F. Scott Fitzgerald`s "Gatsby" and the Imagination of Wonder

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American Academy of Religion
F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Gatsby" and the Imagination of Wonder
Author(s): Giles Gunn
Source: Journal of the American Academy of Religion, Vol. 41, No. 2 (Jun., 1973), pp. 171-183
Published by: Oxford University Press
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F. ScottFitzgerald'sGatsby
and the Imaginationof Wonder
GILES GUNN
HEREare certainoccasions,I believe,when it is useful,even necessary,
to formulatean interpretationof a book which attemptsto explain why
we keep coming back to it, to suspend the usual critical apparatusand
simply try to concentrateon those details, selective as they may sometimes be,
which shape or determinethe way a particularbook reads us as well as we read
it. I regardthis, in fact, as an indispensablepart of the critic'stotal job of work.
For criticismdoes nor end with explication,it only begins there. It ends, if at all,
only with an account of how specific books, writers or traditionssomehow reorder the mental, emotionaland spiritualfurnitureof our lives, somehow move
us, if ever so slightly, to accept new ideas of order, fresh reconceptionsof what
will suffice. In this, one of its furthestreaches,the act of criticism is very like
the act of love: The critic finds himself in the paradoxicalsituation of seeking
to preserveand enhancethe memoryof somethinghe cherishesonly to discover
in the process that this response has been compelled almost from the very beginning by an odd sense that he is merely reciprocatingin kind. Hence, as
much as the critic should strive, in Matthew Arnold'swords, "to see the object
as in itself it really is,"there comes a point in his negotiationswith certain literary texts when his comprehensioninevitablywill, and necessarilyshould, be determined as well by how the object sees him.' Though few may wish to go
quite as far as Leslie Fiedler, there is still a certain warrantto his confession
that "the truth one tries to tell about literatureis finally [no] different from the
truth one tries to tell about the indignities and rewardsof being the kind of man
one is-an American,let's say, in the secondhalf of the twentieth century,learning to read his country'sbooks."2 What Fiedler is suggesting has been beauti1 Certainpassagesin this and the following paragraphare drawnfrom my "Reflections
on My Ideal Critic,"Criterion,II (Spring, 1972), pp. 18-22, which I here use with the
permissionof the editors.
*Leslie Fiedler,Loveand Death in the AmericanNovel (New York: CriterionBooks,
1960), p. xiv.
GILESB. GUNN (Ph.D., Chicago) is AssistantProfessorof Religion and Literature
in The Divinity Schooland the Departmentof English at The Universityof Chicago. He
has recentlyedited a volume of criticalessaysentitled Literatureand Religion. A shorter
versionof this essaywas presentedas a paper at the annualmeeting of the AAR, held in
connectionwith the InternationalCongresson Religion, Los Angeles, September,1972.
Copyright? 1973, by AmericanAcademyof Religion
GILESGUNN
172
fully expressedby Erich Heller where he claims that the ultimate business of
the student,teacherand critic of literatureis "not the avoidanceof subjectivity,
but its purification;not the shunningof what is disputable,but the cleansingand
deepeningof the dispute." To this degree,Heller maintains,there are no methods which completelyand satisfactorilycomprehendthe critic'ssubjectmatter"only methods, perhaps,that produce the intellectualpressureand temperature
in which perception crystallizesinto conviction and learning into a sense of
value."3
This, I would argue, is how the critic tries, if he ever really can, to improve
the quality of life. By assessingthe actual in light of its own potential, that is,
by seeking to comprehenda work not only for what it is in and of itself but
also in terms of what it merely suggests but still elicits, he strugglesnot only to
preservea sense of value but also to increaseit. Yet in a culture characterized
chiefly by what Richard Gilman has described--and far too sanguinely,I believe-as a confusion of realms,he can afford no illusions about the heavy odds
stackedagainst him. His position, like that of the writer'sfor whom he serves
as an advocate,is alwaysan embattledone; for he knows, or should know, that
in the realm of culturaland spiritualvalues, as T. S. Eliot once remarked,"we
fight ratherto keep something alive than in the expectationthat anything will
triumph."4
It is no accidentthat F. Scott Fitzgeraldcould have said very nearlythe same
thing. For The Great Gatsby is nothing if not an attempt to keep something
alive in the face of a certainconviction that it has no possibilityof ultimate triumph. What is at issue, of course, is not the survivalof Gatsby himself nor
even the substanceof his vision; the one is fatallyvulnerable,the other hopelessly
naive and corruptible. The novel is ratherabout the energy and quality of the
imaginationwhich propels both Gatsbyand his vision, and which endures,if at
all, only in the narrativestrategiesof Fitzgerald'sart. Viewed as a story about
Gatsby and his dream, the novel is merely an elegy, or, more specifically, a
threnodysung over the death of one of our culture'smost affecting but flawed
innocents. Viewed instead as a story about Gatsby'spoetry of desire, his imagination of wonder, the novel is an act of historicalrepossession,an attempt to
release and preserve some of the unspent potential of our spiritual heritage as
Americans.
