"The Great Gatsby" and the Obscene Word
Author(s): Barbara Will
Source: College Literature, Vol. 32, No. 4 (Fall, 2005), pp. 125-144
Published by: College Literature
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TheQreatGatsby
Word
andTheObscene
Barbara Will
a novel
language is consistently
against the demands of verac
at
one
in The Great
formulation
least
ity,
true:
Nick
pro
Carraway's
Gatsby
rings
In
in which
seen to work
near
nouncement,
"Gatsby
start
the
of
the
novel,
that
at the end"
a figure
1999, 6). Jay Gatsby,
failure and shadowed by death
turned
(Fitzgerald
marked
by
out
all right
throughout most
a form
achieves
paragraphs
the words
"comes
of the novel, nevertheless
in the final
of "greatness"
of his story; it is at this point, in
that Gatsby
of Lionel Trilling,
inevitably
to
is associate
Barbara Will
I.
stand
profes
sor ofEnglish atDartmouth
College. She is the author of
Gertrude
Stein,
Modernism,
and the Problem
"
"Genius,
and
of
is currently
work on a book entitled
Unlikely
Collaboration:
Gertrude Stein, Bernard Fay,
and theVichy Dilemma.
for America
17). For it is in the final, lyrical
the novel
that Gatsby s fate
paragraphs
an
takes on mythic
dimensions,
becoming
course
for
the
American
of
the
allegory
itself"
(1963,
of
nation
and for the struggles
transformation
citizens.This
and dreams
of its
occurs when
the
narrator, Nick
Carraway, finally
ceives what lies beneath
the "inessential"
per
sur
novel's
at
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126
32.4 [Fall
2005]
CollegeLiterature
face world of his surroundings: a vital impulse, an originary American
hope.
sees Gatsby as the incarnation of this national
impulse, this "extraordi
describe Gatsby s
nary gift for hope," using the same term?"wonder"?to
Nick
for Daisy Buchanan
and that of the first American
colonists gazing at
"the fresh green breast of the new world." For Nick, Gatsby's lies, his pre
are "no matter"; nor is his failure to win back
tensions, and his corruption
desire
Daisy; what
"wondrous"
matters
is the
sustaining belief in the value of striving
its inevitable disappearance
and meaninglessness.
for a
And
object, not
in a significant
of the novel's final sentences, Nick
unites
shift in pronouns
a general,
if unspecified,
effort with
national
collective:
Gatsby's
"Gatsby
in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before
believed
us.
It eluded
us
then,
but
the current, borne back
emphasis). What matters
that's
no
into
. . So
the past"
is what matters
we
beat
on,
boats
1999,
against
141; my
(Fitzgerald
to "us"; Gatsby s story is
"our" story; his fate and the fate of the nation are intertwined. That Gatsby
"turned out all right in the end" is thus essential to the novel's vision of a
transcendent
ceaselessly
to Gatsby
matter?.
and collective
Americanism.
of Gatsby in
this ending is in fact at odds with
the characterization
a
the rest of the novel. For if Gatsby ultimately
represents
glorified version of
so
we
most
is
if
he
for
does
of
then
he
that
the novel a force
"us,"
forget
only
an
a
a
and
adulterer. As critics have often
of corruption:
criminal,
bootlegger,
Yet
of our forgetting
the text stakes its ending on the inevitability
every
that
has
troublesome
about
his
character
about
up to
Gatsby
proved
thing
is the fact that
this point. What
critics have generally overlooked,
however,
inscribes this process of forgetting
into its own
the text also self-consciously
to offer two discrepant
views of its protagonist,
The
narrative. Appearing
noted,
its readers to question
the terms
Great Gatsby in fact ultimately
challenges
through which
"presence" or "visibility" can be signified.
This, to my mind, is the point of one of the most important yet least crit
scenes in the novel: the novel's penultimate
scene, the tran
ically examined
the last four paragraphs of the text.
that immediately
precedes
It is a scene that begins with Nick Carraway wandering
idly down to Long
Island Sound past Gatsby s house, killing time on the eve of his return to the
mid-west:
"On the last night, with my trunk packed and my car sold to the
sitional
scene
failure of a house
grocer, I went over and looked at that huge incoherent
an
once more. On the white
obscene word, scrawled by some boy with
steps
a piece of brick, stood out clearly in the moonlight
and I erased it, drawing
shoe raspingly along the stone" (Fitzgerald 1999, 140). A fleeting, transi
is already down at the shore, "sprawled
tory scene; in the next instant, Nick
out on the sand," at which
his
point
epiphany about Gatsby and the green
sequence of events implies is that Nick's
light begins.Yet what this immediate
my
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Will 127
Barbara
final
epiphany
this
precedes
about Gatsby
the
epiphany:
is contingent
repression
or
for its emergence
erasure
an
of
on the act that
"obscene
In
word."
to "turn out all right at the end," to come to "stand for
for Gatsby
America
the
itself," his link to this word must be erased.Yet by foregrounding
order
of
process
lematizing
only if we
this
this
erasure,
"forgetting,"
Fitzgerald
also
the inevitability of the text's ending: Gatsby
forget, or repress, his obscenity.
seems
"turn[s]
to
be
prob
out all right"
it is easy for a reader to overlook
this scene, it requires no real
to
on
effort
understand why the graffiti scrawled
Gatsby s house would be an
link
for
the
between
and
the
obscene
has been repeatedly
obscenity,
Gatsby
While
in the text up to this point: in Nick's
reference to Gatsby s "cor
in
his
claim
that
ruption";
opening
Gatsby "represented
everything for which
I have an unaffected
scorn" (Fitzgerald 1999,6); in his description
of Gatsby's
career as "Trimalchio"
scene, it is also a link that
(88). In this penultimate
suggested
or rather, in terms of
in terms of signification,
Fitzgerald frames explicitly
what eludes or threatens signification. For by linking Gatsby with an obscene
to the etymol
word, Fitzgerald appears to be deliberately
drawing attention
as
or
is either unrepresentable
that which
ogy of "obscene":
beyond the terms
of the presentable
both
("obscene," from the Latin "obscenaeus," meaning
the
and
Whatever
word
the
"against
presentable"
"unrepresentable").
scrawled on Gatsby s steps may be, the point is that we cannot know it; it is
aword
in its obscenity, points to a signifying void.Yet as its ety
that, precisely
can be understood
in
suggests, the "signifying void" of the obscene
mology
two ways. On the one hand, the obscene
iswhat eludes representation:
it is
the
unrepresentable,
the
pre-linguistic,
or
the
anti-linguistic,
a force
of
dis
and linguistic shattering. It is similar
ruption and implosion, of psychosexual
in process to what Julia Kristeva
terms "the abject": that which
"draws me
toward the place where meaning
is also
collapses" (1982, 2).Yet the obscene
what questions?and
thus denaturalizes?the
normative
thrust of significa
asMary Caputi
tion. The obscene works against the presentable,
argues, "in
its determined
violation
of established norms, its eagerness to proclaim from
the
its
beyond
acceptable,
appeal to the uncanny"
(1994, 7). Freud, speaking
of "smut," defined
it as an "undoing" of repression, while Bakhtin
identifies
"low" language
as
("on the stages of local fairs and at buffoon
spectacles")
"parodie, and aimed sharply and polemically
against the official languages of
its given time" (Freud 1957, 101; Bakhtin
In this second sense,
1981, 273).
as
the obscene
a
to
functions
threat
the conventional
lan
predominantly
or the normative
of a nation, throwing
discourses
into
guage of narration
or the normal, of the
the status of the acceptable
question
rep
seemingly
resentable
and meaningful,
the political
and social hierarchies
including
that
sustain
"meaning."
