Gatsby: False Prophet of the American Dream Author(s): Roger L. Pearson Reviewed work(s): Source: The English Journal, Vol. 59, No. 5 (May, 1970), pp. 638-642+645 Published by: National Council of Teachers of English Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/813939 . Accessed: 08/01/2012 20:55

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http://www.jstor.org Gatsby: False Prophet of the American Dream

Roger L. Pearson

Department of English Providence College Providence, Rhode Island

T may do well to preface this paper man it was "the word Democratic, the with some remarksconcerning the con- word En Masse." cept of the Americandream. The Ameri- F. Scott Fitzgerald has come to be can dream,or myth, is an ever recurring associatedwith this concept of the Amer- theme in American literature, dating ican dreammore so than any other writer back to some of the earliest colonial of the twentieth century. In fact, the writings. Briefly defined, it is the belief American dream has been for Fitzgerald that every man, whatever his origins, what the theme of the separatepeace has may pursue and attain his chosen goals, been for Ernest Hemingway-the focal be they political, monetary, or social. It point or building block for much, if not is the literary expressionof the concept all, of his work. However, Fitzgerald's of America: the land of opportunity. uniqueexpression of the Americandream This motif has found its voice in such lacks the optimism, the sense of fulfill- diverse men of letters as William Brad- ment, so evident in the expressionsof his ford and Walt Whitman, St. Jean de predecessors. Crevecoeur and Ralph Waldo Emerson, Cast in the frameworkof a metaphor, Thomas Jefferson and BenjaminFrank- the aforementioned exponents of the lin. American dream were the Old Testa- The varying shadow that these men ment prophets predicting the coming of cast serve as testimony to the myriad a golden age, complete with a messiah forms which this theme assumes. To who was to be the epitome of the word Bradford and his fellow Puritans, the "American."Gatsby is Fitzgerald's an- American dreamwas embodiedin spirit- swer. To Fitzgeraldthe long prophesied ual fulfillment; to Jefferson it was the American dream had its fulfillment in flower of political fulfillment springing the "orgiastic"post World War I period from the seed of the perfectability of known as "the Roaring Twenties." He man; de Crevecoeur and Franklin was the self appointedspokesman for the preached the gospel of the self-made "Jazz Age," a term he takes credit for man. Emerson saw the American dream coining, and he gave it its arch-high as the opportunity "to ask questions for priest and prophet, Jay Gatsby, in his which man was made." And to Whit- novel The Great Gatsby.l

