Tag: Daisy Buchanan

Gatsby the creator

Throughout The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby is presented as something of an artist or creator.  Like the many musicians, actors and stage performers who attend his parties, Gatsby himself aspires to give life to his imaginings, not for the stage or the screen, but to bring the humble reality of his life into accord with the audacity of his dreams.

At Nick’s first Gatsby party, he observes a solitary Gatsby, in the midst of unbridled gayety, taking in his creation:        

“The nature of Mr. Tostoff’s composition eluded me, because just as it began my eyes fell on Gatsby, standing alone on the marble steps and looking from one group to another with approving eyes…I wondered if the fact that he was not drinking helped to set him off from his guests, for it seemed to to me that he grew more correct as the fraternal hilarity increased….When the “Jazz History of the World” was over girls were putting their heads on men’s shoulder in a puppyish, convivial way, girls were swooning backward playfully into men’s arms, even into groups knowing that someone would arrest their falls – but no one swooned backward on Gatsby and no French bob touched Gatsby’s shoulder and no singing quartets were formed with Gatsby’s head for one link.” (p.55) 

Gatsby stands apart from his creation, controlled and observing.  The scene meets his approval because it is a scene meant to seduce Daisy in the manner it has enraptured so many of his party guests.  No doubt Gatsby has dreamt this moment hundreds of times and now it has spilled forth from his imagination into reality.

At the second party, Gatsby is once again presented as a figure who can conjure a scene and make material that which inhabits his thoughts.  In this instance, however, Gatsby not only makes manifest the products of his own imagination, but he renders real the ‘ghosts’ of his guests’ imaginations as well.  

Showing Tom and Daisy around the party Gatsby points out figures they might find familiar:

“‘You must see the faces of many people you’ve heard about….Perhaps you know that lady.’  Gatsby indicated a gorgeous, scarcely human orchid of a woman who sat in state under a white plum tree.  Tom and Daisy stared, with that peculiarly unreal feeling that accompanies the recognition of a hitherto ghostly celebrity of the movies.” (p. 111)

Here Gatsby, like an artist, not only connects others to his dreams, but reaches into their consciousness and pulls apparitions out of their imaginations as well.  He makes these scenes real for his party guests, but they retain an aspect of unreality, appearing transitory, like spectral projections of their imaginations. 

“Almost the last thing I remember was standing with Daisy and watching the moving picture director and his Star.  They were still under the white plum tree and their faces were touching except for a pale thin ray of moonlight between.  It occurred to me that he had been very slowly bending toward her all evening to attain this proximity, and even while I watched I saw him stoop one ultimate degree and kiss at her cheek.” (p. 113)

Gatsby’s parties evoke the magic and romanticism stored in the hearts of his guests.  Everything about him and his world is an act of creation and retains an aura of artificiality intended to inspire awe and give life to his longings and the desires of those who surround him.  He lulls those around him into an “aesthetic contemplation” and creates for them “something commensurate” with their “capacity for wonder.” (p. 189)

Gatsby at 100: “Romantic Readiness”

At the outset of The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway reveals what he most admired about Jay Gatsby “was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person….”  Of course, at many points during the course of the story, Gatsby’s romantic illusions are met with a mixture of disbelief and mild amusement by Nick.  Gatsby’s “gift for hope” and “romantic readiness” is seen as a character flaw, a naive hindrance to fitting in among the East’s leading elites.  Yet, time and again, Gatsby’s visions manifest themselves in ways that not only serve his purpose, but are met with great enthusiasm by those around him.  The people around Gatsby become willing players in the romantic drama he’s staging.  Nick, despite his momentary reservations, becomes the most willing participant of all, sticking with Gatsby until the end, even when others have fled or forgotten him.  In this way, the people who attend Gatsby’s parties, who inhabit his romantic illusion, are his own creation.  They, too, possess a sort of romantic readiness that finds its reality in the gayety and riotousness of the parties Gatsby throws and the thrilling mystery he represents.  They are drawn like moths to the light of his romantic vision, but soon disperse when that vision is extinguished.                      

According to Nick, Gatsby possesses “some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life….”  Gatsby is the embodiment of this emerging American trait.  The rules and norms of the old social order are on the decline.  It is no longer the case that a person is born into life circumstances and a social rank from which he cannot transcend.  Gatsby can dream a future and he can make it happen.  In order to win back the love of Daisy, Gatsby mimics the elites into whose orbit he has positioned himself.  But Gatsby’s production lacks authenticity.  It is, in many respects, an artificial representation of old money status and materialism.  Those who represent the old order, like Tom Buchanan, do not possess a “romantic readiness,” or a “sensitivity to the promises of life.”  They inhabit the pinnacle of life’s promise and are not dazzled by Gatsby’s flashy stage production.  Tom represents a cold, impenetrable reality in opposition to Gatsby’s grand, romantic aspirations, and he takes extreme diabolical pleasure in exposing the artifice of Jay Gatsby.