Men have found
it possible to be passionate lovers at certain times in their lives,
but there is not one of them who could be called 'a great lover';
in their most violent transports, they never abdicate completely
[. . .] the beloved woman is only one value among others; they wish
to integrate her into their existence and not squander it entirely
on her.
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The interpretations of Fitzgerald's Jay Gatsby of The Great Gatsby
posit him as embodying, either separately or in combination, the persona
of a self-made man, whose dedication to self-improvement myths and rags-to-riches
success place him securely in the tradition of Benjamin Franklin and
Horatio Alger, or as the hero of a romance novel, invoking romantic
motifs which hearken back to older archetypes, such as the Odyssean
searfaring hero3, the Arthurian grail seeker4,
or the courtly lover5 (click here for some background
information on courtly
love). Little has been written about Gatsby's psychology6
and still less about Daisy Buchanan's. I propose a reading of both Jay
Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan using Simone de Beauvoir's treatise, The
Second Sex, in particular de Beauvoir's chapter on the "woman
in love," in an attempt to reveal a new way of understanding the
motivations of each character (for
more information on de Beauvoir
click
here). I will argue that Gatsby fits the paradigm
of the "woman in love," as he exhibits many of the traits
which define the woman in love's psychology: he idolizes his lover to
the point of religious devotion; identifies with his lover in an attempt
to become a likeness of her; defines his existence by his interaction
with his lover; and waits for long periods of time, sustained by thoughts
of love. I propose also to analyze Daisy's psychology in terms of de
Beauvoir's definition to show her as a woman who entertains briefly,
but ultimately abandons, the woman in love paradigm. By illuminating
an example in The Great Gatsby of a man who fulfills the criteria
of a woman in love, I also hope to show that de Beauvoir's premise is
correct in its situational definition of the woman in love (women act
in love the way they do because they find themselves a victim of unequal
power relations). However, before beginning find evidence for Gatsby
as a "man in love," and before analyzing Daisy as a character
who sees through the illusory benefits of devoting her life to a grand
amour, I will argue for Gatsby's inclusion in the definition "woman
in love," in an attempt to release the label from its biological
underpinnings.
Gatsby, one would think, is automatically disqualified
for analysis as a "woman in love" on account of his gender.
This "problem" is easily reconciled if one looks at the very
qualifications de Beauvoir places on her definition. De Beauvoir does
concede there are fundamental differences in the way the different sexes
view love; however, these differences arise from the inherent inequalities
in the situation of the sexes, (one occupies the realm of power; the
other is excluded from it) which understandably skews the perceptions
each sex has on love. De Beauvoir writes: "The fact is that we
have nothing to do here with laws of nature. It is the difference in
their situations that is reflected in the difference men and women show
in their conceptions of love" (643). According to de Beauvoir,
because a woman finds herself excluded from the realm of power on account
of her sex, she seeks, through a love relationship with a man, to vicariously
partake in some of his power. By partaking in a small part of male power,
she hopes to gain more subjectivity and to raise her status.
If we analyze Gatsby purely in terms of his situation,
we find that throughout his courtship of Daisy he is consistently in
a situation of less power, occupying a lower class stratum than Daisy.
When he first meets Daisy, he is nearly penniless, but even later, when
he has made his millions, he is still only nouveau riche compared to
Daisy's Buchanan's inherited wealth. So while Gatsby's disadvantage
is not a disadvantage attributable to unequal gender relations, we see
that he is excluded from a realm of power which he is arbitrarily denied
access on account of his birth. Just as a woman is excluded from the
realm of male power by birth, and thus "dream[s] of transcending
her being toward one of these superior beings, of amalgamating herself
with the sovereign subject," (643) Gatsby finds himself in a similar
situation, dreaming that he will one day align himself with a group
he believes is more privileged. He is enamored by that world which is
Other, and will devote his life to finding a way to become, even if
only vicariously, a part of it. De Beauvoir explains this phenomenon
of identification as one which is established at a young age, as when
"the adolescent girl wishes at first to identify herself with males;
when she gives that up, she then seeks to share in their masculinity
by having one of them in love with her" (643). When becoming like
one of the rich, as in his emulation of Dan Cody, is not satisfying
enough, Gatsby will attempt to have one of the rich fall in love with
him. We learn also that Gatsby does, as a young boy, "dream"
of transcendence: "in his bed at night. A universe of ineffable
gaudiness spun itself out in his brain" (105). He is intrigued
by the promise of Daisy's world - one which he has never before experienced
because of his lower class. Her world is in such contrast to his own
that he feels a sense of total abandonment when she leaves him, since
she is retreating into a life in which he cannot take part; "She
vanished into her rich house, into her rich, full life, leaving Gatsby
- nothing" (156-7). The adjective "rich" takes on a dual
meaning: it is analogous to "full," but also alludes to Daisy's
wealth. While it is important to note that Gatsby's situation is considerably
less oppressive Daisy's, Gatsby's symptoms throughout his grand amour
show that he would not devote so much to love if he were not in some
way at a disadvantage due to his inferior position.