638 FALSE PROPHET OF THE AMERICAN DREAM 639

Gatsby is aptly suited for the role of interpretations. The former is too imagi- arch-high priest because he is the persona native, while the latter is too short- and chief practitioner of the hedonism sighted. Concerning the approach adopt- that marked this period. He is also its ed in "The Gospel of Gatsby," it ap- unwitting prophet, for his failure and pears, for purposes of completeness, that destruction serve as a portent for the the lobster has been fitted to the shell eclipse of the American dream, and the rather than the shell to the lobster. Tan- passing away of an era. It is with this ner's interpretation is too orthodox and prophet image that this paper will chiefly formulistic. You cannot superimpose an deal. equation over this or any novel and come out with a pat answer. T HE suggestion that The Great Gats- I believe that Fitzgerald is much like by may contain religious implications Hemingway in his symbolic technique in is not a new idea. Such an interpretation The Great Gatsby, in that he projects a has been thoroughly discussed in an series of variations in his imagery so as to article entitled "The Gospel of Gatsby," achieve a cumulative effect. To be sure, by Bernard Tanner, who sees the novel as will be later pointed out in this paper, as a "jazz parody" of the Gospel of St. Fitzgerald does, at times, become ortho- John dealing with the life of Christ. dox and even formulistic to a degree in Gatsby is characterized as an "inverted The Great Gatsby. However, he achieves Christ" in this drama, and the rest of the a totality of expression by introducing dramatis personae are neatly fitted in, motifs that give the reader a slightly dif- perhaps too neatly, to this allegorical fering perspective of Gatsby, while al- framework. To wit: Nick Carraway is ways moving in a specific direction. Nicodemus, the Pharisee; Dan Cody is Hence, Gatsby is no shallow stereotype. St. John the Baptist with his femme Instead, he has depth and complexity. fatale, Salome, in the guise of Ella Kaye; and Meyer Wolfsheim is St. Peter com- T HERE is a religious design in The plete with three denials. These charac- Great Gatsby, and it has its basis in ters, plus others, act out their parts in Jay Gatsby himself. Nick Carraway, the the gospel, carrying out such events as narrator and interpreter of the novel, de- the marriage feast at Cana, various para- scribes Gatsby thus: bles, Judas' betrayal, and Christ's cruci- fixion (English Journal, September 1965). The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Still yet another critic, A. E. Dyson, Egg, Long Island, sprang from his in his article, "The Great Gatsby: Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God-a if it Thirty-six Years After," adopts the op- phrase which, in that he maintains that means anything, means just that-and posite extreme, His Father's Dr. T. "is the he must be about business, J. Eckleburg only religious the service of a and mere- reference" in this novel.2 vast, vulgar, tricious beauty.3 I can accept neither of these two It should be noted that Gatsby is "a son of not the God of divine 1 From a letter to Maxwell Perkins, May 1931. God," however, Fitzgerald dates the "Jazz Age" from "the sup- love, but the God of material love- pression of the riots on May Day to the crash Mammon. Rather than an "inverted of the stock market in 1929-almost one exactly Christ" or God, Gatsby is a perverted decade." one who is dedicated to the 2A. E. Dyson, "The Great Gatsby: Thirty- God; physi- six Years After," in Arthur Mizener, ed., Twen- tieth Century Views: F. Scott Fitzgerald (En- 3F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby glewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall), p. 113. (New York: Scribner's Sons, 1953), p. 99. 640 ENGLISH JOURNAL cal rather than the spiritual world. Gats- factual imitation of some Hotel de Ville in with a by has come to espouse the gospel of the Normandy, tower on one American dream. His existence side, spanking new under a thin beard corrupted of raw and a is founded on a a delusion, and he ivy, marble swimming lie, and than acres of terms this monstrous lie "God's truth" pool, more forty lawn and It was man- in to Nick his garden. Gatsby's relating past. sion (p. 5). His hand ordered divine right suddenly This has overtones of Babel retribution to stand by. "I am the son description of some in the Middle with its tower when viewed in the con- wealthy people tent that it is "who West-all dead now. I was brought up inhabited by people in America but educated at Oxford, never knew each other's names" (p. 40). because all my ancestors have been ed- Also, "confused and intriguing sounds" ucated there for many years. It is a emanate from it during Gatsby's parties family tradition"(p. 65). (p. 51). Fitzgerald has Nick describe one such as a "bizarre and tumult- While relates his Nick party Gatsby "past," uous scene" terminating in a "harsh, dis- wonders if "there wasn't something a cordant din of violent confusion" (p. little sinister about him, after all" (p. 65). continues: 54). Gatsby The beauty of this image of Gatsby's house is that it is a dual one. It seems that "My family all died and I came into a good deal of money." Fitzgerald has created a twentieth-century "After that I lived like a young rajah in replica-"a factual imitation"-of Mil- all the capitals of Europe-Paris, Venice, ton's Pandemonium. The image is further Rome,-collecting jewels, chiefly rubies, solidified in that Mammon was its chief hunting big game, painting a little, architect and builder. The that for and to lights things myself only, trying decorate the mansion, the expensiveness sad that had hap- forget something very of its appointments, the opulence of its pened to me long ago"4 library, all contribute to this image. Gatsby continues his yarn, including in it his war heroics and the decorations FITZGERALD appearsdeliberately to and adulation that he received contribute to the God-like image of allegedly him from the for his deeds. It is evident, even to Nick, Gatsby by withholding that is a self-deluded fraud novel, while surrounding him with an Gatsby living aura of Some believe him to have in a world of shams. His lie especially myth. reflects his materialism. He is Mammon been a double spy during the war, others that he once killed a man, while some see resurrected by the hedonism of the 1920s. him as a criminal lord of the underworld, in other Fitzgerald introduces a supporting dealing bootleg liquor, among for the Mammonism of in things. Our first sight of Gatsby comes image Gatsby late one when Nick sees him the of his house which serves, night description from the shadows of his man- among other things, as the temple of his emerge Philistinism. sion. Nick conjectures that Gatsby's ap- pearance gave the suggestion that he had The one house on my right was a "come out to determine what share was colossal affair by any standard-it was a his of our local heavens" (p. 21). Gatsby's arm is stretched seaward, and Nick sights 4Ibid., pp. 65-66. In Fitzgerald's "Echoes of it to the at the end of the he discusses this of along green light Jazz Age" just problem Daisy Buchanan's dock. When Nick wandering nouveau riche in Europe. He des- cribes it as "a whole race going hedonistic, de- looks back to Gatsby, he has disappeared. ciding on pleasure." Gatsby has come and gone as an appari- FALSE PROPHET OF THE AMERICAN DREAM 641