I
Nonetheless, there is no blinking the distance which separatesmost of us
from F. Scott Fitzgerald'sThe Great Gatsbyand what I would call "the Imagination of Wonder." For in a world boundedon the one side by the agonies and
'Erich Heller, The Disinherited Mind; Essays in Modern German Literatureand
Thought (MeridianBooks Edition;Cleveland:World PublishingCompany,1959), p. ix.
4 T. S. Eliot as quoted by F. O. Matthiessen,The Achievementof T. S. Eliot; An Essay
on the Nature of Poetry (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1935), p. 6.
GATSBY AND THE IMAGINATION OF WONDER
173
atrocitiesof Vietnam or the Americanurbanghetto and on the other by televised
moon landings,I would suggest that we wonder,if at all, only about what is left
to wonder at or wonder about. The imaginativecapacityfor wonder-whether
it takes the primitive form of awed and passive astonishmentbefore the unexpected,or the more sophisticatedform of active, imaginativepenetrationinto
modes of being other than our own-requires a special openness to the unanticipated, a certain susceptibilityto surprise,and most of us can no longer allow
ourselves to be so vulnerable. Instead of remaining receptive to novelty, we
have become rotten-ripewith knowingnessas the imagination'slast defense in
a world which, if experienceddirectly,might stun us back into the Stone Age.
Having innured ourselves to strangenesswith a surfeit of information,we are
all but dead to those startling confrontationswith othernesswhich have traditionally given shape and substanceto the literaturewhich has createdas well as
reflectedour nationalexperience.
The reason is not hard to find. In the shadowsof a possible nuclearholocaustwhere we have now lived for more than a quarterof a century,reality takes
on proportionsof enormitysimply too vast, too horrific, for the imaginationto
grasp. What we have made,what in fact we have it in our power to do, is now
beyond our capacity to dream. Suddenly there seem to be no "others"more
monstrousthan the ones which, if MarshallLuhan is to be believed, are mere
extensionsof ourselves,and this is something beyond the compassof even our
darkest,our most diabolic, night thoughts.
Yet when morning finally comes and the shadows of disaster lift at least
high enough for us to see the landscapeabout us, all we are still likely to perceive is what we have put there ourselves,somethingwhich in the daylightlooks
more like a metropolis than a mushroomcloud, but which, as Thomas Pynchon
has suggestedin The Cryingof Lot 49, is less identifiableas a city "thana grouping of concepts-census tracts, special purpose bond-issue districts, shopping
nuclei, all overlaid with access roads to its own freeway."
To be sure,even in a world whose most discernibleand meaningful patterns
suggest nothing so much as the printed circuitryof a transistorradio, one may
still, like Oedipa Maas, discover what appears to be "a heiroglyphic sense of
concealedmeaning,.. . an intent to communicate." The problem is that when
the environmenthas become but an extension of man himself, there is no way
of telling the difference between what Robert Frost calls "counter-love,original
response"and "ourown voice back in copy speech." Thus one is left yearning,
as Americanshave always been, for "a world elsewhere"5beyond the self, yet
suspiciousthat whatevertraces of it are left constitute evidence of nothing but
our own paranoia. In such circumstancesas these, wonder gives way all too
easily to cynicism,yearningto submission,and hope to the madnessof boredom.
This is a prospectof which F. Scott Fitzgeraldwas acutely conscious. Had
IThe Phrase is Emerson's, which Richard Porier uses as the title of his fine study,
A World Elsewhere;The Place of Style in AmericanLiterature(New York: Oxford University Press, 1966).
174
GILES GUNN
he foreseen it with any less clarity in his evocation of the world of Tom and
Daisy Buchanan,he could not have written so compellinglyof the markedcontrast which Gatsby himself presents to it. For Gatsby'sillusions have nothing
whatsoeverto do with the modern, secularizedworld of Tom and Daisy. As
Fitzgeraldmakes clear on the last page of the novel, Gatsby'sdream belongs to
a historicalorder which has long since ceased to exist, to a vision of possibility
which had almost died on the eyes of those first Dutch sailors to these shores
who, paradoxically,were the last to look out upon the American landscapein
innocence: "for a transitoryenchantedmoment,"Fitzgeraldwrites, "man must
have held his breathin the presenceof this continent,compelledinto an aesthetic
contemplationhe neither understoodnor desired, face to face for the last time
in history with something commensuratewith his 'capacityfor wonder'." Fitzgerald describesthis "capacityfor wonder"as an "aestheticcontemplation,"but
for Jay Gatsby,in whom Fitzgeraldinvests it to such an extraordinarydegree,
it is clearlysomething more. "Outof the cornerof his eye," Fitzgeraldtells us
at one point in the novel, "Gatsbysaw that the blocks of the sidewalk really
formed a ladderand mounted to a secret place above the trees--he could climb
to it, if he climbed alone, and once there he could suck the pap of life, gulp
down the incomparablemilk of wonder."