The first trait a woman in love exhibits is an idolization
of males in general. For Gatsby this idolization manifests itself as
an admiration for the rich as a class. De Beauvoir outlines this phenomenon
of a woman in love, which is instilled at an early age:
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Substitute "boy" for "girl" and "wealth"
for "virility" and one is left with the image of the young
James Gatz, first introduced to the possibilities of the world of the
rich through Dan Cody. Nick intuits that "to young Gatz, resting
on his oars and looking up at the railed deck, that yacht represented
all the beauty and glamour in the world" (106). And, when he is
slightly older, Gatsby is again caught by the "gleam of Daisy's
wealth." Gatsby finds in Daisy's wealth the combination of several
qualities, all of which are necessary for sustaining the illusion of
Daisy's superiority: "her distinction of manner, cultivation and
social status" (644). Nick confirms this fact when he reveals Gatsby's
complete captivation with Daisy and her Other-worldly life: "He
knew that Daisy was extraordinary but he didn't realize just how extraordinary
a 'nice' girl could be" (156). The all-inclusive adjective "nice,"
which refers to Daisy's status, also shows that Gatsby could easily
be enamored with other rich girls - he is intrigued by the world of
the rich more so than any individual rich girl.
Gatsby's devotion goes beyond simple idol worship. This
is a necessary step for the woman in love to take if she wishes to convince
herself that her grand amour has transcended an ordinary love relationship
and entered the realm of an extraordinary quest. Gatsby discovers after
his last meeting with Daisy in Louisville that "he had committed
himself to the following of a grail" (156). This description is
analogous to Nietzsche's observation of the way a woman in love devotes
all her energy and feeling into her grand amour. "This unconditional
nature of love is what makes it a faith, the only one she has"
(qtd. in de Beauvoir 642). Gatsby's made-up quest, therefore, is a crucial
part of the woman in love's psychology. Believing that he is devoting
his life to a quest serves to mask his servitude, an unavoidable consequence
of devoting his life to Daisy. He, like the woman in love, mistakes
his servile quest for an autonomous endeavor. De Beauvoir writes: "Since
she is anyway doomed to dependence, she will prefer to serve a god rather
than to obey tyrants [. . .] She chooses to desire her enslavement so
ardently that it will seem to her the expression of her liberty"
(643). Gatsby idolizes Daisy to escape the trappings of his inferior
status - a lowly James Gatz. His escape, as de Beauvoir affirms, is
illusory. By devoting his life to pursuing Daisy, he believes he is
acting independently; however, all of his autonomous acts (establishing
himself financially and building a mansion as an expression of his excessive
wealth) are undermined by the simple fact that they are all done in
Daisy's name.
This necessary delusion the woman in love imposes upon
herself serves a double purpose: it not only allows her to pursue a
grand amour with the belief that she is acting independently, it also
allows her the added benefit of appearing more desirable to her lover.
De Beauvoir writes:
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Gatsby performs this identification with a full realization
of its end result; in Louisville at his last meeting with Daisy, Gatsby
knows "that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable
visions to her perishable breath [. . .] the incarnation was complete"
(117). In this moment, he has completely identified his abstract vision
of success with the corporeal Daisy, and cannot do anything save pursue
her: he can no more give up Daisy than he can give up his persona of
Jay Gatsby. De Beauvoir uses the same word, "incarnation,"
to describe the "doubling" transformation that a woman in
love will undergo in order to become like her lover, to the point where
she ceases to be herself and becomes, in essence, him. "'I am Heathcliffe,'
says Catherine in Wuthering Heights; that is the cry of every woman
in love [ . . .she] is another incarnation of her loved one, his reflection,
his double: she is he" (653 emphasis added). Gatsby's boldest move
toward becoming a "double" of Daisy is his purchase of a mansion
across the bay from the Buchanans in the hope that his close proximity
will lead her to him. The mansion, however, is only an imitation of
the Buchanan's. It is not the sophisticated "red and white Georgian
Colonial mansion" (11) of East Egg, but the tawdry "factual
imitation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy" (19) of West
Egg. Since Gatsby has no experience being rich, his possessions are
more ostentatious, his clothing more showy, and his car - a "circus
wagon" (128).
The mansion, clothes, and car are all based on Gatsby's
conception of possessions he thinks Daisy will like. By extension, Gatsby's
life is only as successful as Daisy thinks it is, regardless of how
successful Nick or any others may think it is. Once in her presence,
Gatsby looks to Daisy, his witness and appraiser, to interpret what
is valuable. After the pretense of tea at Nick's house, the real entertainment
begins. Gatsby's raison d'être is instantly affirmed when upon
first seeing his house Daisy gasps, "That huge place there. Do
you like it? I love it" (95-6). Gatsby finally has an accomplice
who can verify his greatness. De Beauvoir writes of the happiness the
woman in love feels at having her lover see her accomplishments: "The
woman in love feels endowed with a high and undeniable value; she is
at last allowed to idolize herself through the love she inspires. She
is overjoyed to find in her lover a witness" (646). Nick makes
a similar observation on Gatsby's manner: "He hadn't once ceased
looking at Daisy and I think he revalued everything in his house according
to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes" (96-7).
