The Great Gatsby - A Mediation of Memory Through Language
- 1. “It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.” (Fitzgerald 1931) F. Scott Fitzgerald perhaps knew that better than anyone else. The Great Gatsby (1925) was born in the midst of the Roaring Twenties, a gilded era of glamour and decadence that promised everything, and yet gave nothing. Fitzgerald possessed the rare ability to be a leading member in the luxurious life he described in his semi-autobiographical fiction novels, and yet remain a detached observer of it. Fitzgerald’s novels were personalised by his extravagant lifestyle, especially that of The Great Gatsby which echoes sentiments from Fitzgerald’s private life, as well as that of the Jazz Age society. Through the eyes of its narrator, Nick Carraway, we come to see how writing is socially, politically and culturally mediated. In this essay, I shall explore how the relationship between emotion and place are mediated through language, and how a politicised aesthetics and form of liberation was formed in the process. Born in the late nineteenth century, Fitzgerald witnessed the profound social, economic, industrial and political dynamism in America that would come to characterise the period’s philosophical shift from realism to modernism. Amidst a continuous wave of mass immigration from Europe, America experienced an economic boom that facilitated the transition from a production-mode economy to that of a consumer economy. This transition was marked by the development of the automobile industry in the years leading up to the Twenties. Whilst early automobiles were originally exclusive to the wealthy upper class, Henry Ford focused on manufacturing an automobile specifically marketed for the American middle class. The development of the Ford automobile afforded the middle class an entire new world of social and economic possibilities, allowing them to travel increasingly further and more frequently from the countryside into the city where people could indulge in leisure
- 2. pastimes, such as attending the cinema or dancing at jazz clubs. As intensifying waves of urbanisation swept large cities of the East such as New York and Chicago, the tables of staunch conservatism and timeworn culture of reverence turned, ushering in “an age of miracles, of art, of excess and of satire” (Fitzgerald 1931) that was touted as the American Dream. The American Dream is the belief that anyone who comes to America can achieve financial success through hard work, regardless of race, class, gender or nationality. However, this idealistic notion does not take into account the institutional systemic racism, sexism or xenophobia that was already present in American society. In addition, the existential questioning that followed the First World War created a culture of emotional detachment. Ravaged by the brutal violence and moral impurity enacted on the battlefield, those who returned from the war carried a hollowness in their chest, one that they would later come to describe as the loss of innocence. The loss of faith in the moral guideposts that had once given these young Americans hope were no longer valid, leaving the disillusioned postwar generation with a lack of belief in the idea of human progress and a mood of futility and despair. Attempting to compensate for the moral disillusionment that followed, the postwar generation turned to material wealth for emotional liberation. This was astutely noted in the literary world, and bound by the sense of aimlessness shared between them, the work of Modernist writers was characterised by a self-conscious alienation from classical and traditional modes of representation, gravitating toward new forms of innovation and experimentation which enabled them to express, and make sense of the new sentiments of their time.
- 3. The Great Gatsby models a politicised aesthetics of liberation through discontinuous time- space relationships and a fragmented consciousness that reveals the existential trauma inflicted by inevitable social, political and economic change. Irreconcilable differences between memory and place are resurrected through a language of time, centering on the disintegration of the American Dream and evincing personal and national anxieties about the “complex ambiguities of history” (Magistrale and Dickerson 1931, p. 117) in the process. Fitzgerald depicts New York cityscape and its architecture as a fragmented world hidden behind a façade of grandeur, doubling as a metaphor for the trauma created by irreconcilable differences between the reality and dream city landscapes. The urbanisation phenomenon that saw more Americans relocating to the city prompted a reconfiguration of social space that inflamed existing interclass conflict. Issues of personal and national identity are raised through the symbolic class distinctions and identities assigned to citizens living in each area, especially between East Egg and West Egg, and in opposition to the “Valley of Ashes”, where George Wilson lives. It is described as: …fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens, where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke…and of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air (Fitzgerald 1925, p. 23). Like his surroundings, George Wilson is described as a “blond, spiritless man, anaemic, and faintly handsome” (Fitzgerald 1925, p. 25), as though Fitzgerald attributes his lack of vitality to the dust, choking from the ashes that metaphorically refer to the loss of innocence, nostalgia, despair and an encroaching sense of ephemerality. In contrast, the Eggs are the suburban communities where the performance and illusion of comfort and wealth, are particularly obvious. Both communities of the Eggs are rich, but the people from West Egg
- 4. are “new money” while those from East Egg are “old money”, as paralled in the difference between the residential architectural styles. According to Dahl (1984, p.91): …both individually and in their carefully developed counterpoint, embody basic aspects of his characters, reinforce his social analysis and help express the characteristically American Europe-East-West tensions that are central to the novel. Gatsby’s “colossal affair” (Fitzgerald 1925, p. 5) of a mansion is “rich, handsome, aristocratic, magnificent” and “pretends to be a building of heroic romance” (Dahl 1984, p. 94), invoking the trope of a knight on his white horse or at least, house, ready and waiting to become a place of refuge for the princess imprisoned across the bay. In contrast, the Buchanans’ mansion is a cheerful red-and-white Georgian Colonial mansion that is “an ideal example of a seaside mansion of the era, designed both to fit into its natural setting and to recall American tradition” (Dahl 1984, p. 96). Despite the opulence and grandiosity of Gatsby’s mansion, Nick calls it a “huge incoherent failure of a house” (Fitzgerald 1925, p. 179), one that attempts, and fails to recreate the past. Fitzgerald extends this identity crisis to the mode of language used, through Gatsby’s catchphrase “old sport”. America was founded on ideals of progress: a place abundant with equal opportunities for success and upward social mobility for the visionary dreamers. James Gatz was no such exception, and believed in the American myth of the self-made man, taking it upon himself to reinvent his modest past, and reworking his present for the future, becoming Jay Gatsby. Part of this distinction was to create the impression that Jay Gatsby was of “old money”, sophisticated, classy and especially refined with Oxford connections, as opposed to “new money” which was perceived as gaudy. Secondly, this mode of language invokes a specifically American sense of comradery, creating a place for himself amongst
- 5. upper class American society. Thirdly, it added a certain kind of boyish charm to Gatsby’s demeanour, which he hoped for Daisy to notice and fall in love with him again. The myth of the self-made man, as Gatsby found out to his cost, is an impossible dream. With the introduction of material excesses of European aristocracy in America, as seen in the characters of Tom and Daisy Buchanan, Gatsby, for all his successes and wealth, was still unable to enter their world; his noble attempt to engineer his own destiny was sabotaged by their ‘carelessness’ and by the shallowness of their desires. Gatsby’s treatment of time as a commodity and attempt to recreate the past, results in tragic consequences. In an age obsessed with the accumulation of material wealth and endorsement of hedonic pleasures in the pursuit of happiness, there was little room left for anything else and community values such as that of compassion or the valuation of morality are buried along with Gatsby. With Gatsby’s death, Nick is disillusioned and sees the Roaring Twenties for what it really is underneath its extravagance and decadence: an era of eroded social and moral values, evidenced in its overarching cynicism, greed and empty pursuit of pleasure.
- 6. References Dahl, C., 1984. Fitzgerald's use of American architectural styles in the Great Gatsby. American Studies, 25(1), pp.91-102. Fitzgerald, F.S., 1925. The Great Gatsby. Scribner, London. Fitzgerald, F.S., 1931. Echoes of the Jazz Age: The Crack-Up, pp.13-22. Magistrale, T. and Dickerson, M.J., 1989. The Language of Time in" The Great Gatsby". College Literature, 16(2), pp.117-128.