There is, of course, an incredible garishnessinvolved in Gatsby's capacity
for wonder precisely because he attempts to make so transparentand gouche
a religion out of it. What with all his gorgeous sacramentalshirts,his splendid
gestures of supplication, and his ornate West Egg mansion which functions
throughoutthe novel as a kind of sacredshrine, Gatsby seems a grotesqueparody of some high priest or shaman who is continually dispensing holy waters,
consecratedfood, and other elements of the sanctifiedlife to whateveraspirants
he can gather aroundhim. And the fact that Gatsby'sfriends inevitably turn
out to be "faithless"in the end only heightensthe parody: it was never intended
that he serve their illusions but ratherthat they serve his. Thus Gatsby remains
ridiculouslysentimentalto the very end, a fool for, and ultimately a victim of,
the faith he made out of his own unquenchablethirst for wonder."
Part of the triumph of the novel is that Fitzgeraldrefuses to discount the
vulgarityof it all and instead confrontsit directly by employing as his narrator
and chief spokesmana characterwho, like one side of Fitzgeraldhimself possesses an "unaffectedscorn"for everythingthat Gatsby represents. During the
course of the novel, however, Nick Carrawayundergoes what Melville would
6 In this there is, to be sure, a marked parallel between Gatsby and all those other devotees and avatars of something like an American religion of wonder--Emerson, Thoreau,
Whitman, Twain, a certain side of James, Gertrude Stein, Sherwood Anderson, Hemingway, Salinger, and Walker Percy-whose idealization of an unencumbered simplicity of
response Tony Tanner discusses in his The Reign of Wonder: Naivetd and Reality in
American Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1965). But where Tanner
is interested in wonder chiefly as a way of seeing, as "the cultivation of a naiv6 eye," I am
more interested, as I think Fitzgerald was as well, in wonder as a mode of being, as something intrinsic to the very nature of life itself.
175
have calleda "sea-change"
as he is himselfbroughtslowly face to face with
at
once
Americanand also universalwhich by the
something
intransigently
end of the novelsomehowtranscends
and,to a point,even redeemsthe crude
andsordidmaterialsin termsof whichit is expressed.I referto Gatsby'smarso
velouscapacityfor wonderwhen viewednot as an inborntraitof character
muchas a reflexresponseto life, and whichissuesin whatNick describesas
his "extraordinary
readiness."If Gatsby'spersongift for hope,"his "romantic
is
no
than
"an
of
as Nick muses
more
unbrokenseries successfulgestures,"
ality
at the beginning,still thereis whatcanonlybe describedas "something
gorgeous
abouthim, some heightenedsensitivityto the promisesof life, as if he were
relatedto one of thoseintricatemachinesthatregisterearthquakes
ten thousand
miles away."
By the end of the novel,Nick is able to identifythis responsivecapacity
with somethingthe Americancontinentoncemighthaveelicitedin all men,but
neitherhe norFitzgerald
is underanyillusionsaboutwhatAmericaoffersnow.
Americansocietypresentsitself in The GreatGatsbyas utterly
Contemporary
devoidof anyof thosefreshandunexpectedimageswhichonceastonished
man
into a new and originalrelationwith the universeand whichthus gave rise,
whetherin JonathanEdwardsor RalphWaldoEmerson,in Walt Whitmanor
Hart Crane,to a new Americanimaginationof wonder. The "fresh,green
breastof the new world,"which first presenteditself to those unsuspecting
Dutchsailors,hasnow diminishedto the tiny,greenlight whichburnsall night
on Daisy Buchanan's
pier and which illumineslittle more than the desolate
desireandshatteredhopesexisting,
Valleyof Ashes,thatwastelandof frustrated
so Fitzgerald
wouldhaveus believe,at the endof everycontemporary
American
rainbow.
ThusJayGatsby,"bornof his Platonicconceptionof himself,"as Nick tells
us, and "electedto be abouthis Father'sbusiness"is left from the beginning
withoutanythingin twentieth-century
Americabut "a vast, vulgarand meretriciousbeautyfor him to serve." The tragedy,however,is not his alonebut
also his society's,for both seemeddoomedby what they lack-Gatsby by his
lackof any criticalabilityto distinguishhis spiritualidealsfromthe material
conditionsin andthroughwhichhe mustrealizethem;Americansocietyby its
lack of eithersubstanceor formcommensurate
with Gatsby'sbelief in them.7
Yet if Gatsby'sdestruction
"the
foul
dust"
which
"floatsin the wakeof his
by
illusions"is thus inevitable,his inexhaustiblestoreof wonderand good will
still conferuponthe veryactualitywhicheventuallyextinguishthemwhatever
truth,beautyor goodnessthatAmericanactualityever fully attains. Fitzgerald
is thusableto celebrateGatsby'sveritablereligionof wonder,whileat the same
time exposingits patheticvulnerability
and ultimatedefilement. His tribute
" For this and several other
insights in this paper, I am indebted to Marius Bewley's
excellent chapter on the novel entitled "Scott Fitzgerald and the Collapse of the American
Dream" in his The Eccentric Design; Form in the Classic American Novel (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1963), pp. 159-87.
