Alcohol is deep-rooted in American culture. People bond over a beer or a bottle of wine and it customary for there to be at toasts at everything from weddings and family gatherings to funerals. However, what happens when the government decides that America’s past time needs to be outlawed? Bootleggers, the impoverished, old money, and new all have one thing in common: their dependence on intoxicating drinks. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby demonstrates the social authority that alcohol had over people in the midst of Prohibition.
Fitzgerald revolves his novel around alcohol, a theme that continuously molds the direction of the story. For example, Nick witnesses drunk party goers in Gatsby’s garden early on and Myrtle and her friends get wasted with Tom and Nick in the city apartment. Tom and Daisy are constantly drinking and while Gatsby is not an alcoholic, he is a bootlegger who throws lavish parties where he provides alcohol.“It is remarkable how carefully those scenes are chosen to make room for and also protect the presence of alcohol” (Roth 4). For this reason, it is an oddity when a character is not an alcoholic. Nick and Gatsby are the only two characters who are known not to drink. They are sensible men who are “sober amongst much insobriety” (Eble 39). Nick prides himself on being “one of the few honest people [he has] ever known” (The Great Gatsby 59) by working hard, telling the truth, and following the law which, in this day, means avoiding the clutches of alcohol. Gatsby, however, uses liquor to attract and rule rich alcoholics. He throws parties to get people drunk but never himself sips a drink so he can stay in control. Gatsby thinks his sobriety can give him an advantage but he cannot hinder the authority of alcoholism.
Jay Gatsby uses other people’s reckless and alcoholic behaviors as a way to control everyone around him. At the famous Gatsby parties, people come from all over. They never have an invitation but always have the right to show up anyway. They never see or speak to Gatsby but that is the way they prefer it, pretending that the party has just appeared for their privileged selves. Guests looked at Nick “in such an amazed way” when he is asked to be introduced to their host “and denied…vehemently any knowledge” of Gatsby (The Great Gatsby 42). Like a prison with tall observation towers, “Gatsby’s parties are his panopticon – where he can watch his subjects and they can be aware of being watched, however many of the guests do not know the man himself, but simply that he is the keeper of the Panopticon” (Granroth 33). The guests dance and drink while they gossip to create a fabricated understanding of who their keeper may be. They spread wild rumors and one guest even tells Nick that “somebody told [them] they thought [Gatsby] killed a man once” (The Great Gatsby 44). While Gatsby provides people drinks as a way to gain authority and social power, it is also the way he makes his living. Gatsby became filthy rich as a bootlegger and he is one of the unsung heroes who brought alcohol to the masses. By catering alcohol to his hundreds of subjects, Gatsby puts himself in the position to always be needed and respected – thus gaining his social power.
Alcohol’s social management is so great that Daisy turned to alcoholism when Gatsby left as a replacement for his power. In the lives of Tom and Daisy, alcohol is a central social manager. As soon as Nick arrived at their house, a tray of drinks was brought out and Nick describes how Tom downs the liquor “as if it were a drop in the bottom of a glass” (The Great Gatsby 10). Later in the novel, Daisy, Nick, and Jay met for tea at Nick’s home but quickly abandoned the lemon cakes and tea for booze. Gatsby produces “some Chartreuse he took from the wall” for the trio, specifically, Daisy, to drink (The Great Gatsby 91). Once he has Daisy with a drink, Gatsby finds one of his servants and commands him to play the piano for them. Daisy is captivated by Jay’s social power but only because she is already under the authority of alcohol. Ironically, this authority was only gained after Gatsby could no longer fulfill his role as her social manager. Although he was away in the war for many years, Daisy could rely on the fantasy of being together again. It was a security blanket that she could fall back on if things did not work out with Tom. When she lost that, she needed a different structure to control her life so she replaced her fantasy of Gatsby with the authority of alcoholism. Jordan says that she never saw Daisy drink until the evening of her bridal dinner when she received a letter from Gatsby. “Never had a drink before, but oh how I enjoy it,” Daisy declared to her bridesmaid (The Great Gatsby 76) She no longer could hold on to Gatsby’s social management so she found another, more significant manager.
Like alcohol’s authority became Gatsby’s replacement as Daisy’s social manager, it is also the reason that she cannot be with Gatsby in the end. Tom and Daisy are alcoholics together. They both understand what it is like to let alcohol have authority over their lives and they encourage the other to drink. Daisy’s decision to stay with Tom was made with the realization that leaving him would mean she’d have to leave the alcoholic lifestyle that they share. Although one could argue that Gatsby would let Daisy drink and even provide her alcohol as a bootlegger, he could never relate to the power that alcohol had over her. Daisy returned to her authority because even though she loved Gatsby, it was alcohol that held the jurisdiction in her life. “Alcohol robs [Daisy] of the dignity of that choice; its authority means that [she] will choose its significance over the significance of any other structures in her life” (Granroth 54). Looking into a window, Nick notices Daisy and Tom eating dinner together with two bottles of ale between them; this is the moment she decides to stay. However, Daisy is not staying with Tom over Gatsby, she is staying with her powerful social manager and life of alcoholism.
Alcohol’s social authority controls all the characters in The Great Gatsby at one time or another. Gatsby uses alcohol to become a respectable social manager by being the supplier of drinks to hundreds of guests. Tom and Daisy are under the authority of alcohol. Daisy even uses it to replace Gatsby’s fantasy as a security blanket and then as a reason not to leave for him. The Prohibition-era may have forced alcohol sales to go underground but it could never alter the culture of Americans letting alcohol manage their social lives.