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128
32.4 [Fall
2005]
CollegeLiterature
two and three of this essay will
suggest, both senses of the
is a "mys
summarize
the life of Jay Gatsby. While
Gatsby
as
even
is
Nick
attend his parties, he
more,
Carraway
tery" for those who
of lost words"
notes, "an elusive rhythm, a fragment
(Fitzgerald 1999, 87).
and ulti
his "unutterable visions" that lead to "unutterable
With
depression"
on
the
is
horizon
of
"incoherent
failure," Gatsby
constantly vanishing
mately
As
sections
term "obscene"
and the
like Nick
for characters
and this is a problem
significance;
own sense of location
in time and social space is very
whose
Buchanans,
a
between
truth and lies, insiders and
clear
distinction
much dependent
upon
is a figure who prob
and
aliens.
Put
natives
another
outsiders,
way, Gatsby
text toward an abject
the nature of figuration
the
lematizes
itself, drawing
void, "toward the place where meaning
collapses." But Gatsby is also a figure
to the
lies in the challenge he poses to "the presentable,"
whose
obscenity
not
idea
natural and the normal?a
only the
given
unsettling
particularly
concerns with
the nature of belonging
but also the histor
text's immediate
ical moment
about
anxiety
of
an
an era marked
is writing,
by widespread
Fitzgerald
in the face
the possible dissolution
of the "natural" American
in which
"alien
encroaching
menace."
nature
As
we
shall
of American
see,
such
concerns
over
the
in the 1920s were
shared by
Gatsby were
identity
(and "naturalness")
own politics at the time of writing
Fitzgerald himself, whose
his
and who
remained
restriction
toward immigration
directed
throughout
to which
he felt he
the group
threatened
of those who
life suspicious
this historical
"the old American
context,
aristocracy." Given
to
s
could
be
said
and
embody noth
transgressiveness
indeterminacy
Gatsby
own
of
"obscene"
fulfillment
less
than
the
suspicions: Gatsby
Fitzgerald's
ing
to the discourse of polit
as the threatening figure of the alien, unassimilable
belonged,
ical and
social Americanism
"unutterable"
within
toward which
the narrative
framework
the text
is ultimately
directed,
that seeks to represent him.
from the text as Gatsby's story
erase "the obscene word"
By having Nick
draws to a close, however, Fitzgerald makes it possible for this story to emerge
as the story of America
the
the obscene
becomes
itself. Gatsby
Gatsby
American.
Yet while
the fact of this transformation
its terms
is incontestable,
erasure of the obscene word
Nick's
remain troubling. Through
foregrounding
the process through
from Gatsby s house, Fitzgerald deliberately
emphasizes
of Gatsby s reputation takes place. And as this essay
which
the "whitewashing"
this process is to reveal a central uncertain
will finally suggest, to emphasize
ty, or void,
that lies at the heart of the text's final, transcendent
vision.
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Will
Barbara
II.
In an early draft of the novel, Nick Carraway makes an interesting obser
about Gatsby: "He was provokingly
elusive and what he was intrinsi
to
crisis of linguistic disempowerment
cally 'like' I'm powerless
say."1Nick's
elusive" nature of his subject; the prob
the "provokingly
here accompanies
vation
on the
lem of Gatsby's "intrinsic likeness" bears wholly
tion. In a character with not enough "likeness" and no
a "vanishing
and everywhere,
essence, Gatsby is nowhere
...
as Derrida
reminds us, is also the nature oi"diff?rance
of significa
apparent "intrinsic"
project
presence"; and this,
which
prevents any
to summarize
enunciation
and
from coming
a
center
movement
tex
of
the
and
presence
word, any concept, any major
to govern from the theological
man who
tual spacing of differences"
(1981, 14). If Gatsby?"the
gives his
name to this book"?is
meant
to "summarize"
and "govern" the
by Nick
and direction
of its signifiers, then his "elu
this governance
from taking place. An "elusive
can be
to
be
said
could
rhythm," Gatsby
embody
diff?rance, if embodiment
as the "being-there
in the
understood
of an absenfce]" or the "disjointure
of the text, the meaning
is also what prevents
work
siveness"
very presence of the present" (1994,6; 25). It is in his fractured and incoher
ent embodiment,
his ever-vanishing
"presence," that Gatsby throws into cri
sisNick's
effort to speak.
term in this text, as when
at the
"Vanished" is indeed the predominant
INick first encounters Gatsby, only to find "he had vanished,
end of Chapter
and Iwas alone again in the unquiet darkness"; or when,
after an awkward
Nick
toward
Mr.
Tom
"turned
with
Buchanan,
meeting
Gatsby but he was
no longer there" (Fitzgerald
at other key
"vanishes"
1999, 59).2 Gatsby
moments
in the text: in his failure to appear at his own parties,
in his
in
his smile, which
unknowable
"assured
past and shady business dealings, and
the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped
you that it had precisely
to convey. Precisely at that point it vanished?"
(40). As this last sentence sug
even
the
gests, Gatsby
vanishes?literally?from
signifying system of the text
of his unrepresentability
the dash, the graphic mark
is insistently
or
to Nick
he
is
speaks
spoken about.3 Although
emphasized whenever
seems at once utterly conventional,
with
Gatsby
utterly knowable?being
him, he notes, was "like skimming hastily through a dozen magazines"
(53)?
or
he is also "provokingly
the promise of meaning
elusive," both extending
moment
at
the
in
and
that
which
toward
leans
presence
"vanishing"
promise
fulfillment. This process is apparent in a number of scenes throughout
the
s
statement
novel. Most
is
Nick's
confessional
haunting
Gatsby
following
itself:
account
of his first kiss with
Through
reminded
all he
of
Daisy:
said, even through his appalling
something?an
elusive
rhythm,
a
fragment
sentimentality,
of
lost words,
I was
that
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129
130 College
32.4[Fall
Literature
2005]
I had
heard
somewhere
in my
take
there
shape
was more
no
made
sound
a
a
to
time
tried
ago. For a moment
long
phrase
a dumb man's,
as
and my
like
lips parted
though
them
air. But
than a wisp
of startled
upon
they
was
I had almost
remembered
uncommunicable
mouth
struggling
and what
forever. (Fitzgerald 1999, 87)
to speak is here seen to be awakened by Gatsby's own words,
with
their "elusive rhythm" and nostalgic promise of a return to lost origins;
is also inevitably attended by a failure of articulation
yet memory
("and what
I had almost remembered was uncommunicable
Whoever
forever").
Gatsby
he reminds one of, this "presence" ultimately
lies outside
the
is, whatever
Nick's
effort
limits of the communicable.