GILES
GUNN
176
is part of his critique,a single act of judgmentand love which provesthat
that"thetest of
Fitzgeraldknewwhathe was talkingaboutwhenhe remarked
a first-rateintelligenceis the abilityto hold two opposedideasin the mind,at
the sametime, and still retainthe abilityto function."
II
Nick Carraway's
firstglimpseof Gatsbyoutlinedin all his elementalloneliand
nessagainstthe skyas he makeshis tremblinggestureof acknowledgement
conthe
him
from
to
across
to
the
which
beckons
bay
supplication
greenlight
tains nearlythe entiremeaningof Gatsby'sstory. For,like Melville'sCaptain
AhabbeforehimandFaulkner's
ThomasSutpenafterhim,Gatsbyhascommitted
his life to a pursuitin the futureof whathas alreadybecomea symbolof his
own reinterpreted
and idealizedpast. As a symbol,the green light is most
muchmorethan
in
associated
mindwithDaisy,but it represents
clearly
Gatsby's
"the
for
herself.
sexual
substitute
As
fresh,green
Daisy
Gatsby'sappropriately
breastof the new world,"the greenlight symbolizesto Gatsbyall that Daisy
once meantto him duringtheirvery brief but poignantlove affairfive years
before,someidea of himselfwhichwent into his lovingof her but whichhe
lost the momenthe "foreverwed his unutterablevisions to her
irretrievably
perishablebreath." Once the incarnationwas completethe vision began to
wither,and Gatsbywouldhenceforthbe condemnedto living in that country
of Americanfantasywhichis alwayslocatedin the spiritualas well as historical
wildernessbetweenthe "nolonger"andthe "notyet,"or,to recallKlipspringer's
in betweentime whereall one asksis "Ain'twe got
song,"Inthe meantime,"
fun?"
Fromthe verybeginningGatsby's"unutterable
visions"had servedto convincehim "thatthe rockof the worldwas foundedsecurelyon a fairy'swing,"
buttheyhadnotreceivedhumanshapinguntilthe dayDanCody'syachtdropped
anchorin the shallowsof LakeSuperiorandthe youngJimmieGatzrowedout
to havea look. To youngJamesGatz-soon to becomeJay Gatsby,but now
of Cody'syacht
only a recentdrop-outfromSt. Olaf'sCollege--theappearance
seemedas momentous
as the arrivalof the Nina, the Pinta,andthe SantaMaria,
and so he signedon to serveCodyin some vaguepersonalcapacityfor what
eventuallyturnedout to be five years. WhenCodydiedat the endof thattime,
JimmieGatzwas cheatedout of the $25,000his mentorhad left him, but Jay
with
Nick describes,
Gatsbyhadacquiredsomethingmuchmorevaluable--what
not a little irony,as an "appropriate
education"
froma manwho was the "product of the Nevadasilver fields,of the Yukon,"and "of everyrush for the
metalsinceseventy-five."The historicalallusionis perfect. At Gatsby'spoint
of time in history,who butone of the fallenSonsof Leatherstocking
couldhave
to himwhatwasleft of thatearlierAmericanvisionwhichnowlives
transmitted
on only in the body of his corruption? Yet it was not until the now hardened
but still adolescentJay Gatsbyof Minnesotamet the beautifulbut unstableDaisy
Fay of Louisvilleduring the Great War that his educationwas filled out. The
177
myth of the Northern Yankee forever seeking the paradiseof his dreamsin the
ever-vanishingworld of the West had to be joined with what was left of the
legend of the SouthernCavalierdiscoveringa salvationof refinement in the gossamer world of midnight balls and late afternoon teas before Gatsby'svividly
Americanidentitycould be firmlyfixed.ffl
If Cody'sworld, as Nick speculates,is the world of "the pioneer debauchee,
who during one phase of American life brought back to the Easternseaboard
the savageviolenceof the frontierbrotheland saloon"Daisy'sis the artificial,
vapidandcompletelybrittleworldof the teenagesocialitewhoseonly realaim
in life is to remain"gleaming,
like silver,safeandproudabovethe hot struggles
of the poor." Likeso manybeforehim,Gatsbywascompelledinto an attitude
of absoluteenchantment
of throbbingexpectaby the senseof "ripemystery,"
tion,whichseemedso mucha partof Daisy'sperson,herhouse,herculture,and,
her voice. Therewas "a singingcompulsion"
to it, "a whispered
particularly,
'Listen,'a promisethatshe haddonegay,excitingthingsjust a while sinceand
thatthereweregay,excitingthingshoveringin the next hour." It was a voice
whichheldout to him the possibilityof everypromise'sfulfillment,a futureof
unlimitedbeatitudeand sexualfelicitywhichwas, to quoteHowardMumford
Jones,"if not the kingdomof PresterJohn,the empireof the GreatKahn,or
Asia heavywith the wealthof Ormuzand of Ind, then next door to it, or a
passagetowardit....8 ." Onlyyearslater,in tellingNick of his poignantaffair
with Daisy five yearsbefore,wouldGatsbybe able to perceivethat "the incharmthatroseandfell in it, the jingleof it, the cymbals'songof it"
exhaustible
wassimplythe soundof money. GatsbyandDaisyhad,of course,fullyintended
to marryafterthe war,butbeforeGatsbycouldcut throughthe redtapedelaying
his return,Daisy'sfebrilewill had collapsedand her letterarrivedannouncing
hermarriageto a midwesterner
namedTomBuchanan.
