The Sexual Drama of Nick and Gatsby

Abstract

Nick is our narrator in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, and we see pretty much what he sees. Nick sees, and we with him, that Gatsby is naive, posturing, and a little ridiculous, but also someone charged with colossal vitality and in the end morally superior to those about him because of his fidelity to his dream. Nick's summation is explicit: No—Gatsby turned out all right in the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men. Part of that foul dust is certainly the Buchanans and especially Tom. The contrast for Nick between Tom and Gatsby is stark, blunt, and uncompromising. Gatsby has gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life (2), and extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person (2), but Tom has a hard mouth and supercilious manner, two shining arrogant eyes, and a cruel body. One is sensitive and the other coarse, one idealistic and romantic and the other literal, cruel, and arrogant. One has an idealistic love, the other a dirty love; one reaches for the stars, and the other for the ash heap. Gatsby's love for Daisy may be misplaced, foolish, and unrealistic; but for Nick, and the critics, the fidelity and vitality of Gatsby's dream are not foolish. The dream for Nick is incorruptible, even if the object of the dream, Daisy, is corruptible. I know of no defense of Tom, whatever the reservations about Gatsby. Yet there is something wrong with the contrast. By the end of the novel Nick's attachment to Gatsby, and ours, has reached almost heroic proportions. Gatsby sacrifices himself for his love and awaits his autumnal death with calm and dignity, while Tom, selfish and mean to the end, slinks away, almost a murderer, to continue his self-indulgent life. The contrast is too sharp and extreme, and Nick has too much at stake in making it. It is also at variance with the facts. It takes some effort to separate oneself from what Nick sees and how he sees it. He is after all our narrative voice and he seems to be sane, judicious, and fair. In the tradition of commentary on Nick, he is our moral norm. But he seems less than fair in the contrast he makes between Tom and Gatsby.