Slouching Toward Bethlehem & The Great Gatsby
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The purpose of this research is to examine the negative portrayal of American values through F. Scott Fitzgerald's depiction of elite American society and the American dream in The Great Gatsby, with reference to similar themes elaborated by Joan Didion in selected essays in the collection Slouching Towards Bethlehem. The plan of the research will be to set forth the dominant themes in The Great Gatsby, and then to discuss ways in which Fitzgerald manipulates the narrative to engage in a critique of a segment of society with he appears to have been directly familiar, citing in the same connection social criticism by Didion that supports the view that little about mainstream American priorities and values that was current in the 1920s had shifted by the late 1960s, and that there are disturbing moral, social, and ethical implications to that fact.The social criticism that emerges in The Great Gatsby develops in the nar rative line of the character of Jay Gatsby, whose thoughts, feel ings, and desires center on trying to fit into the world of high society, or more exactly the world of the object of his fondly remembered war romance, Daisy Buchanan. One could say that Gatsby, outsider in both class and profession (he appears to be a bootlegger), is a social climber, but that characterization does not do justice to the fact that he is chiefly interested in hav ing one person visit a mansion that has become a party palace for New York society, Daisy. To be sure, as Nick Carraway
. . .
ed the phrase "educated at Oxford," or swallowed it, or choked on it, as though it had bothered him before. And with this doubt, his whole state ment fell to pieces, and I wondered if there wasn't some thing a little sinister about him, after all (Fitzgerald 69).
In a social environment deriving its life from details of personal and family history, Gatsby could be expected to conceal his past, especially given the depth of his obsession with a love object unattainable for several reasons. But it is the fate of Gatsby's passion to be overlooked by Daisy and her world, as if the past had always been known or in any case would have been irrelevant on account of its being "other." "But young men didn't--at least in my provincial inexperience I believed they didn't--drift coolly out of nowhere and buy a palace on Long Island Sound" (Fitzgerald 54). Nick mistakes Gatsby's obsession and passion as "cool," uncovering the intensity of dedication to a personal elitist project only after Gatsby's death; Gatsby mistakes Daisy's flattered, diverted affection as the reclaimed Great Love, and further makes the mistake of acting on his passion in public, obliging Daisy to choose between him and Tom.
For Daisy, the choice is impossible and unfair.
. . .
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1695
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page)
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