As so manycriticshavenoted,9Tom existsin the novelas a kindof double
to Gatsby,thuspermittingFitzgerald
to pointup by contrastGatsby'sincomparstature.
Tom
strikes
Nick
fromthe momenthe meetshim as "one
ablygreater
of those men who reachsuch an acutelimitedexcellenceat twenty-onethat
savorsof anti-climax."A Chicagoboy froman enormouseverythingafterward
Tom
hadplayedend at Yale andeveraftergavethe impresly wealthyfamily,
sion thathe "woulddrifton foreverseeking,a little wistfully,for the dramatic
turbulenceof some irrecoverable
footballgame." If Daisy'smost strikingattributeis the soundof her tinklingvoice,Tom'sis his "cruelbody,""a body,"
Nick surmises,"capable
of enormousleverage."Gatsby,by contrast,is all spirit.
Farfromcreatingthe impressionof power,Gatsbyconveysthe impressionof
desire. Nick acquiresthis impressionthe first time he meetsGatsbywhenhe
catchesa glimpseof it in Gatsby'smostcharacteristic
attribute,his smile:
"Howard Mumford Jones, O Strange New World (New York: The Viking Press,
1964), p. 41.
"
See, in particular, Bewley, pp. 283-85.
178
GILES GUNN
It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurancein it, that
you may come acrossfour or five times in life. It faced-or seemed to facethe whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentratedon you with an
irresistibleprejudicein your favour. It understoodyou just as far as you wanted
to be understood,believed in you just as you would like to believe in yourself,
and assuredyou that it had preciselythe impressionof you that, at your best,
you hoped to convey. Preciselyat that point it vanished--and I was looking at
an elegantyoung rough-neck,a yearor two over thirty,whose elaborateformality
of speech just missed being absurd.
This passage is brilliantly executed because, as Marius Bewley has suggested,
"it presentsGatsbyto us less as an individualthan as a projection,or mirrorof
our ideal selves."10 Gatsby'syouthful impression,in fact, has nothing to do with
youth at all: It is a quality of good will, of total willingness,which neither time
can stale nor age wither--a prejudice,to paraphrasepart of Alfred North Whitehead'sdefinition of religion, that the facts of existence shall find their justification in the nature of existence. As a prejudice which has no concern for the
facts as they are, it can, of course, become absurdlysentimental;but even here
Gatsby is to be contrastedwith Tom. For whereasTom's sentimentalityis decadentand wholly self-serving,Gatsby'sis ebullientand wholly self-effacing.Tom
is never more revealingthan when he is broughtto tears over the sight of a box
of half-finisheddog biscuitswhich constitutethe final remainsof a dayof drunken
philanderingwith his now dead mistress,a day which was finally brought to a
close only after Tom, in a fit of adolescentpicque, had brokenher nose with his
open hand in one "short,deft movement." Gatsby'ssentimentality,on the other
hand,is revealedin his constanttemptationto confer his essentiallyheroic capacity for faith and wonder upon objects which are decidedly unworthy of them,
objects ultimatelyas dangerousas style, money, and class. The latter points only
to a deficiencyof mind, the formerto a deficiencyof heart. What Gatsbylacks
is the critical ability to temper his generous,if also innocent,feelings, which are
in turn responsiblefor the splendor and naivete of his illusions. What Tom
lacks, by contrast,is the affective power to feel truly anythingbut pity for himself, which rendershim depravedand inhuman.
In this, as in other ways,Tom and Gatsbyreflect relatedbut different strains
in the developmentof American history and culture. Tom is a scion of the
great robberbaronsof the Gilded Age who "seizedthe land, gutted the forests,
laid the railroads,""'and turned the cities into vast urban fortressesfor the purpose of protecting their own moneyed interests. Descendants of those early
pioneers, frontiersmanand later settlers who attemptedto transformthe Virgin
Land into a New World Garden, these later empire-buildersof the post-Civil
War period who wanted to replace crops with machines set aside morality as
easily and quickly as they attempted to buy up civilization. Men of singlelo Ibid., p. 284.