As in the earlier description
of Gatsby's smile,
this passage is structured around a contradictory movement
(or "disjointure,"
to recall Derrida)
in which
presence and appearance pivot into absence and
of seeming apprehension. Another
such
"vanishing" at the precise moment
example is found in the party scene of chapter III,which begins with a series
of gossipy
about Gatsby's
partygoers:
suppositions
identity
by passing
me
a
man
more
he
told
killed
'"it's
that
once'";
'"Somebody
they thought
me
was
once
an
he was a German
the
told
he
Oxford
war'";'"he
spy during
this latter claim, notes Nick, "A dim background
man.'"With
started to take
[Gatsby] but at her next remark it faded away" (40). Here,
shape behind
or "shape" vanishes
at the moment
of presence
the
of its
promise
again,
not
to
to
lead
truth
but
and
who
emergence;
suppositions
indeterminacy,
the reach of the "next remark."
Gatsby is remains just beyond
Nor
is Gatsby's indeterminacy
within
the text simply an issue of Nick's
own notably distorted vision, as the comments
of fellow partygoers make
true
it is
clear.While
that Nick's
drunk, con
perceptions,
especially while
to the idea of Gatsby's elusiveness, other observers also
tribute exponentially
fail to illuminate Gatsby's character. In a crucial (and again, often overlooked)
a
moment
and Jordan encounter
during the chapter III party scene, Nick
man
"with
house, who
"Absolutely
enormous
owl-eyed
spectacles" sitting in the library of Gatsby s
informs them that the books on the shelves are, indeed, "real":
I thought
real?have
pages and everything.
they'd be a nice
cardboard.
durable
Matter
of
fact
they're
absolutely
real.
. . . It's
a
triumph.
to stop too?didn't
cut the
realism! Knew when
thoroughness! What
do you expect?"
pages. But what do you want? What
(Fitzgerald 1999, 37
a
T.
is
in
Doctor
linked
As
like
who,
38).
J. Eckleberg,
figure
metonymically
What
the text
pierces
al?the
as one who
to the trope of perception,
"Owl Eyes" is presented
at Gatsby's funer
the fa?ade of social life in the Eggs, exposing?as
that lie underneath
the forced gaiety of
despair and loneliness
appearances.
emphasized
In the library
and undermined,
is both
scene, Owl
Eyes' ability to "expose"
as the fake-appearing
turn out to be
books
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Will
Barbara
The
"realness"
of the books
and
signifies presence
the
of
the
text-that
pages
yet
opacity
meaning;
would-be-read.
Gatsby, too, is both "really" there and absent, a figure who
even by those with "corrected" vision, who voids the
resists being perceived
its
end. "What do you want? What
do you
of
process
meaningful
signifying
and
the
read
asks
Owl
himself,
Nick, Jordan,
implicitly
expect?"
Eyes finally
real, yet
semi-unreadable.
their uncut
underscore
for knowledge
that might
er, calling into question
any desire or expectation
attend the experience
of "reading" Gatsby.
to be
Hence
those few crucial scenes where Gatsby's character promises
and directed toward a significant end invariably prove
revealed asmeaningful
to be "provokingly
elusive." In the famous flashback scene of chapter VI, for
in order
recalls Gatsby s past as "James Gatz of North Dakota"
example, Nick
to explain Gatsby's present, portraying his youthful
rejection of family and
as a necessary precondition
to his later "glory" as a wealthy,
account of Gatsby's
76
adult
ff.). Nick's
(Fitzgerald 1999,
upwardly-mobile
a
to
cast
in
him
familiar
mold:
the
adolescence
self-made man,
attempts
original
name
from his Platonic
of himself,"
conception
"springing]
national
icons like Horatio
dent of other hard-working
the spiritual descen
Alger or Benjamin
would be invoked later
(whose famous "Plan for Self-Examination"
the text consistently
in the text in Gatsby's own childhood
"Schedule").Yet
Franklin
undermines
these
seeming
"causes"
of Gatsby's
actions
at
the
very
moment
For what this chapter in fact reveals about Gatsby is not
his identity with an American
tradition of hard work and "luck and
in "a universe of ineffable
his
his
but
rather
dreaminess,
entrapment
pluck"
was
his
belief
"that
the
rock
of
the
world
founded
gaudiness,"
securely on a
not
motivates
is
the
desire
for
material
betterment
Gatsby
fairy's wing."What
of their "revelation."
so much
("food and bed")
confirmation
of
but the evanescent
"the
unreality
of
and the intangible; what
reality." Whatever
is, for Gatsby,
satisfies him
can
be
is
con
"the real" is always "the unreal," and this is troubling both to the
terms and to the larger narrative of American
with
achievement
descriptive
to emerge as "great."To be sure, to tell the story of
in which Gatsby ismeant
a figure trapped in the oxymoronic
"unreality of reality" is to tell amodernist
tradicted,
as Jean-Fran?ois
story, ifmodernity,
Lyotard suggests, "does not occur with
a discovery of the lack of reality in reality?
out a shattering of belief, without
a discovery
linked to the invention of other realities" (1992, 9). Consistently
and temporal boundaries
of
social, economic,
dreaming beyond the material,
his surroundings, overturning
and reimagining
the hierarchies
of power and
social status that constrain him, Gatsby could be seen as a modernist
figure,
a deconstructive
is to "shat
"motivation"
figure, a figure of diff?rance,whose
ter .. .belief" and hence "invent . . . [new] realities ."Yet The Great Gatsby is
no Ulysses, capturing
in the play of signifiers the movement
of Gatsby's "dif
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131
132 College
Literature
32.4[Fall
2005]
"modernist"
f?rance"; however
revealed through
Gatsby may be, his character
in which
he vanishes from
the moments
of which
oxymorons,
through dashes?all
at
center
of
this
textual
the
sentability
reality.
through
point
can only be
the narrative,
to an unrepre
III.
In a text
so haunted
are precisely
to affirm, make
stands out
attempt
and unrepresentability,
what
by indeterminacy
those efforts that work
that
against "vanishing,"
of meaning,
visible, and police boundaries
identity,
are also efforts directed
and nation. These
against
community,
sexuality,
his
and
elusiveness:
Gatsby
sense of Gatsby s character
efforts either to make
effort to "reveal" Gatsby's formative past) or to cast him as inher
the boundaries
of sense, propriety,
ently corrupt and "obscene," as outside
are centered
as
efforts
latter
and order,
racially and sexually perverse. These
(as inNick's
in the character
of Tom Buchanan,
denizen of the isolated town of East Egg,
to the nativist
of Daisy, and single-minded
adherent
husband
two-timing
views of a tome
on
of the Colored
Empires," modeled
World
The
Tide
Color
White
Rising
Against
of
Lothrop
Stoddard, "The idea is ifwe don't look
following
Supremacy.4 For Buchanan,
race will be?will
out the white
be utterly submerged," a statement whose
called
use
characteristic
American
mersion"
What
of
nativism
by
an
"The Rise
1920 volume
Stoddard's
the dash
in the 1920s,
"colored
ever-expanding
the dash
in Tom's
the anxiety
that underwrites
emphasizes
its sense that the process of Nordic
"sub
statement
a
unspeakable?miscegenation,
empire"
represents
process
through
may
is what,
already
be
underway.
