Research Paper:
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, outward visual aspects are indispensable. They provide a glimpse into the unreal universe inhabited by Jay Gatsby, a product of his own imagination (Lehan, “The Road to West Egg,” 29) and Daisy Fay Buchanan, the incarnation of glamour and wealth (Brewley 44).
These are two characters whose actions thoroughly develop the plot, and they have become so consumed by the image they have created that they do not genuinely know their own identities. This obliquity created by outward visual aspects is seen no more clearly than in the images painted by Fitzgerald of Gatsby’s “perplexing parties” (E.K. 7) and in his business deals, which are connected with the “underworld bond and securities firm concern” (Lehan).
The valley of ashes, “where all hopes must be left behind” (Long 123), and the grand mansions of Gatsby and the Buchanans also offer the reader a look at the massive illusions created by Fitzgerald’s characters. As The Great Gatsby progresses, the outward visual aspects of events, places, and people can prove to be very delusory.
What more can exemplify the importance of outward visual aspects than the parties of the boom mid-twenties and Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby? The first three chapters of the novel are devoted to party scenes:
- the “proper dinner party” at the Buchanans’ in East Egg;
- the wild, drunken party at Tom and Myrtle’s flat in New York; and,
- Gatsby’s excessive party in West Egg.
These scenes introduce all of the important characters and places in the novel to give the impression of artifice (Miller 107).
Each of these parties emphasizes the feeling or outward appearance each character hopes to convey to others. This is seen most vividly, long after he is sickened by the acquaintance of Gatsby’s uninvited guests (Ornstein 54). Jay Gatsby “dispenses cordiality with munificent and eye-popping extravagance – a modern Solomon raising a bizarre temple to the contrary popularities” (E.K. 7).
Gatsby is compared to Solomon because, like Solomon, Gatsby is the king of his sphere, the Son of God. It seems odd that Gatsby would invite strangers to his house, but he has a need for his guests, and though it seemed the guests came only for the free party, the private beach, and the endless flow of cocktails, they also needed Gatsby. He provided them with an escape from reality, yet in the end, appearances and reality must go their separate ways (Brewley 43).
One of the most moving scenes in the novel is when Gatsby bids farewell to his guests. Nick describes, “a sudden emptiness seemed to flow now from the windows and the great doors, enfolding with complete isolation the figure of the host who stood on the porch, his hand up in a formal gesture of farewell” (Fitzgerald 60). This scene evokes the image that the guests were not human, but illusions created by Gatsby to support his vision.
As Marius Brewley stated, “The names of guests could have been recorded nowhere more appropriately than in the margins of a bleached timetable. They were the incarnations of illusions – as fleeting as time itself” (42).
Brewley is mentioned, of course, on the list of names Nick recorded of those who attended Gatsby’s parties that summer (Fitzgerald 65). The list itself evokes a series of fabulous parties attended by an eternal figure of bizarre, stylish, ambitious, and world-weary people (Miller 100). In the end, the invitees were nothing more than the orange mush and lemon rinds, which were left of Gatsby’s dream (Lehan, “The Road to West Egg” 33).
The mysterious and deceiving outward appearances of the party’s guests are far overshadowed by Gatsby’s past and business. Gatsby’s business operations seem to provide the most interesting screen. Gatsby got his start from his relationship with Dan Cody, but it is Meyer Wolfsheim who gets Gatsby into illegal business operations.
Wolfsheim, who, as we find out, is the man who fixed the 1919 World Series (Fitzgerald 78). He meets Gatsby when he is discharged from the war and covered with medals. Wolfsheim becomes a kind of second father figure for Gatsby, this “Godfather of the underworld” (Lehan, “The Road to West Egg” 30). Wolfsheim declares, “I raised him up out of nothing, right out of the gutter” (Fitzgerald 179).
It is true that, in a sense, Wolfsheim raised Gatsby, but he raised him into the world of unreal glamour that ultimately led to his destruction. The beginning of money holds no significance for Gatsby; however, his end is merely to gain enough money to win Daisy’s love, and “it is with this money that comes from bootlegging, gambling, and speakeasies that Gatsby makes the fortune that allows him to buy his house in West Egg” (Lehan, “His Father’s Business” 57).
In the beginning, Daisy quips, “He owned some drug stores, a lot of drug stores. He built them up himself” (Fitzgerald 114). It’s true, Gatsby did own drug stores, but as Tom reveals in the denouncement scene at the Plaza Hotel, “He and this Wolfsheim bought up a lot of side street drug stores in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter” (Fitzgerald 141). This scene concretizes Tom’s earlier claim that Gatsby was a bootlegger. Daisy becomes terrified at this revelation, and the entire novel turns on what Daisy considers to be legitimate and illegitimate wealth (Lehan, “Inventing Gatsby” 65).