11 F. O. Matthiessen, American Renaissance; Art and Expression in the Age of Emerson
and Whitman (New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1941), p. 459. The referenceis to
CaptainAhab'sdescendents.
GATSBYAND THE IMAGINATIONOF WONDER
179
mindedpurposewho were at once daringand perseverent,
they,like Captain
in
allowed
to
their
"iron
assured
stand
and
Ahab,
themselves
nothing
way," they
of Heaven'sblessing-as Tom would if he could but rememberthe right wordsby convincing themselvesthat they were doing Heaven'swill.
Gatsby,by contrast,recalls an earliergenerationof American worthies who
originallyjourneyedto theseshoresin the hopesof establishinga kingdomon
earthwhichmight morenearlyconformto the Kingdomof Heaven. But in
the century and a half intervening between the first settlement and the establishment of the Republic, the dreamsof the one had become intertangledwith
the successof the other. The original theocraticimpulse to found a City upon
a Hill to the greaterglory of God had been displacedby the more seculardesire
to build a nationin the wildernesswhich testifiedinsteadto the inalienable
rightsof man. The seventeenth-century
propulsionto knowwhy had beenreducedto the eighteenth-andnineteenth-century
with knowhow.
preoccupation
The Calvinistbeliefin God as the makerof man'sdestinyhas beensupplanted
doctrineof self-help. To be sure,therewerestill traces
by BenjaminFranklin's
of thatearlierPuritandreamin its later,morepragmaticexpression.As Perry
Millerhas noted,BenjaminFranklinpursuedworldlysuccesseverybit as disinterestedlyas JonathanEdwardspursuedthe natureof true virtue,and both
shareda similarconviction"thatthe universeis its own excusefor being."'12
But by the timeGatsbyhadgot holdof it, Americansociety,but for an houron
the view Franklinstrangelyshared
Sundaymornings,hadlong sinceabandoned
with Edwards,
the view thatlife on earthcouldandshouldbe, as it were,lifted
up to Heaven. Instead,for a centuryor more,Americahad been telling the
JimmieGatz'sof thisworldthatthe Kingdomof Godcouldbe established
right
here in America,perhapseven on somebody's
rentedestate,and that, further,
one couldget awaywith populatingthis New Worldparadisewith DaisyFays,
TomBuchanans,
andMeyerWolfsheims,the latterbeingreputedto havefixed
the WorldSeriesin 1919.
This is absurd,and Fitzgeraldknew it was. Thus he showsthat the plan
Gatsbyconcoctedto expressit wasdoomedfromthe beginning,andhe doesnot
mincewordsas to the reasonwhy. Gatsby'sproposalto rectifywhat he considersthe mistakeof Daisy'smarriageto Tom,by askingherto requesta divorce
so thatshecanmarryhim instead,is baseduponhis incrediblebeliefthathistory
doesn'tmatter,thatthe pastcan be repeated.This is the ultimateflaw at the
heartof Gatsby'sdream,and,with the dreamitself,it shatterslike glassagainst
Tom andDaisy'sbrutalindifference.
That indifferenceis nowheremore apparentthan when Daisy accidentally
kills MyrtleWilson,Tom'smistress,with Gatsby'scar. The accidentmerely
fulfillsandcompletesthatearlieract of violencewhichTom committedagainst
of thatrelianceuponbrute
Myrtlehimselfandthusservesas a perfectexpression
force, at once, physicaland material,which holds Tom and Daisy and their kind
IaSee Perry Miller, "BenjaminFranklin--JonathanEdwards,"in Major Writers of
America,Vol. I, ed. PerryMiller (New York: Harcourt,Braceand World, 1962), p. 96.
180
GILES GUNN
together. Hence when Gatsbymagnanimouslyoffers to protect Daisy from any
possible recriminationsfrom Tom, Tom and Daisy repay his generosity by insinuating to Myrtle's grief-crazed husband, George Wilson, that Gatsby was
responsibleinstead. In deflecting Wilson's certainvengeance away from themselves out of a habit of self-protectionit took their forbearsseveralgenerations
to perfect,Tom and Daisy make Gatsbythe scapegoatof their own irresponsible
pasts. Yet this is in character,Nick later surmises,for in spite of their wealth
and glamor, perhaps even becauseof it, Tom and Daisy were simply "careless
people"who "smashedup things and creaturesand then retreatedback into their
money or their vast carelessness,or whateverit was that kept them together,and
let other people clean up the mess they made."
Thus when George Wilson kills Gatsbyand then himself, a strangecircle of
significance is completed. If Gatsby represents that irrepressiblereaction of
wonder and hope which once gave motive force to the vision of what the American reality might one day be, Wilson representsthat spiritless desperationand
hopelessnessat the centerof what the Americanreality,in this novel at least, has
actuallybecome. The only people who escapeare ironicallythose who have done
most to createthe one out of the other, people like Tom and Daisy who have acquired enough money and shrewdnessin the process to buy their way out of
trouble.
