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man was an attractive antidote
to the power of old money passed
on by inheritance and marriage
among the “best” families. The
1920s in America seemed to offer
a new social mobility, healing class
wounds and challenging snobbery.
Those who had sought their
fortunes in the West now came
East again, to make their fortunes
and to spend their wealth on
magnificent homes, fine things,
and high living—such was the
dream, anyway. But the reality
was that wealth for some led to
the impoverishment of others, and
at the same time gave rise to a
culture of surface glitter that was
morally and spiritually empty at its
core. Fakery of all kinds abounded
and snobbery still existed—it had
just found new targets.
After the passing of the 18th
Amendment in 1919, which
prohibited the sale of alcohol,
many entrepreneurs channeled
their talents into bootlegging—the
smuggling of illegal liquor, much
of it sold in speakeasies (illegal
bars). Racism was rife too; in the
first chapter of The Great Gatsby,
Tom Buchanan expresses the
supremacist view that “if we
don’t look out the white race will
be—will be utterly submerged.”Radiance and rottenness
Fitzgerald saw his novel as “a
purely creative work—not trashy
imaginings as in my stories but
the sustained imagination of a
sincere and yet radiant world.”
That radiance, reflected in a
sensuous prose style suffused
with a romantic glow, is seen in
the dazzling glamour of fashionable
East Coast society that Fitzgerald
takes for his subject.Jay Gatsby owns a colossal
mansion, in the style of a French
hôtel de ville (city hall), in West
Egg, on the shore of Long Island,
outside New York. Gatsby is an
enigma, an newcomer from the
Midwest around whom many
rumors circulate—that he has
killed a man; that his claim to
an Oxford education is a lie; that
he made his money bootlegging.
Every Saturday he throws decadent
parties, with hundreds of guests,
as described by the novel’s narrator,
Nick Carraway, who rents a small
house next door. There is hilarity
and jazz in these revels, but also
a great deal of drunkenness and
falling out, especially between
couples. Indeed, men and women
speak to each other throughout the
book in dialogue that is flippant
and insincere.
Nick gets to know Gatsby and
learns his secret: that for five years
he has been obsessively in love
with the beautiful socialite Daisy
Buchanan, who happens to beNick’s cousin, and who is now
married to Tom, a wealthy college
friend of Nick’s. Daisy is the reason
Gatsby bought his mansion on the
opposite shore from the Georgian
Colonial house she shares with
Tom. All Gatsby’s wealth, acquired
from shady business dealings with
a mafioso-style crook called Meyer
Wolfshiem, is paraded with the sole
intention of winning back his lost
love, now that he finally has the
capital to support her.The importance of place
The novel’s themes are mapped out
in its highly symbolic topography.
East Egg, home to Daisy and Tom
as well as most of Gatsby’s party
guests, stands for traditional values
and old money; West Egg where
Gatsby lives, for fashionable ❯❯See also: The Waste Land 213 ■ Of Mice and Men 244 ■ The Grapes of Wrath 244 ■ The Outsider 245BREAKING WITH TRADITION
Gatsby’s wild, opulent parties,
depicted in this 1949 movie adaptation
of the book, brought together the
old-moneyed socialites from East Egg
and their brash West Egg neighbors.US_228-233_Gatsby.indd 231 08/10/2015 13:08