Tom destroys the entire façade that Gatsby has built around himself, but as E.K. so truthfully stated:
“Gatsby, for all … the unsure haziness in which his vague business connections and presumably dirty wealth envelop him, he is far more real than the men and women who stoop from the security of their well-ordered business and social worlds to play with him and spend his money” (7).
This piece of information clearly re-emphasizes the point that outward appearances can be deceptive. Gatsby’s obscure past proves that through deceptive appearances one can rise from nothing to an rather artificial hero. The Valley of Ashes, where George and Myrtle Wilson reside, is another place where outward appearances can be rather deceptive. At first glance, the valley of ashes appears to be merely a pile of ashes in a garage, but they actually represent the gray, blue environment of the Wilsons – the life and class to which they belong (Miller 106).
This “wasteland” becomes the primary background against which tragedy is played out, and which causes it to take on a greater significance. Fitzgerald returns here again and again, describing his characters in terms of its “cramps of black dust” (Miller 106).
Myrtle tries to escape this world of desolation in her city apartment, where she resides as Tom Buchanan’s mistress. It is here that she tries to maintain a façade of “wealth and respectability.” The valley of ashes soon shatters this façade, along with her gaudy expectations of entering Tom’s world (Lehan, “Sugar Lumps and Ash Heaps: George and Myrtle Wilson” 93).
Trying to escape her husband, Myrtle rushes hoping to be saved from her hell by someone whom she believes to be Tom, only to be crushed by the machine, “her life violently extinguished as she knelt in the road, the blood mingling with the dust” (Lehan, “A Son of God” 39). Ironically, it was Daisy who extinguished the life of Myrtle, but her husband is deceived of this fact by Tom. As the valley of ashes represented the environment of the Wilsons, the grand homes of Gatsby and the Buchanans represent the conflicting social status and importance of outward appearances.
Nick describes each house in a different manner. When referring to the Buchanan’s house, he says, “Their house was even more luxurious than I expected, a cheerful red and white Georgian Colonial house overlooking the bay” (Fitzgerald 11).
This house embodies the idea that money knows how to buy taste. On the other hand, when he describes Gatsby’s house, he says, “… was a colossal affair by any standard – it was a factual imitation of some Hotel de Normandy…” (Fitzgerald 9).
This description reflects ironically upon Gatsby’s impractical dream (Long 90). Coincidentally, the two houses are positioned as if they were facing each other. The distance between them also suggests that Gatsby, with his unusual estate at West Egg, is as close as he will ever come to the established society of the Buchanans (Long 91). Both houses evidently contain significant amounts of mystery, but on the night before Gatsby’s reunion with Daisy, his house lights up from top to bottom with runs of light, creating an impressionistic effect of grand illusion.
Gatsby’s house remains unreal even after his death when his father brings a bent photo of Gatsby’s house – a mirage of success (Long 90). Nick tells the reader, “He had shown it so frequently that I think it was more real to him now than the house itself” (Fitzgerald 180).
This further emphasizes the illusional quality the house possessed and the importance of outward appearances in Gatsby’s time. The characters in The Great Gatsby provide much evidence of the importance of outward appearances, and each shows misrepresentation throughout the novel, both to themselves and to others. Daisy Fay Buchanan is the hardest character to define in The Great Gatsby (Eble 94).
Perhaps “she bears the load of obliging such romantic strength, explaining why Daisy is presented so mistily as a character” (Lehan, “Careless People: Daisy Fay” 73). “Gatsby sees Daisy as the incarnation of wealth and glamor” (Brewley 41).
She is the object of romantic obsession (Lehan, “Careless People: Daisy Fay” 67). When she tells Gatsby that she loves him, his hopes for a life with her lead to a confrontation with her husband, Tom. During this confrontation, Daisy tells Tom that she never loved him, then recants her statement and says that she loved him once but also loved Gatsby (Fitzgerald 139).
Daisy’s indecision exemplifies “Daisy’s lack of maturity, intrinsic worth, and solidarity of character” (Lehan, “The Road to West Egg” 31). Gatsby chooses to ignore Daisy’s unwanted traits and will do anything to protect her at all costs. When their affair resumes after five years, Gatsby fires all of his staff because he wants “someone who wouldn’t gossip” (Fitzgerald 120).
He wanted to maintain Daisy’s reputation. It is quite ironic the lengths that Gatsby will go to protect Daisy, whereas “Daisy, who will ultimately resort to protecting herself no matter who or what she has to abandon” (Lehan, “The Road to West Egg” 31). She remains “spotless” and immaculately dressed in white, while at the same time, she is selfish, destructive, and capable of anything except human understanding (Ornstein 59).