for him, would
which
"whiteness"
be
and
"race" itself, and the white
"color" become undifferentiated,
through which
race in particular, become
For Tom, it is Jay Gatsby in partic
indeterminate.
or "vanishing"
a mode
that
of racial indeterminacy
ular who
represents
East
of
but
also
threatens to violate not only the immediate
community
Egg
itself.
the very concept of Americanism
In his recent study of nativism
and American
literature in the 1920s,
a
race
Benn Michaels
threat
that
of
the
Walter
argues
disappearing white
constitutes Tom's real concern about Gatsby s union with Daisy; it is the fact
. . .
that "[f]or Tom
(n? Gatz, with his Wolfsheim
[sic] 'gonnegtion')
Gatsby
that sustains his antipathy toward his rival (Michaels 1995,
isn't quite white,"
status is confirmed
earlier in the novel by the com
25).5 Gatsby s "off-white"
ment
have
Nick
that "I would
Carraway
relation-by-marriage
from
the
the
that
information
sprang
Gatsby
accepted without
question
swamps of Louisiana or from the lower East Side of New York" (Fitzgerald
but
radical otherness
1999, 41), a statement that associates Gatsby not with
with
of Tom's
cre?le or Jewish
difference,
both
in the 1920s "assigned
to the not-fully
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Barbara
Will
most
disturbs Tom, and clearly
spectrum."6 What
a
not
is
is
troubles Nick,
but more
that he
mystery
just the fact that Gatsby
into indeterminacy,
and thus threatens
signals the "vanishing" of whiteness
structure of power
and institutional
the whole
economic,
discursive,
sup
side of
white
the racial
at work
and hierarchies
in The Great Gatsby.
the social distinctions
porting
For Tom (and possibly Nick), whiteness
and its attendant privileges?mate
the feeling of being "safe and proud above the
rial well-being,
entitlement,
hot struggles of the poor"?is
that must be preserved,
something
safeguard
is most dangerously
close to "winning"
ed, barricaded. Thus when Gatsby
Daisy, it is not so much his social ambition that threatens Tom as the fact that
his pursuit portends
between
black and white."
"intermarriage
Gatsby's
in
he
the challenge
poses to sexual and racial norms.
"obscenity" for Tom lies
In exposing Gatsby's link to miscegenation,
Tom brings out the deeper social
own
menace
to
his
claim
which
whiteness
stands as guardian:
against
saw
he
"Flushed with his impassioned
himself
standing alone on
gibberish
the last barrier of civilization"
(101).
That Gatsby is associated with a Jewish crime syndicate, moreover,
only
in the text.With his "Wolfsheim
his threatening presence
'gonneg
than just criminality
tion'" Gatsby seems contaminated
and sexual
by more
animalistic
perversity; for it is the fact ofWolfshiem's
crudely stereotyped,
redoubles
to "taint" Gatsby. The same "taint" is also sug
name. "Jay Gatsby," of course, is only
gested by Gatsby's layered, problematic
aWASP
fiction adopted by one "James Gatz of North Dakota," yet although
the text is directed toward exposing this fiction, the significance of this expo
sure remains obscure. While
the name of "Gatz" is clearly haunted by ethnic,
that most
Jewishness
seems
and specifically Jewish, overtones, "Gatz" is also a decidedly
ambiguous name.
not
to
Not
(as opposed
Jewish
"Gaty" the first version of "Gatz" shown in
name
the
"Gatz" is also not
drafts),
(as
Fitzgerald's
identifiably
Jewish
opposed,
Jews
have
for
the
example,
surname
to
the more
Gatz;
moreover,
common
the
"Katz").
name
"Gatz"
Both
Jews
sometimes
and
non
appears
as a germanicized
alteration of aYiddish name, "Gets."7 That Fitzgerald knew
not be surprising; as Lottie R. Crim
of this etymological
complexity would
and Neal B. Houston
have pointed out, Fitzgerald's use of names in Gatsby is
a name, "Gatz," that can gener
rich
and
nuanced.8
By choosing
remarkably
seems to be
ate both Jewish and gentile
chains of associations,
Fitzgerald
once again the way in which
his protagonist
is always "vanish
emphasizing
ing" into racial and hence social indeterminacy. Neither
identifiably black nor
the
obscure,
Jewish,
shifting,
identifiably
ever-vanishing
figure of James
the
troubles
of
the force
"whiteness," problematizing
category
Gatz/Jay Gatsby
such force is of crucial significance.
of this category at amoment when
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133
134
32.4 [Fall
2005]
CollegeLiterature
in The Great
suggests, the specter of a beleaguered whiteness
to
moment
in
in which
needs
be
understood
of
the
historical
Gatsby
light
was
a
moment
in which American
the early 1920s. This is
written,
Gatsby
in which
isolationist fervor is at its peak, a moment
fears over "the expand
As Michaels
of the alien" are being openly expressed
in political,
intellectual,
a
moment
movement
is
of
It
the
social
forums.
marked
literary
by
ed power
and
nativism, with its support of the Johnson-Reed
Immigration Act of 1924 and
It
its battle cry "America for the Americans."
is also amoment
in which
the
term?is
discourse of "Americanism"?the
nativists' privileged
linked indu
of whiteness:
"Americanism
is actually the racial
bitably to the discourse
race, evolved after a thousand years of experience,"
thought of the Nordic
writes
Clinton
Stoddard Burr, author of America's Race Heritage
(1922).9
that
lies in the realization
great hope of the future here in America
warns
the
Nordic
with
alien
is
nativist
writer
of
the
fatal,"
competition
to Lothrop
Madison
Grant in his 1920 introduction
Stoddard's The Rising
Tide of Color, "... In this country we must look to such of our people?our
"The
farmers
and artisans?as
this danger" (Stoddard
agitator for women's
are still of American
1920, xxxi).
to recognize
and meet
Perkins Gilman,
author and
in 1923, "Is America
Too
blood
Charlotte
rights, simply worried
Hospitable?"
(Higham 1973, 386, n. 25). For these and other nativists, keep
"American
the face of alien expan
blood" pure?i.e.,
ing
purely white?in
was
a
one
its ideological
sion
that contributed
concern; and
predominant
social measures, from quotas to IQ tests, that were
part to a host of post-War
meant
to establish
and affirm
the whiteness
or "Nordicism"
of the nation.
nativist feeling
is
In The Great Gatsby
between
1922-24),
(composed
more
views
Tom
of
but
the
Buchanan,
also, though
clearly exemplified
by
subtly, by the discourse of Nick Carraway, with his "scorn" for the working
of immigrants, Jews, and blacks, and his claim to be
stereotyping
from the Dukes
of Buccleuch"?an
aristocratic
lineage that,
to appease any nativist fears about the non-white
fictional, ismeant
classes, his
"descended
however
ness of the Scottish. Yet while
whiteness
Fitzgerald presents such attempts to shore up
against "alien elements" as "impassioned
gibberish," external, biog
evidence
suggests that the nativist ideas of Tom and Nick may not
raphical
and permit
be so far from Fitzgerald's own. "Raise the bars of immigration
+
to
Saxons
Celts
Teutons, Anglo
enter," Fitzgerald
only Scandinavians,
1921 letter to Edmund Wilson
in an infamous
after a disappointing
writes
trip in France and Italy: "... My
socialistic, provincial + racially snobbish.
