her voice struggled on through the heat, beating against it, moulding it senselessness into forms” (125)
Ø “She turned to me and her voice, dropping an octave lower, filled the room with thrilling scorn” (139)
Ø “She had caught a cold which make her voice huskier and more charming than ever” (157)
Daisy’s voice is the kind that brings about responses from other people, even if they are unaware of it. Nick says, “Daisy’s murmur was only to make people lean toward her” (13). Similarly, he adds, “her voice compelled me forward breathlessly as I listened” (18). Her voice only work when she speaks, so when she is silent, the voice’s compelling draw ends. Nick points this out when he says, “The instant her voice broke off, ceasing to compel my attention, my belief, I felt that basic insincerity of what she had said” (22).
On the hottest day of the year, it was “Daisy’s voice (that) got us to our feet” (126). It was Daisy’s voice that constrains the heart of young Gatsby, both before and after the war. He may have built her up to be more than she is, but her voice that remained as flawless and endearing as it ever was to Gatsby. At their reunion Nick says, “as she said something low in his ear he turned toward her with a rush of emotion. I think that voice held him most with its fluctuating, feverish warmth because it could not be over-dreamed – that voice was a deathless song” (101).
Daisy’s voice seems to have its limits. It operates on those who have the capacity to truly cherish her, and who in fact practiced this admiration. Nick says, “there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget” (14).
Her voice stirs Gatsby as well as Nick at the beginning, but there is one key character who seems immune to the serenity of her voice, and that is her husband Tom. He comments that he does not like it when she says “hulking” (16). If her voice works best on men who care for her, and it does not seem to have such sway over Tom as it does others, then the obvious conclusion is that Tom does not care for Daisy.
What made Daisy’s voice so compelling is identified in three passages. At the Buchanan dinner Nick says, “a stirring warmth flowed from her as if her heart was trying to come out to you concealed in one of those breathless, thrilling words” (19). Nick points out that it is her heart coming out to you in her words that make her speech do endearing.
Nick also says Daisy’s voice contains promises. Particularly the promise that she had done exciting things and there was more to come soon (14). But the most telling feature of Daisy’s voice is Gatsby’s blunt assertion that she has an indiscreet voice that is full of money (127).
Gatsby’s smile
There are fewer references to Gatsby’s smile than to Daisy’s voice, but those few are powerful. The first and last stands out. We first see the Gatsby grin when he meets Nick at one of the Summer Bacchanals. It was a smile of eternal reassurance, one that was for everyone before it focused on you and made you feel every good thing about yourself you ever wanted felt (52-53). Anyone would like someone to smile at them like that.
The other took place as Nick leaves Gatsby, not knowing it was for the last time. He paid him the only compliment he ever offered, and Gatsby smiled. His smile said that they were always in agreement on the praise just pronounced (162). His smile, like Daisy’s voice, seems to be one of special inclusion.
Daisy’s voice is always full of hope and promises. For a young Gatsby trying to recreate himself into perfection, this voice bolsters his dreams. Gatsby’s smile draws you in and confirms you every confidence and shreds your deepest doubts. Daisy sees her own validation here. While other young men may seek her out because she is wealthy or beautiful, she falls for Gatsby because of a self-assurance she receives form him.