tion, leaving Nick "alone in the unquiet self? There are strong overtones of T. darkness" (p. 22). S. Eliot's Waste Land here, and right- A principal image in The Great Gats- fully so, for the world of Gatsby is a by is the valley of ashes, presided over spiritual wasteland-materialistic and by the ubiquitous Dr. T. J. Eckleburg. mortal, and by its very nature doomed This wasteland lies between West Egg to ashes. One critic has noted that Fitz- and New York City. It is described thus: gerald may have had the Valley of Hin- non in mind when he created the valley This is a valley of ashes-a fantastic of ashes.6 Hinnon is the Old Testament farm where ashes grow like wheat into name for the outside the walls and city dump ridges hills and grotesque gardens; of Jerusalem. Once fertile, it was defiled where ashes take the forms of houses the of false and turned and and smoke by worship gods chimneys rising and, into ashes God in his wrath. This finally, with a transcendent effort, of by men who move and al- analysis resolves the relationship between ash-gray dimly Dr. the of and ready crumbling through the powdery Eckleburg, valley ashes, air. Occasionally a line of gray cars Gatsby. Nick, in reflecting back on crawl along an invisible track, gives out Gatsby's legacy, states: "it is what preyed a ghastly creak, and comes to rest, and on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the immediately the ash-gray men swarm wake of his dreams that temporarily with leaden and stir an up spades up closed out my interest in the abortive impenetrable cloud, which screens their sorrows and short-winded elations of obscure from operations your sight. men" (p. 2). The valley of ashes is the re- sult of Jay Gatsby's testament, the dust But the gray land the spasms above and of a corrupted and perverted American of bleak dust which drift endlessly over and like its it it, after a moment, the dream; biblical counterpart, you perceive, has its association with the of eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg (p. 23). worshiping a false god, Mammon, incarnate in his Several interpretations have been of- son, Gatsby. fered as explanations of this scene. Crit- ics have noted the similarities between contributing factor in this assess- A ment of the role of is the eyes of Dr. Eckleburg and Fitz- Gatsby pro- of the vided by Meyer Wolfsheim, president gerald's description anonymous of "The Swastika Owl Eyes who first appears in Gatsby's Holding Company" and later at his It is and the man who fixed the 1919 World library graveside. Series. It is an often stated that Owl Eyes who murmurs the eulogy of premise "The son-of-a-bitch" at it takes evil to recognize evil. We have poor Gatsby's such an instance here. Wolfsheim 176). William Goldhurst be- just grave (p. claims to have "made" and re- lieves that Dr. Eckleburg's presence in the Gatsby, novel is to some fers to him as a "man of fine breeding" "symbolize implacable This is an indictment This has credence, for (p. 72). quite deity."• George from a man who wears cuff Wilson, Myrtle's husband, refers to Dr. coming as the of God. "God sees links from the "finest specimens of hu- Eckleburg eyes man molars" everything," Wilson tells Michaelis when (p. 73). on his conversation with Gatsby also has a perverted or mis- commenting taken sense of what constitutes character. her 160). Myrtle concerning infidelity (p. He refers to Wolfsheim as a But what of the valley of ashes it- Meyer

5 William Goldhurst, F. Scott Fitzgerald and 6Patricia Kane, "Place of Abominations: A His Contemporaries (Cleveland: World Pub- Reading of the Valley of Ashes, English Lan- lishing Co., 1963), p. 37 guage Notes, I (1964) 291-295. 642 ENGLISH JOURNAL