burden"
(1994, 47).10 Some fifteen years
tourist
1930s
to his daughter
erates
these
Scottie
lamenting
reactions
I believe
anti
[are] all philistine,
at last in the white man's
later, in an undated
her choice of friends,
letter from
Fitzgerald
views:
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the
reit
Barbara
Will
we're
Jesus,
aged
choose
to
Avenue.
wise
remnants
few
the
survive
to mix
it up with
You
the
know
to
enough
old American
form?we
the
cheap
when
the vitality
middle
in most
it comes
class
of your
to
falling
instincts should do a better job. All that's rude, tough
crude
and
purse
comes
proud
from
vermin
that's man
aristocracy
have
lower
distinction?and
it?but
forget
the
of
in communicable
for
left. And
you
on
Park
settled
relations
a
are
you
phoney?your
(in the worst
like -s.the
sense),
(Undated
note to Scottie from F. Scott Fitzgerald)11
it up with
the cheap lower middle
class," Scottie fails to let her
create the necessary distinction
that would
preclude her "falling
one
to
for a phoney" The "distinction"
is
refers
of class, to be sure,
Fitzgerald
but even more of race?a point made clear by his emphasis on familial "vital
"Mix[ing]
"instincts"
nativist discussions
of race and
contemporary
for one, would
differentiate
between
Stoddard,
degeneracy.
Lothrop
"Nordics" and "aliens" on the basis of "vitality": "there seems to be no ques
tion that the Nordic
is far and away the most valuable type; standing, indeed,
ity," which
directly
echoes
at the head
of the whole
human
genus" (1920, 162). Yet Stoddard also fears
"Nordic vitality" has suffered a two-fold blow:
that in the post-War period,
has left "the men
twisted by hereditary defor
by theWar, which
... at home to
or
devitalized
disease
the breed,"
mity
by hereditary
propagate
are also victims
of immigrant
Nordics
ambition:
"the Nordic
native
American
has been crowded out with amazing rapidity by ... swarming, pro
lific aliens, and after two short generations
he has in many of our urban areas
decimated
own failure to see
almost extinct"
(181; 165). Given
Fitzgerald's
in theWar, his lifelong battle with alcoholism,
tuberculosis and neuras
in the 1930s, "that lack of success of physical sheer
thenia, and his confession,
in
life
made
ironic that he would
trouble,"12 it is somewhat
power
my
appeal
on
to Scottie
the grounds of their shared claim to familial "vitality"Yet "vital
become
action
ity" is precisely
Stoddard's
what
terms,
"the
distinguishes
Nordic
native
"the old American
American"?from
in
aristocracy"?or
and
"vermin,"
it
is
to emphasize
the terms of this distinction
that Fitzgerald means
in his letter.
or not Fitzgerald means
to emphasize
Whether
this distinction
in The
Great Gatsby is another matter; beyond his presentation
of Tom's ideas as not
is the fact that Jay Gatsby
is not identifiably
only hopeless but "pathetic"
on the Queensboro
Other?like
the "modish Negroes"
Bridge or the Greek
simply "not quite white."Yet
again, being "not quite" is per
most
in the liminal space between
haps Gatsby's
troubling aspect. Located
the space of indeterminacy
and diff?rance, Gatsby
categories,
consistently
eludes the terms of both national and textual belonging,
and it is these terms
as Fitzgerald
between
which,
explains to his daughter, enable "distinctions"
Michaelis?but
self
and
other,
white
and
non-white,
American
and
un-American,
to
emerge
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135
136
32.4 [Fall
2005]
CollegeLiterature
with
in the text,
clarity. To this extent, finally, Gatsby is not only amystery
a signifier of indeterminacy
and unrepresentability;
he is also, quite simply, an
obscene
threat to the national "vitality" of which Tom Buchanan
laments the
loss, and which
The Great Gatsby
to celebrate
itself purports
in its final pages.
IV.
near the end of his story, Gatsby dies, the event is deemed
a
When,
term
to
"holocaust"?a
his
link
given
possible
striking
Jewish origins?yet
this is far from the last word
that the text provides about the significance
of
to
text
and
There
is
word
the
the
life
death.
another
closer
end
of
Gatsby's
seems
that
more
nearly
to
serve
as
Gatsby's
an
epitaph:
"obscene
word,
scrawled by some boy with a piece of brick" on the "white steps" of Gatsby's
as a mark of
house?a
word explicitly framed as a defilement
of whiteness,
or
or
or
or
"colored"
"alien"
all of these
impurity.13 "Jew"
"Other"?any
is perhaps most
appear on Gatsby's
steps; but what
significant
reference to "the obscene word" is the illegibility of this word,
outside or beyond
its "vanished" status. For it is
the presentable,
terms might
about Nick's
its location
his obscurity
that the sum of Gatsby's "corruption,"
and indetermina
that literally cannot be read.14
cy, might be expressed by aword
I have attempted, up to this point, to trace both ways in which
the fig
ure of Gatsby might be seen as a problem for the signifying project that bears
fitting
his
name.
the
Drawing
"unutterable
Gatsby's
reader
toward
place
evanescent
his
visions,"
"the
where
meaning
and
dreams,
his
collapses,"
"uncommuni
cable" presence all point to a narrative and linguistic void that is at odds with
and others to make Gatsby into the "governing"
the counter effort by Nick
a
in
into
the
book,
presence
Gatsby's racial
figure of significance. Moreover,
to
link
his
and
his
ethnic
criminal
troubling "off-whiteness,"
indeterminacy,
a
context
in
in
which
racial
ity further obscure the significance of this figure
to American
is seen to be defining and of crucial importance
iden
difference
surprising that as Gatsby's story draws to a close what was
come to be figured as "obscene."
elusive" would
is surprising
in which
is the way
the novel finally ends: with
What
as
erased
Gatsby's obscenity
speedily from the text itself as it is from the front
act of erasure, Gatsby's elusiveness, corruption,
steps of his house. After Nick's
amoment
are forgotten;
in the next moment,
in which
and "off-whiteness"
tity. Thus it is not
once "provokingly
"vanished trees" appear and the "whispers" of a lost continent
is revealed:
ligible, a new vision of Gatsby's significance
[A] s the moon
gradually
Dutch
trees,
rose
I became
sailors'
the
trees
eyes?a
higher
aware
fresh,
that had made
the
of
inessential
the
green
way
old
houses
island
breast
for Gatsby's
of
the
to melt
began
here
that
new
house,
flowered
world.
had
once
become
away
intel
until
once
for
Its vanished
pandered
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in
Will
Barbara
to
whispers
enchanted
last
the
continent,
and
man
moment
of all human
for a transitory
dreams;
greatest
must
in the presence
have held
his breath
of this
an
into
compelled
aesthetic
he
contemplation
neither
stood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with
commensurate
to his
under
something
for wonder.
capacity
as I sat there, brooding on the old unknown world, I thought of
Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of
Daisy's dock. (Fitzgerald 1999,140-41)
And
creates an explicit analogy between
lines, Nick
concluding
as
the gaze of the Dutch
colonists
they first catch sight of the "fresh, green
breast of the new world," and Gatsby's vision of the green light at the end of
are joined in contemplative
"wonder" as
Daisy's dock: Gatsby and the Dutch
come
to
face
their
of
both
face
with
desire;
represent in their
they
objects
"the
and
last
of
all
human
dreams."