Both Gatsby and Tom are described as restless, and possibly Daisy is drawn to this type. Maybe she is restless, too. This restlessness may be a general lack of contentment and deep search for some validation. In the final analysis, both Gatsby and Daisy are sustained by the other and they pour themselves into the same mould every young couple in love tries to do. Their story ends in death and sadness, yet theirs is a timeless tale of passion that persists even when it seems there is no more reason
[i] All citations from the novel are taken from: F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1925)
[ii] Nick may have “disapproved” of Gatsby “from beginning to end,” Gatsby may have “represented everything” for which he has an “unaffected scorn,” and Nick may even have “disliked him so much,” but he comes down on his side. Gatsby, we are told, “turned out all right at the end” and his dream was “incorruptible” (Peter Lisca, “Nick Carraway And The Imagery Of Disorder” Twentieth Century Literature, April, 1967, 13.1, http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CH1420003204&v=2.1&u=nysl_me_garden&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w&asid=067551bd91b379db649193ed702af4b1)
[iii] More significantly, he (Nick) chooses to write the novel in such a way that we sense he is deliberately controlling our response (Lisca)
[iv] So why does he tell such an obvious lie, and why does Nick let it pass without comment? The only plausible explanation is that Gatsby wants Nick to know that he’s lying, to show Nick that ‘Gatsby’ is a fictional creation. Nick’s response of ‘I see’ implies that he is aware of the lie (he ‘sees’ the truth), but the fact that he neither challenges Gatsby nor points out the lie to the reader suggests that Nick chooses to be complicit with Gatsby’s lies (Clair Stocks, “All Men Are (not] Created Equal,” The English Review, February, 2007, 17.3, http://butlerlib.butlercc.edu:2390/ps/i.do?&id=GALE%7CA158832066&v=2.1&u=klnb_bucc&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w)
[v] Nick’s manner of telling the story suggests that we should not be entirely convinced that he is giving us the ‘truth’ about Gatsby. He often gives what appear to be Gatsby’s thoughts but are clearly imagined by himself. His narrative is peppered with phrases such as ‘I suppose’ and ‘There must have been...’ and words like ‘possibly’ and ‘perhaps’ that suggest that our response is not to Gatsby, but to Gatsby filtered through Nick’s imagination (Lisca)
[vi] It seems clear from the San Francisco incident that Nick is not interested in exposing the real Gatsby. We are told in the first few pages that Nick enjoyed a brief period as an editor for the Yale News, and it seems that Nick’s inclination towards editing may well extend to his account of Gatsby too. Nick wants to portray Gatsby as ‘great’ and to ignore or edit anything that might undermine that image. Indeed, towards the end of the novel, after Gatsby’s death, Nick returns to his mansion to find ‘an obscene word’ scrawled on the step. Nick’s reaction is to erase it, removing the word from the story as well as the step by not revealing it to the reader. As the story progresses, then, Nick’s version seems increasingly unreliable as be glosses over lies, erases criticisms of Gatsby and avoids uncomfortable truths (Stocks)
[vii] To whatever degree Gatsby has won Nick over, he has won him not by an appeal to evidence but by an appeal to imagination. Because of his impressionability, Nick grasps an image and decks it out with his own bright feathers (Kent Cartwright, “Nick Carraway as an Unreliable Narrator,” Papers On Language And Literature, 20.2, April 1984, Twentieth Century Literary Criticism. http://butlerlib.butlercc.edu:2390/ps/i.do?&id=GALE%7CH1420061753&v=2.1&u=klnb_bucc&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w)
[viii] Surely, if Wilson had been brought to trial, the defense would have raised doubts that anybody would have been able to shoot Gatsby without puncturing the pneumatic mattress. This raises the possibility that Gatsby was killed and placed on the mattress afterwards, to float on the pool until someone found him (Anne Crow, “The Great Gatsby Mystery,” The English Review, September, 2009, 20.1, http://butlerlib.butlercc.edu:2390/ps/i.do?&id=GALE%7CA208587501&v=2.1&u=klnb_bucc&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w)
[ix] Clearly Nick is wrong to think ‘It’s all over now’. Obviously, Wolfshiem knows better, and his presence at the funeral might suggest a new line of enquiry for the inquest (Crow)
[x] Wolfshiem and Gatsby seem to be close friends and business associates. Wolfshiem tells Nick that ‘“We were so thick like that in everything”--he held up two bulbous fingers—”always together.”‘ However, when Gatsby offers Nick ‘a little business on the side’, he reassures him that he ‘wouldn’t have to do any business with Wolfshiem’. Fitzgerald is suggesting that Gatsby may be branching out on his own. After Gatsby’s death, Nick answers his phone and Slagle says ‘Young Parke’s in trouble ... They picked him up when he handed the bonds over the counter. They just got a circular from New York giving ‘em the numbers just five minutes before.’ If the police investigation is closing in on Gatsby’s enterprises, then Wolfshiem might be worried that it will uncover some of his own activities (Crow)
[xi] Nick’s final epiphany about Gatsby is contingent for its emergence on the act that precedes this epiphany: the repression or erasure of an “obscene word.” In order for Gatsby to “turn out all right at the end,” to come to “stand for America itself,” his link to this word must be erased. Yet by foregrounding the process of this erasure, this “forgetting,” Fitzgerald also seems to be problematizing the inevitability of the text’s ending: Gatsby “turn(s) out all right” only if we forget, or repress, his obscenity (Barbara Will, “The Great Gatsby and the Obscene Word,” College Literature, Fall2005, 34.2, http://muse.jhu.edu/login?auth=0&type=summary&url=/journals/college_literature/v032/32.4will.html)
[xii] “Obscene,” from the Latin “obscenaeus,” meaning both “against the presentable” and “unrepresentable” (Will)