Many citizens of the United States are struggling with the dichotomy between the ideas that frame our founding documents and the American realities at home and abroad that fall short of these ideas. This is especially true for Christians who understand the role their faith played in Western thought in general and the underpinnings of American ideals specifically.
Because of these historic contradictions it is becoming increasingly difficult for some of us to see our nation’s identity in a positive light. In fact, a large portion of our citizens are unaware of the most essential parts of the American identity or have chosen to reject that identity out of hand. However, there is an entertaining, informative and artistic way to explore our identity through one of our most beloved works of literature.
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a stunning observation of the American idea. The novel speaks to us even more forcibly in today’s America than it did when it was first published in April of 1924. It received mixed reviews at its initial publication. I think this was due to the novel depicting the all to recognizable characters and social truths of its day. For this reason, the underlying American examination didn’t get the proper emphasis or attention. The lifestyle and social dynamics of the novel’s characters occupying the fictional East and West Egg were well known and dealt with in much greater depth and detail in other works in various mediums. For this reason, Fitzgerald’s novel may have appeared shallow or empty to some. For instance, Critic H.L. Mencken dismissed the novel upon its publication as lacking in substance, although he praised its ending.
What was initially missed by many of these critics was that the novel was not about the surface relational dynamics of the various characters but that these characters represented ideas that resided very deep in the strata of American history and life. If we read The Great Gatsby with the idea that Gatsby represents the American Idea, Tom Buchanan represents the American reality and Daisy represents the ideals they both aspired to, then the novel sheds its superficial perspective and becomes a multilayered, complex and subtle artistic examination of America as a sum of its history.
Like the United States Gatsby rises from humble origins, is largely disregarded by the existing power structure, and created a name and a persona with its roots more in imagination than reality. Even as we discover Gatsby served honorably in the military and worked hard for everything he acquired there is this lingering impression that the polished person he claimed to be didn’t quite match the misty reality of his past or even the hidden actions of his present.
Even so Gatsby’s aspiration is noble even as we become increasingly aware that all his actions are not. His single aspiration was to become worthy of his one true love, Daisy. In Gatsby’s eyes Daisey represents all that is good in the world and metaphorically the American ideal. Gatsby desires to be joined with Daisy as the United States desires to be one with its declared ideals. Gatsby is thought to be unworthy of Daisy when they both were young, and it is this initial story book courtship and heart break that launches Gatsby on his odyssey to become something worthy of her.
We find a similar courtship, heartbreak and odyssey as we examine the founding documents and early history of the United States. Our founders aspired to the American ideal as revealed in our founding documents and were immediately faced with the stark reality that we were not yet equal to those aspirations. Even if we ignore the innate historical contradictions to our founding documents like slavery, there remains the political growing pains of a nation trying to be born. With our early struggles to define the scope of federal responsibility and power as well as the building of a thriving, fair and inclusive economy, our original principles did not always survive the tension between our necessary actions and the original ideals our founding documents required.
This is Gatsby. Owing an allegiance to a checkered and even dark past that is very much part of his present. Projecting opulence through his parties and lifestyle in a desperate hope that one day the love he aspires to will walk through his door. Gatsby is backward looking. He is striving forward toward his past to reclaim his lost aspiration that remains just out of his grasp. The green light at the end of Daisy’s dock represents for him the eternal hopefulness, optimism, and unfulfilled good intensions that the United States has exercised in greater measure than any other country. As Gatsby’s clouded actions were all aimed at being worthy of Daisey, the checkered history of the United States is full of its desire to be worthy of its founding documents.
In contrast, Tom Buchanan represents the forward-looking harsh reality of the United States. Our split personality that led to the civil war, our early devastating exploitation of our paid labor and our opportunistic malevolence to indigenous tribes and neighboring countries are just a few of the nefarious footnotes in our story of growth into a wealthy superpower. Tom also aspires to Daisey. However, his Daisy is not the romanticized founding idea of the past. His Daisy is the forward looking compromised American ideal that is dependent on and enjoys his success. Daisy for Tom is no sacred thing. He betrays her with impunity even as he values her in his own self-serving way. Even as their relationship remains dysfunctional, she is still what Tom aspires to.
Daisy is at once the ideal for Gatsby’s nostalgic backward-looking desires and Tom’s unsentimental forward-looking passions. Daisey represents the American ideal in both its romanticized and practical expressions. The genius of Fitzgerald’s design of Daisy’s character is that she can vacillate between being at odds with and in league with both Gatsby and Thom and yet never betray the essential nature of her character. In this way she becomes a poignant, layered and accessible portrayal of the American ideal in a troubled history.
These three characters are expertly enmeshed in the actions of real life and are not relegated to simply metaphor. It is easy to see how some critics of his day couldn’t see Fitzgerald’s masterpiece for what it was. The story works as simply a stylized drama if you don’t look to deeply at the characters and allow yourself to be exclusively immersed in the story and setting.
The interplay of these three characters leads us to the idea that it has always been more important what the United States has aspired to be than what we actually achieved. It is the striving for these ideals that led to our many achievements like the civil rights movement, comprehensive labor laws and a policy of benevolence in the world of nations. The fruit of our aspiration is impressive on the world stage even when compared to other Western countries. It should not be lost on us that we are the only historically Western nation that has elected a leader of anything other than European descent.
In addition to these three main characters that form the triangle of the American idea there is Nick Carraway. Carraway is the narrator of the story and serves as a detached observer of the American idea. It is trough Carraway’s eyes that we get an objective assessment of these characters and by implication an objective assessment of America. Fitzgerald’s brilliant prose finds it most compelling observations through Nick Carraway. His writing is so accessible and immersive yet approaches high poetry in its descriptions and observations. For example, in describing Gatsby’s optimism Fitzgerald writes for Carraway:
"If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away. This responsiveness had nothing to do with that flabby impressionability which is dignified under the name of the “creative temperament"—it was an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again."
The above statement starts by raising an instructive question. Is personality really an unbroken series of successful gestures? The entire description of Gatsby hangs on the answer to this question. It requires the reader to consider this assessment of personality which makes the reader’s subsequent understanding of the description that much more nuanced. It is because of these types of passive observations added to the rich characters, brilliant narration, and engaging prose that Fitzgerald has crafted a masterpiece of character description and setting.
It is through Carraway that we get our final assessment of Gatsby and therefore an assessment of the nobility of the American idea. I will not spoil the brilliant final paragraph for those who have not yet read The Great Gatsby. I will instead mark a point near the end of the book where Carraway observes the enormity of the implications of the discovery of the American continent for humanity. It is here in this statement that we find the fertile soil of unbridled potential that allowed the American idea to be born.
“And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes—a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby’s house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.”
In our trouble times when the definition of what America is can be changed for political effect or co-opted for political agenda, a clear-eyed exploration of the American idea is essential for our national sanity. Fictional literature has the power to explore important ideas in an accessible practical way. This is decidedly true of The Great Gatsby. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece is an enjoyable, insightful, and poetic portrait of the United States.