This
greatest
contemplation
linkage
reverses Gatsby's trajectory toward unrepresentability
and recasts his desire in
In these famous
terms of a transcendent
national narrative; at this moment,
the problem of
likeness"
what
is
for
disappears,
Gatsby's
Gatsby
"intrinsically like'"
turns out to be nothing
as Benedict
less than "America" itself. If nationalism,
...
an
out
of
Anderson writes, "always loom[s]
immemorial
past and
glidefs]
into a limitless future" (Bhabha 1990,1),
then the final lines of Gatsby estab
"intrinsic
lish
as
"America"
Dutch,
row we
to
will
to
Gatsby,
run
"us"
faster,
of
mode
eternal
across generations
stretches
from
("It
stretch
human
eluded
out
our
us
as a
yearning,
to Gatsby,
the Dutch
then,
arms
but
farther
that's
..
quest
narrative
and hence
no
.").To
that
from
the
matter?tomor
be
sure,
this
pas
"old island" that pre
sage is also haunted by another idea of America?an
cedes the transforming
torn and
gaze of the colonists and that, like Myrtle's
seems
to
and
render
the
ironic
breast,
final,
momentarily
challenge
bloody
transcendent vision of "the fresh, green breast of the new world." This "old"
this lost America,
reminds us again of Kristeva's
notion
of the
America,
in its association with
threatens meaning,
the
especially
loss of the mother's
Yet
is
America
body.
abject
quickly glossed
matters
and obscenity?
here, finally, is the way age, violence,
way before Gatsby's and the colonist's Dream.
seemingly
inevitably?give
is perhaps most
But what
significant about these concluding
paragraphs
abject:
that which
irreparable
over. What
is their
not
the
only in resignifying
Gatsby but in refiguring
this indeterminacy.
that previously
haunted
By situating
in a chain of likeness with
the "Nordic" Dutch,
the text effectively
Gatsby
asserts Gatsby's ties to whiteness
and "erases" his problematically
off-white
as
as
it refashions his "uncommunicable"
status, just
presence
nationally
sig
nificant. Inasmuch as this ending articulates a triumphalist nationalist
credo,
it does so in terms that ring with
the ideology of nativism. The very figure
investment
racialist overtones
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137
138
32.4 [Fall
2005]
CollegeLiterature
of linguistic and national mean
represented a threat to the boundaries
now
as
is
revealed
the
and
inheritor
values, as the
ing
guardian of Americanist
+ Celts."
natural descendent
of the "Teutons, Anglo-Saxons
Gatsby's problem
of being "not quite white"
is finally dismissed as so much "foul dust floating]
who
in the wake
of his dreams"
1999, 6).
(Fitzgerald
V.
Nick
Jay Gatsby, in other words, "turns out all right at the end"?as
in
had promised
the opening
pages of the novel. This essay has
Carraway
the necessity ofthat promise, noting the discrepancy between
the
questioned
novel's elegiac conclusion
and the larger narrative in which Gatsby figures as
critics have made
Other
troubling and suspect, as liminal and unknowable.
to move beyond the inde
similar note of Fitzgerald's desire in his conclusion
and morally
relativistic world he chronicles:
terminate,
skeptical, paranoid,
as
a
his
times
of
of
and
the
transcendence
of his times. Jeffrey
sign
Gatsby
Louis Decker,
for one,
"anxious"
Fitzgerald's
suggests
that the resolution
to
eagerness
retain
"the
of the novel
traditional
narrative
represents
of
virtu
ous ambitions"
American
immigrant
of this narrative in a post-War, nativist
despite the bankruptcy
society: "In death Gatsby is freed from his venal partnership with
a lineage of northern European
gangsters and remembered within
to immi
the fact that it is precisely Gatsby's connection
as
a
to
him
that
has
earlier
threat
Nordic
grant "indeterminacy"
distinguished
Fitter
that
the
of
writes
Chris
(1997, 78; 97).15
Gatsby rep
ending
ideology
resents Fitzgerald's "misty melancholia"
ideal
for a prelapsarian, precapitalist
explorers,"
despite
hard to demystify
that the text has, up to this point, worked
(1998, 14). And
...
A.
Rowe
the
that
"Nick's
Joyce
succinctly captures
paradox
epilogue
keeps
of
alive the very form of that aspiration we have seen issuing in a wasteland
social and moral emptiness"
(1988, 103).
is far from
final transformation
suggest, Gatsby's
critiques
a
as
his harshest critic Chris
inevitable, but rather "willed" by
Fitzgerald who,
to any more critical
Fitter writes, ultimately prefers "tearful patriotic frisson'
or complex
American
culture
vision of contemporary
(1998, 14). Given
As
these
Fitzgerald's own nativist and isolationist leanings in the 1920s, this assessment
seems at least plausible: that The Great Gatsby, for all its d?mystification
of
succumb to a "final reflex of con
American
self-definition, might ultimately
vision
servative reaction" marked
dehistoricized
of
by an essentializing,
it is also significant that Fitzgerald
(19).Yet to my mind,
the process of this final transformation
through Nick's
to
erasure of the "obscene word" on Gatsby's front steps. By calling attention
national
belonging
deliberately marks
Nick's
act, Fitzgerald
text?Gatsby's
seems
apotheosis
to be
into
suggesting
the carrier of
that the crucial
the American
turn
in the
Dream?takes
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Will
Barbara
of "vanishing"
that lies at the heart
place by means of the same mechanism
of his obscene
in
the text lies precise
If
the
threat
of
indeterminacy.
Gatsby
in
in
from
and social or racial
the
which
he
"vanishes"
way
categorization
ly
erasure
of the obscene word stages a similar process,
then Nick's
signification,
the obscene
making
"vanish"
word
is purified
to cancel
in order
out
the obscenity
of
itself reasserts the
by this gesture, but the gesture
in the text. Put "under erasure"
Gatsby
in the Derridean
primacy of indeterminacy
the absence
that allows the text's ulti
becomes
sense, Gatsby's obscenity
mate presence
to emerge: the presence of generations
of Nordic American
in Nick's
united for a moment
vision of
transhistorical
settlers, mythically
vanishing.
essence.
national
is evident in the only
Ironically, the same play of absence and presence
use
two other instances in the text of Fitzgerald's
of the word "obscene." The
first use of the term occurs
in response
when
lets
a "violent
out
during the party atMyrtle's New York apartment,
to a question about her affection for her husband Myrtle
an
answer:
obscene"
and
answer
that
remains
nevertheless
similar but even more
in the text (Fitzgerald 1999,29). A
unrepresented
telling
use of the term appears in a scene excised from the novel's final version, a
scene in which Nick hears a comment Daisy makes
to Gatsby at his party:
"We're
in your
here
together
garden,
Jay?your
seem
does
possible,
out Daisy
suddenly.
sible.Will
you have somebody
true. Look
really
For
a moment
was
trying
versation
"It doesn't
it up
under
I thought
to drown
out
that
four
women
garden,"
it? I can't
believe
look up in the encyclopedia
broke
it's pos
and see if it's
G."
this was
from
beautiful
casual
us, from
were
I realized
chatter?then
herself,
carrying
a
particularly
on
at a table
that
just
she
con
obscene
behind.