"smart man," and he also lauds Jordan standing there in the moonlight-watch- Baker as a woman who "wouldn't do ing over nothing (p. 146). anything that wasn't all right" (p. 72). The Gatsby's gospel of hedonism is re- following afternoon, Gatsby, with the of his fills flected in his house, wild parties, cloth- help chauffeur, his pneu- matic mattress and starts ing, roadster, and particularly in his bla- for his swim- tant wooing of another man's wife. Dai- ming pool. a rather soiled and sy, cheapened figure, shouldered the mattress and is Gatsby's ultimate goal in his concept Gatsby of the American dream. he started for the pool. Once he stopped However, and shifted it a and the chauf- falls victim to his own He little, preachings. feur asked him if he needed help, but comes to believe himself omniscient he shook his head and in a moment -above the restrictions of and society disappeared among the yellowing trees morality. His presumption extends to a (pp. 161-2). belief that he can even transcend the natural boundaries placed upon human Shortly thereafter, in the vicinity of beings. He will win back Daisy by re- four o'clock, the chauffeur hears the capturing the past. shots, fired by an "ashen fantastic figure," and Gatsby lies dead, a victim of his "Can't the he own absurd aspirations. Wilson is one of repeat past?" [Gatsby] those men" who inhabit the cried incredulously. "Why of course "ash-gray of a you can!" valley ashes. He is product of that "I'm going to fix everything just the way "foul dust" that gathers in the wake of it was before," he said, nodding de- Gatsby's perverted dream. terminedly. "She'llsee" (p. 111). The passion and crucifixion imagery is perhaps too unmistakable here; how- it does have its desired Like Milton's Mammon in Paradise Lost, ever, effect, is to achieve his ends because it casts Gatsby in the role of a Gatsby going messianic its sheer materialistic means, rejected figure through through Biblical allusion. He had come alive to through the power that he thinks he com- mands from his wealth. us, "delivered suddenly from the womb of his to For a time, the- purposeless splendor," only Gatsby's particular fail in his mission bears fruit, in that he is (p. 79). ology accepted is by his followers and Daisy, but ulti- Jay Gatsby's eulogy spoken by his of Owl Eyes-"The poor son-of-a-bitch." mately congregation party-goers was the bastard of a hedonistic deserts him. Gatsby's abandonment is Gatsby summed Nick at the funeral when age, spawned by it and killed by it. up by at one surmised: "his he states, came" 175). Nick, point, imag- "Nobody (p. ination had never It is at the death of Gatsby that Fitz- really accepted... becomes formulistic and orthodox his parents at all."7 gerald The sole monument to the world of in his symbolism. The rejected and soon to be betrayed Gatsby stands alone under (Continued on page 645) Daisy's window, keeping a vain vigil over his shattered dream. 7Ibid., p. 99. In a short story, "Absolution," 1924, Rudolph Miller confesses the sin of not believing that he was his parents' son. When He [Gatsby] put his hands in his coat and turned back to his questioned by the priest as to why, he replies pockets eagerly "just pride." scrutiny of the house, as though my Both "Absolution" and "Winter Dreams," presence marred the sacredness of the 1922,foreshadow much of what is in The Great vigil. So I walked away and left him Gatsby. POETRY IN THE CLASSROOM 645 tive: he was quick, sure, competent. This which Flick is buried, the symbolic feeling of success is short-lived in the death which he has experienced, while poem, however, just as it was in Flick's "kind of coiled" suggests a spring, a life. trap, the act of being entwined in such The following stanza is a complete a coil. Flick Webb is trapped in a contrast in tone. The tragic waste of a world to which he does not belong. He young man's ability is sharply felt. Flick is trapped between the glory of his never carried his ability any farther, past, and the futility of his future, some- nor did he develop any other skill. "He where between adolescence ("he sips never learned a trade; he just sells gas, lemon cokes") and adulthood ("and /checks oil, and changes flats." The just smokes thin cigars"). He is even out is an important word. The speaker is of touch with the present. "He seldom again telling us that Flick doesn't belong speaks to Mae." She is representative of here. This time he is belittling the occu- a world of people who have a place in pation; in stanza two, as already pointed their society; Flick is an alien to such out, he raised Flick above his surround- a world. In the luncheonette he "just ings. Resigned to his present station in sits and nods/Beyond her face towards life, Flick satisfies himself with remind- bright applauding tiers/ Of Necco Wafer ing others of his past glory. In light of Nibs, and Juju Beads." Again the word his present surroundings, these reminders just appears. He doesn't strive to find are somewhat ludicrous. They remember his place in the world; he simply satisfies anyway what he once did, and that doesn't himself with memories of the past, of seem to matter now, just as it makes no the crowds cheering him on from the difference to the lug wrench that "his bleachers (the "bright applauding tiers"). hands are fine and nervous," these same The reader is acutely aware of the rest hands that were once his passport to of the image: the crowds, like candy, success. It just doesn't matter anymore. were rather sweet to him at the time, This sense of futility reaches its cli- but rather worthless in the long run. max in the final stanza as the reader Here sit the rows of candy as a mockery learns that even off the job Flick just of that past. It is a tragic realization that hangs around the luncheonette. He is Flick has been cut off in the prime of "grease-grey and kind of coiled," an his life. And beyond the basketball court, important choice of images. Grease-grey is it not also tragic that so many of our suggests the mechanic's grease under youth today face this same fate?

Gatsby: False Prophet of the American Dream (Continued from page 642)

Gatsby's ministry is "that huge inco- own warped idealism and false set of herent failure of a house" that he left values. The American dream is not to behind. And his epitaph on this monu- be a reality, in that it no longer exists, ment is an obscene word, scribbled in except in the minds of men like Gatsby, chalk, by some neighborhood boy. whom it destroys in their espousal and As a prophet of the American dream, relentless pursuit of it. The American Gatsby fails-miserably-a victim of his dream is, in reality, a nightmare.