III
But Gatsby'sdestructionat the end in no sense indicatesa complete triump
of the forces,both from within and without, which have conspiredagainsthim.
For Fitzgeraldhas so constructedhis novel that Gatsby'strue statureand significancecan only be finally measuredby his impact upon the narrator,and to Nick
CarrawayGatsby'sultimate victory is absolutely assured.
As narratorNick seems perfectly suited to his task. He describeshimself
on the very first page of the novel as one of those people who is "inclinedto
reserve all judgements,a habit that has opened up many curious naturesto me
and also made me the victim of not a few veteranbores.... " But Nick's tolerance is not without its limits; for he is concernedto live as he has been raised,
accordingto "a sense of the fundamentaldecencies." And having returnedfrom
the East to tell his story, he confesses,"I felt that I wanted the world to be in
uniform and at a moral attention forever;I wanted no more riotous excursions
with privileged glimpses into the human heart."
Yet much as Nick tries to remainambivalentand uninvolvedthroughoutthe
book, "simultaneouslyenchantedand repelled by the variety of life," he cannot
maintain the distance of a neutral observer as he becomes progressivelymore
involved in Gatsby'sincrediblescheme to recaptureDaisy. For if Nick is contemptuousof everything Gatsby represents,he still cannot resist admiring the
intensity with which Gatsby respresentsit. And the more Nick uncovers the
cynicism and corruptionbeneath Tom and Daisy's glamor, the more he grows
to respect Gatsby'soptimism and the essential incorruptibilitynot of his vision
181
but of the desire it incarnates. Hence by the time Gatsby is murderedby the
demented Wilson, Nick has come to think that Gatsby was "worth the whole
damn bunch put together." But he also finds that, like Gatsby before him, he
must pay the price of loneliness for his conviction. For it readily becomes apparent at the time of Gatsby'sdeath that Gatsby'sfriends no longer have any
use for him. And then it is that Nick realizesthe natureof his own relationship
to Gatsby: "it grew upon me that I was responsible,because no-one else was
interested-interested, I mean,with that intense personalinterestto which everyone has a vague right in the end."
This feeling of genuine concern and sympathy for another human being
emerges as one of the most importantpositive values of Gatsby'stragedy. If it
does not seem capable of mitigating the pathos of Gatsby'sdestruction,much
less preventing it, Nick's capacityfor concern and love nonethelessenables him
to see in the tragedyof Gatsby'sown idealism a symbol for the tragedyof all
humanaspiration. Before Nick leavesthe Eastpermanentlyafter Gatsby'sdeath,
he crosseshis front yardto take one last look at Gatsby'shouse:
... as the moon rose higher the inessentialhouses began to melt away until
graduallyI becameawareof the old island here, that floweredonce for Dutch
sailors'eyes--a fresh,green breastof the new world. Its vanishedtrees,the trees
that had madeway for Gatsby'shouse, had once panderedin whispersto the last
and greatestof all humandreams;for a transitoryenchantedmomentman must
have held his breathin the presenceof this continent,. . face to face for the
last time in history with something commensurateto his capacityfor wonder.
Nick is able to give his words such a beautiful,haunting, evocative quality
because he had himself been partially seduced by Gatsby'sdream. Not only
had he once felt the mysteriousattractionin Daisy's voice; he had also fallen
half in love with someone who suggested its rich ring of promise. But Nick
had been able to discern the note of cynicism and emptiness behind the magic
suggestivenessof Daisy's voice, just as he had also been able to perceive that
JordanBaker,his temporarylover, was basicallya liar and a cheat.
At the end Nick can only surmise as to whether Gatsby was ever able to
acknowledgethe terrible disparity between his magnificent illusions and the
coarse actuality which finally betrayed them. Nick can scarcely believe that
Gatsbyremainedignorantto the very end of "whata grotesquething a rose is,"
but as for himself there is no question. The cultureof the East,which once held
out to him, as it always did to Gatsby,the promise of beginning all over again
in a New World in the very next hour-the culture of the East now appearsto
Nick as a night scene from El Greco:
In theforeground
foursolemnmenin dresssuitsarewalkingalongthesidewalk
witha stretcher
on whichlies a drunkenwomanin a whiteeveningdress. Her
hand, which danglesover the side, sparklescold with jewels. Gravelythe men
turnin at the house--thewronghouse. But no one knowsthe woman'sname,
andno one cares.
182
GILES
GUNN
The only illuminationwhich relievesNick's otherwisedarkand ferraltableau
is the absurd,little green light at the end of Daisy's pier which Gatsby so fervently believed in, "the orgiastic future that year by year recedesbefore us.... "
"... but that'sno matter,"Nick assuresus-"tomorrow we will run faster,stretch
out our arms farther.... And one fine morning---"
"Sowe beaton,"Nick concludes,"boatsagainstthe current,borneceaselessly
backinto the past."