(Fitzgerald 2000, 85)
delete this passage from Gatsby, it clearly prefig
Although
Fitzgerald would
ures the extant scene in the final version in which Nick
erases "the obscene
word"
from the steps of Gatsby's house. As with
the latter, Nick's
reference
to "a particularly
is inextricably
obscene
conversation"
linked to the
problem of Gatsby's signifying status. Daisy's effort to make sense of her pres
here
ent by making Gatsby legible and identifiable, by making
him signify ("Look
as
an
it up under G") is reinterpreted
effort to repress, "to drown
by Nick
out from us, from herself, a particularly
conversation
obscene
that four
were carrying on at table just behind." Gatsby "turns out all right"
in this scene precisely because Nick
and the reader cannot hear underneath
lan
Daisy's words the "obscene
language" that has no place in this text?the
women
guage
classes,
of drunken,
of
elite white
sexually-liberated
immigrants
social order
and
blacks?all
that both Nick
women,
threatening,
of criminals,
as we
and the Buchanans
of the working
have
seen,
to
inhabit. Daisy's
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the
act
139
140
32.4 [Fall
2005]
CollegeLiterature
in short, represses Gatsby's link to the obscene
of "whitewashing,"
in order to
reveal him as someone
and
Yet to
white.
socially significant
unquestionably
in this instance or in the ultimate
drown out the obscene,
of
conclusion
as
was
well aware, to foreground
the power
Gatsby, is also,
Fitzgerald himself
to disrupt and undo normative
structures of social, national,
"
and linguistic signification.
We have the vitality left," claims Fitzgerald to his
seems to tell
of his own novel
indeterminacy
daughter, but the anxious
of the obscene
another
story.
Notes
the F Scott Fitzgerald manuscript collection provided
Library and the F Scott Fitzgerald Literary Trust.
to cite from
Permission
by Princeton University
1Undated note
by F. Scott Fitzgerald. From the F. Scott Fitzgerald Archive,
Princeton
Collections,
University Library
Special
2
Gatsby's vanishing during the encounter with Tom in Chapter IV precipitates
one
of
gives
way
the
oddest
structural
to the voice
past. This
is the
only
sights. Jordan's
to make
briefly
logue
rhaging
the
the
thought;
into silence?is
what
vision.
faded
novel,
as
in The
Great
first-person
text
her
at the
end
of Chapter
IV
serves
no
less
than Nick's,
fails
ulti
voice,
remains
dishonest"
"incurably
(Flitzgerald
as she
her own
blindnesses,
(84) with
perceptual
own
that she misread
Nick's
honesty.
Jordan
of
or of
attenuation
graphic
or
in suspension
"She
stylistic
ismore
states
and
only
to be
"And
(72).
able
stylistically
as his
"voice
of
dialogue
Emily
who
most
often
"speaks"
she doesn't
to understand.
We'd
he
understand,"
sit for
hours?"
was
"What
in dashes:
1997).
"It's
in his bedroom,
laments
(86).
the
Dickinson,
liberal in her use of the dash (see Crumbley
it is Jay Gatsby
to?"
(22),
in dia
of hemor
asks (Fitzgerald 1999, 14), the dash performing
Gatsby,
used
a "break"
in the process
in the text.
mark
"I just meant?,"
Wilson
George
most
of
narration
the
appear
throughout
in Fitzgerald's
in
general;
writings
perhaps
I try
can't?when
suddenly
and Daisy's
is not
narration
thing, old sport," he remarks upon finally finding Daisy
funniest
Daisy,
the
narration
of Gatsby
story
ability to keep his own subject in
signification
the most
prevalent
also
among American writers,
Yet
the
but
Nick's
true
ponders.
do
they
of
sign
Daisy
the
question
off." Dashes
over
intelligible,
Nick's
that word we?,"
when
the
narrating
in which
novel
limited
1995,
63): a "hard,
person"
in the end when
she admits
reveals
3 To be
mark
sure, the dash?the
or
the narrative,
control
momentary
more
Gatsby
to "correct"
mately
of
Baker
and seems to impugn Nick's
controlled by Nick,
his
shifts
of Jordan
in
place
later
'"At
the
"I
about
least?'
a series of beginnings. 'Why, I thought?why,
look here, old sport'"
as
himself
Nick
notes,
(65). Gatsby's speech,
struggles awkwardly to mimic the "old
He fumbled with
of East
euphemisms"
studied
ingly
in
the
dash
of Gatsby's
the midst
to the
terms
reader
could
ofWASP
of
be
the
a
man"
represent
painstak
missed
absurd"
(40) .Yet
"just
being
according
to
to
status
in
his
effort
social
lay claim
"certify"
language,
social belonging,
the repeated
of the dash reminds
appearance
Egg;
insouciance
attenuation
said
to work
his
"old
sport"
and
"Oxford
to Nick,
that,
or
failure
against
"the
of Gatsby's
presentable,"
effort.
Like
marking
an obscene
textual
word,
moments
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the
of
Barbara
Will
moments
effacement,
in which
in the
his
indeterminacy
is perhaps
telling
text,
that Gatsby
his car as he greets Nick
4
In
the
language
the dash
balances
silence.
The
absence
Gatsby's
emphasizes
a "formless
with
grace"
one morning
Buchanan
text,
into
fades
simply
literal
and
on
of
sign
it
presence;
the "dashboard"
of
(51).
alludes
to
carelessly
'"The
of
Rise
the
Coloured
Empires' by thisman Goddard"; according toMatthew Bruccoli, "Fitzgerald did not
want to provide the correct title and author" (Fitzgerald 1995, 183). However
it is
to
interesting
about
speculate
"mistake."
Buchanan's
"Goddard"
to screen
refer
may
writer and playwright Charles William Goddard, mentioned
by Bruccoli as a possi
ble source for the figure of Gatsby himself (see Bruccoli 1981,184 n.). More likely,
Fitzgerald may have been indirectly citing the work of Henry Herbert Goddard,
author
teens
the
during
and
imbecile,"
school
to
contributor
of
tests.
IQ
to
resemblance
striking
ter's claim
defective
5
that
"tide"
in his
Lothrop
peoples.
a similar
makes
of "Nordics"
category
races
"Nordic"
claim
were
about
he
a
bear
lat
a
by
to include
hesitates
I am
Nordics.
a
the
as the
threatened
actively
when
Daisy
behavior
as well
types,
being
was
of
director
defective
racial
is that we're
idea
are
and
you
'
and you are and? After an infinitesimal hesitation he included Daisy with a slight
nod" [Fitzgerald 1999, 14]). As Michaels points out, whiteness, for Tom, operates
a
through
ence
and
of
system
rigid
inclusion
and
in order
alike;
femininity
who
isn't "quite"
anyone
('"This
of
criminal
Goddard
Terman,
and
gifted
schema
"the
deficiency,
children.
