The Great Gatsby and The Obscene Word

Abstract

This essay centers around one of the most important yet least examined scenes in The Great Gatsby: the moment late in the novel when Nick Carraway, wandering past Gatsby's house, catches sigh of—and then erases—an obscene word scrawled on Gatsby's steps. This scene then gives way to the last four paragraphs of the novel, which stage Gatsby's final redemption and apotheosis as an American icon. Through foregrounding Nick's act of erasure, Fitzgerald emphasizes the process through which the "whitewashing" of Gatsby's reputation must occure in order for Gatsby's story to become the story of America itself. And by emphasizing this process, Fitzgerald reveals a central uncertainty, or void, that lies within the text's final, transcendent vision. This uncertainty is linked to the historical context of the novel, and to Fitzgerald's own suspicions at the time of those who threatened the group to which he felt he belonged, "the old American aristocracy."