This image,with its perfectunion of sexualand spiritualpromise,arrests
us with its terriblepoignancy.Gatsby'scapacityfor wonderwas doomedfrom
the beginning. "Hehadcomea longwayto thisbluelawn,andhis dreammust
have seemedso closethat he couldhardlyfail to graspit,"Nick muses. "He
did not knowthat it was alreadybehindhim, somewherebackin thatvastobscuritybeyondthe city,wherethe darkfieldsof the republicrolledon underthe
night." Yearningalwaysforwardto securea futurethat was alreadylost to
the past,Gatsbyis borneceaselessly
in time untilhe becomesa sacribackward
ficialvictimof the pastsof others,indeed,of the AmericanDreamitself.
The pathosof the final imagethusseemsdefinitive:Gatsby'sbeautifulcircuit of beliefanddesireis brokenon the rackof America'scruelindifference;
his generous"willingnessof heart"is simplyno matchfor Tom and Daisy's
"hardmalice." Committedto pure spirit in a worldalmostexclusivelycomthatthe
posedof merematter,Gatsbyis defeatedby his inabilityto understand
conditionswhichthe
thingsof the spiritcan exist only amidstthe unavoidable
actualand the materialmake for them.13
Yet this is not the wholetruth,eitherfor Nick as narrator
or for us as readers. Becauseif the coarsematerialsof Gatsby'sworldhaverefusedto yield to
the impulsesof his spirit,if, indeed,Gatsbyhimselfat the end "musthavefelt
thathe hadlost the old warmworld,paida high pricefor living too long with
a singledream,"still the very intensityof his commitmentto spirithas nonethelesstransfigured,
for howeverbrief a time, the otherwisedrabmaterialsof
existence.ThatGatsby'simagination
of wondercanneverovercomethe current,
cannotevenresistthe current,is nothingto the point: It is the poetryof beating
on thatcounts! As a reflexresponseto that most elemental,thoughnot most
profound,intimationof the sacredbothwithinandbeyondus, Gatsby'sspontaneous act of resistanceconstituteshere,as in life generally,what might be described,in R. W. B. Lewis'sfinephrase,as"thetugof theTranscendent."'4
Without it, life losesallof its energyandinterest,allof its colorandoriginality.With
it, we recovera senseof thatradiancewhichtemporarily
redeemslife evenas the
flowof life itselfbearsit away.
1 I am here paraphrasing
an idea expressedin Lionel Trilling'sessay"AnnaKarenina,"
which is reprintedin his The Opposing Self (CompassBooks Edition; New York; The
Viking Press,1959), p. 75.
1 R. W. B. Lewis, Trials of the Word:Essaysin AmericanLiteratureand the Human
istic Tradition (New Haven: Yale UniversityPress, 1965), p. vii.
183
But we do not have to settle for Fitzgerald's
word alone on this subject.
to
an
almost
Frost
once
identical
Robert
used image
boatsbeating
Fitzgerald's
on againstthe currentandgave thatimageof primitivespiritualresistanceone
of its definitivereligiousexpressions.Frost'simageoccursin the poem"WestRunningBrook." Fredand his wife have been speakingof the meaningof
whensuddenlyan illuminating
contraries
examplepresentsitselfto him: " .. see
how the brook,"he remarksto his wife,
In that white waverunscounterto itself.
It is from thatin waterwe were from
Long,long beforewe were from anycreature.
Herewe,in ourimpatience
of thesteps,
Get backto the beginningof beginnings,
The streamof everythingthat runsaway.
The universalcataractof death
That spendsto nothingness-and unresisted,
Saveby some strangeresistancein itself,
Not just a swerving,but a throwingback,
As if regretwerein it and were sacred.
It has this throwingbackwardon itself
So thatthe fall of most of it is always
Raisinga little, sendingup a little.
It is this backwardmotion towardthe source.
Againstthe stream,thatmost we see ourselvesin,
The tributeof the currentto the source.
It is from this in naturewe are from.
It is most us.
Gatsby'sabundantstoreof wonder,with its reflexivecapacityto generate
andsustainsuchmarvelously
radiant,if alsodeeplyflawed,visionsis "athrowing
in
it
if
As
were
and were sacred."So too, I wouldhave to say,
back,/
regret
is Nick'swholenarrativeattemptto understand
its meaning. Takentogether,
motion
"backward
toward
the source,/Againstthe
and
Nick's
then,
Gatsby's
stream"constituteFitzgerald's
"tributeof the currentto the source."And thus
we sayat the closeof the novel,whenwe finallyput the bookdownandbegin
to let it haveits waywith us:
It is fromthis in naturewe are from.
It is most us.

F. Scott Fitzgerald`s "Gatsby" and the Imagination of Wonder

Transcription

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