"gifted"
Lewis
as
on
views
Stoddard's
superior
Tom
and
series
Goddard's
of non-white
Ironically,
her
the
on mental
of works
"defective"
training
same
educational
the
Stanford/Binet
twenties
and
for
one
exclusion,
the
threatened
to
category
sustain
see Brodkin
the twentieth
century,
7 In a
biographical
"Gatz"
search,
Thus
the reader of Gatsby is faced with
noted,
may
Gatsby,
prototype
be
already
for
his
son's
103).
to be
appears
as a
germanicized
As
also
esp.
(1998,
name.
"Gatz"
by ethnic
it must
differ
exclude
identifiable.
6 For a discussion of
Jewish assimilation in the United
of
itself
appears
and
a
both
form
the possibility
as Gentile
"passing"
own
self-transformation
States during the first half
and
Jewish
of
a Gentile
the Yiddish
"Gets."
that Henry Gatz, father of Jay
more
is thus much
than
has
a
of
been
previously
significant
acknowl
edged.
8The
text
layered
emphasize
accompanies
Hubert
gests
the
famous
masquerades
to be someone
and
masquerade
to
Auerbach
Christie
as a wife,
she
and while
(Crim
is consistent
for
pretense:
of
the
early
she wears
the
and Houston
with
name,
nineteenth
name
1989,
than
83).There
likely,
Mrs.
husband,
is also
in the
who
Chrystie,
more
century.
of her
names
other
Mrs.
example,
"whose
party,
Gatsby's
Minstrels
is not"
name
of Gatsby's
complexity
that
sug
Chrystie
she pretends
"the prince
of something whom we called Duke" at Gatsby's party (Fitzgerald 1999, 51), aswell
as the novel Simon Called Peter thatMyrtle Wilson keeps in her apartment (25).Most
telling, for our purposes, is the name "Meyer Wolfshiem," whose odd spelling has
rarely been noticed by readers (seeMichaels
[1995], above), but which represents a
marked
variant
from
the German
Wilson
when
he
"corrects"
"Wolfsheim."
the
text
One
could
argue?as
for his
1941
edition
does
Edmund
(see Bruccoli's
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141
142 College
Literature
32.4[Fall
2005]
"Introduction,"
simply
as
spelling
deliberately
Gatz."
1995,
Fitzgerald
in his
in error
was
liv)?that
spelling
sounds
that
9 Clinton
American
that
troubles,
Stoddard Burr
10
turn
Fitzgerald's
youthful
to Thomas
letter
to have
out
is filled
correspondence
he writes,
Boyd,
one
enormous
some
tives, or philistines"
University
than
context,
identity.
(1973, 273), whose
work
to date
and
of
social
the
It is
origin.
reveals
on
ideo
adopted by intellectuals of the 1920s.
logical positions
undated
rather
"James
in this
(and,
(or German-Jewish)
analysis
speller,
see this
also
as the name
"foreign"
that masks
sustained
could
uncertainty
looks
in Higham
quoted
the most
offers
nativism
ethnic
and
a name
confuses;
careless
notoriously
one
However,
to a Germanic
"Jewish"), but it does not conform
a name
same
the
emphasizing
is a name
that
"Wolfshiem"
a
Fitzgerald,
of "Wolfshiem."
"All
with
these
a discussion
For
of how
like Majorca
consump
Jews,
Princeton
Special Collections,
attitudes
Fitzgerald's
In an
sentiments.
places
lepers,
disadvantage?bugs,
(F. Scott Fitzgerald Archive,
Library).
similar
'marvellous'
toward
and
ethnic
racial difference changed over the course of his Ufe, seeMargolies
(1997).
11Undated note to Scottie from F. Scott
Fitzgerald Archive, Special Collections,
Princeton University Library. In a letter dated 17November
1936, Fitzgerald further
this
explicates
ters of
"Park Avenue
typology:
men
'up-and-coming'
girls
a way,
in
and,
are hard,
the
aren't
the
they? Usually
inevitable
(Fitzgerald 1965,17).
12Undated note from F. Scott
Fitzgerald Archive, Special Collections,
University
daugh
that
of
offspring
type"
Princeton
Library.
13
Ironically, it is a form of whiteness
notices
the word
188). Yet
the moon
while
serves
also
moonlight
"essential"
vision
of
houses"
"inessential
of Long
Island
this obscenity: Nick
first
in the moonlight"
1995,
(Fitzgerald
clearly
visible
link to "off-white"
Gatsby's
obscenity,
make
may
the opposite
and
Gatsby
that illuminates
out
it "stood
because
several
purpose
the
explorers
In short,
(189).
Sound
it illuminates
later when
lines
Dutch
that
lies
the
the
underneath
like
the moon,
sun
the
and
a force
in the firmament?notably,
the eyes of Dr.T.J.
of
Eckleburg?is
objects
in this text.
illumination
and obscurity
14 It is
to consider
in this context,
the striking
between
this
interesting,
parallels
scene
scene
in Gatsby
in J.D. Salinger's
in the Rye, where
The Catcher
and a similar
a deaf-mute,
and becoming
thus rendering
of going West
Holden
Caulfield's
fantasy
other
both
himself
makes
this
fantasy
tering
on
scrawled
by
into
and
stick me
they
under
the
that
obscene
and
Phoebe's
school.
visible?"Fuck
indeterminacy.
Holden's
restaging
repeatedly
stairwell, in the museum)
Caulfield'
literal
both
obscenity
sister
of his
the wall
of disappearance
is shattered when
and uncomprehending,
both unintelligible
obscenity
Unlike
if to mock
you"?as
Catcher
Moreover,
encounter
with
the
and
I have
a tombstone
Catcher
Holden's
this
emphasizes
obscene
and
word
shat
the
(in
that "if I ever die,
until he finally is forced to acknowledge
in a cemetery,
sees an
he
Gatsby,
all,
it'll
'Holden
say
on it, and then what year Iwas born and what year I died, and then right
it'll
say 'Fuck
word
ceding
the novel's
Phoebe.
To
this
you'"
in Catcher
final
extent,
(1951,264).
occurs
at
Like
precisely
and
redemption
scene
of
both
texts
seem
to be
the
Gatsby,
however,
the
same moment
the
between
reconciliation
emphasizing
encounter
in
the
text,
Holden
transitional
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with
pre
and
necessity
Will
Barbara
of
a confrontation
the
with
in
obscene
their
to
efforts
a final,
assert
redemptive
vision.
15Michaels
that
establish
this
most
obvious
example"
"Americanism
now
would
from the American
be
the
literary
as
that somany
citizenship
and Nick
novel
to
works
Gatsby's
phrase?'just
it" (1995,
In its
extends
41).
nevertheless
understood
the
use
end?to
The
writes,
definition
Tom
between
differences
Michaels
worldview,
a new
of
in
Nick
the bond
"the
emerge:
. . are
Nordicism,
of a" Nordicist"
on
focusing
to
and Nick'.
Tom's
Ironizing
celebration
point,
ultimately
lineage
Tom
between
personal.'
final
a related
makes
enables
Great
more
something
is "the
Gatsby
of "Americanism"
in the
than
and
1920s:
different
aliens had so easily achieved"
(47).
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