Gatsby tells Nick after their affair resumes, “Her voice is full of money” (Fitzgerald 127). This statement gives the tour of Gatsby’s house more substance, exemplifying to the reader Gatsby’s need to prove that he has earned enough to deserve her love (Lehan, “Careless People: Daisy Fay” 75).
This scene implies that Daisy is more concerned with Gatsby’s outward appearance than who he is as a person. Nick warns Gatsby, “Don’t ask too much of her. You can’t repeat the past” (Fitzgerald 116), to which Gatsby answers, “Why, of course you can!” (Fitzgerald 116). It is obvious that “Gatsby endows her with a significance that she could in no way embody” (Lehan, “The Road to West Egg” 31).
“In spite of the bright glow of wealth and world-weary sophistication of her careless life – Daisy is seen as what she is, ‘foul dust that floated in the aftermath of Gatsby’s dream'” (Miller 103). “She vanished into her rich house, into her rich full life, leaving Gatsby – nothing” (Fitzgerald 157).
The careless attitude and false individuality that consumes Daisy also embodies Jay Gatsby himself. No outward visual aspects can be quite as delusory as those of Jay Gatsby himself, for “Gatsby is somewhat vague, his delineations are subdued, the reader can’t concentrate upon him” (Perkins 5).
This can be said due to the many misconceptions one discovers about Gatsby. James E. Miller, Jr. also confirms of Kaiser Wilhelm, that he killed a man once, that he is a German spy…” (98). “The suspense created by these wild stories finally gives way to Gatsby’s tremendously critical illusion” (Miller 98); the illusion of obtaining Daisy Buchanan’s love. This love for Daisy played an indispensable role in Gatsby’s contriving of himself.
The narrator of the novel cites: “The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his platonic conception of himself. He was the son of God — a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that — and he must be about His Father’s business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty” (Fitzgerald 104). The novel’s narrator, Nick Carraway, gives the reader this description of Gatsby shortly after Gatsby reveals the truth behind all the myths associated with himself.
Nick also notes that Jay Gatsby’s name was legally James Gatz (Fitzgerald 104). This name change occurs at age 17 when “Jay is taken under the tutelage of Dan Cody, a millionaire yachtsman and miner” (Gallo 37). Gatsby spends five years with Dan Cody, and upon Cody’s death was deprived of his $25,000 inheritance, forcing him into the army (Gallo 37). Gatsby, in a sense, was “modeling himself after Dan Cody” (Lehan, “Inventing Gatsby” 58).
Just as Cody had built an empire, Gatsby was building an illusion, a dream. The illusion began with Cody but continues as he invents a fabricated background: his blue blood background and ancestors, and his Oxford education (Kuehl 15). “The more Gatsby talks the more absurd his story becomes” (Lehan, “Inventing Gatsby” 60). Nick declares, “He hurried the phrase ‘educated at Oxford,’…And with this doubt, his whole statement fell to pieces and I wondered if there wasn’t something a little sinister about him” (Fitzgerald 69).
Despite the contradictions in his narrative, Gatsby never emerges clearly and forcefully enough “to be considered sinister; he is created more as a fabulous individual than as a real one” (Eble 95). It is this “blurring of Gatsby” that makes his “antic semblance more credible” (Lehan, “Inventing Gatsby” 60).
He is the “incarnation of every man’s unrealized aspirations” (Gallo 38). Gatsby’s personality is composed of “gestures” as Nick calls them, including the pink suits, the silver shirts, the “old sports,” and many other idiosyncrasies (Lehan, “Inventing Gatsby” 58). As Nick tells the reader, “If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life…” (Fitzgerald 6).
It is this lack of intelligence and opinion of reality that leads him to his tragic death (Brewley 53). Gatsby’s long-lost father attends his son’s funeral with great pride, noting that “Jimmy always likes it better down East. He rose up to his place in the East” (Fitzgerald 176).
This statement is viewed with great sadness because, although Gatsby had amassed a huge sum of wealth, in the end, he was left with nothing. It becomes apparent, at the novel’s close, that “beneath the elaborate, albeit gaudy, elegance of Gatsby looms James Gatz, the original ‘roughneck’ that Gatsby spends so much time trying to hide” (Lehan, “Inventing Gatsby” 59).
However, Gatsby is not the only character who tries to hide his true identity. Daisy, the object of his desire, is also rather vague. Throughout Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the importance of outward appearances is ever-present and continuously deceptive.
One can witness this through the parties of “dazzling extravagance” (E.K. 7), the deceiving underworld business of Gatsby, the “wasteland” Valley of Ashes (Miller 106), the unreal, cold castles of the East and West Egg, and most of all, in the fanciful self-invented psyches of Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan. The truth to the idea of outward appearances is not only important but also indispensable to the plot of the novel. The Great Gatsby’s success can be attributed to the twists and turns provided by the human need to judge one another and develop oneself through the use of outward appearances.