Once Daisy has toured all the rooms and only the simply adorned bedroom
remains, Gatsby takes the opportunity to show off his most prized possessions
- he amazes the pair by throwing his expensive shirts out of his closet:
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It is significant that Gatsby has not purchased the shirts on his own.
He has a "man in England who buys them," (97) and, though
Gatsby does not say it, presumably he has his shirts sent from England
because he believes Daisy would be most impressed by imported English
shirts over any other shirts. In this scene it becomes most clearly
evident that Gatsby is literally, as de Beauvoir writes, "see[ing]
with [the lover's] eyes" (653). This phenomenon is an unavoidable
effect of attempting to become a double of the lover. Gatsby looks at
his possessions as if for the first time, astounded at the same time
that she is. He almost cannot believe that his possessions are his,
and in the presence of his loved one he has trouble identifying too
who he is - Daisy or himself. For the first time, it seems, he can almost
believe he has succeeded at becoming Jay Gatsby; his witness is on hand
to verify it.
However, as easily as Daisy has brought Gatsby's possessions
into focus, she can just as easily dispel them with a disapproving eye.
De Beauvoir writes: "if her lover wishes it, she changes that image
which at first was more precious than love itself; she loses interest
in it; what she is, what she has [. . .] what he does not care for,
she repudiates" (651). Gatsby's image undergoes a quick change,
a transformation which comes soon after Daisy attends his party. His
party guests drive up to his house and then have to turn away. Nick
declares, "his career as Trimalchio was over" (119). And,
while Gatsby's house has undergone an external change in appearance,
as it no longer is lit up for his parties, it has also undergone an
internal transformation. Gatsby has also hired all new servants, albeit
friends of Wolfshiem, to keep his relationship with Daisy a secret.
Moreover, his career in the drugstore/bootlegging/gambling business,
which was everything to him because it helped him impress Daisy, is
now crumbling. The "servants" have let the house fall into
disarray and the kitchen is rumored to be filthy. Nick intuits, "So
the whole caravansary has fallen in like a card house at the disapproval
in her eyes" (120). "Card house" is an appropriate metaphor;
Gatsby's whole ruse of a career is easily toppled, since the only thing
holding it together was the hope that Daisy would approve - without
her seal of approval the business no longer matters. Since Gatsby's
primary purpose in life entailed waiting for Daisy, once she arrives,
his own affairs take on a secondary importance. De Beauvoir similarly
notes how easily the woman in love gives up her own identity and affairs,
"She lets her own world collapse in contingence, for she really
lives in his" (653).
The woman in love is so dependent on her lover for her
very existence that: "her idea of location in space, even, is upset:
the center of the world is no longer the place where she is, but that
occupied by her lover; all roads lead to his home, and from it"
(de Beauvoir 653). This is especially true for Gatsby, since he defines
his happiness according to Daisy's proximity to him. Even Gatsby's gestures,
which appear to be abstract expressions of yearning, turn out to be
purposeful and extremely place specific: Gatsby is reaching out, not
to the stars, but to the green light which is the end of Daisy's dock.
Nick comes to this realization after Jordon tells him that Gatsby purposely
purchased his house to be close to Daisy: "Then it had not been
merely to the stars to which he had aspired on that June night. He came
alive to me, delivered from the womb of his purposeless splendor"
(83). Gatsby's obsession with place, more specifically, his obsession
with any place where Daisy is, is evident early in Gatsby's relationship
with Daisy. Louisville is only important to him as a location because
he and Daisy once had memories there. When Gatsby returns to find her
after the war, he attaches a supernatural significance to the town itself.
Leaving on a train, "He stretched out his hand desperately as if
to snatch only a wisp of air, to save a fragment of the spot that she
had made lovely for him" (160). A side effect of Gatsby centering
his existence on the movements of Daisy is her appearance in the physical
world in unexpected places. Nick reveals indirectly that Gatsby sees
Daisy everywhere he goes. "I had no girl whose disembodied face
floated along the dark cornices and blinding signs" (85). Even
Gatsby's parties are an elaborate scheme to provide a place Daisy will
like, so even while he is not following her movements, he is indirectly
trying to draw her into his world, in an attempt to occupy the same
place as she.
Above all, "the woman in love [. . .] is one who waits" (de Beauvoir 661). Gatsby waits, five years in fact, for Daisy. Waiting is not necessarily a negative state, since the act of waiting can be fulfilling in its own way. De Beauvoir writes, "Waiting can be a joy; to the woman who watches for her beloved in the knowledge that he is hastening toward her, that he loves her, the wait is a dazzling promise" (662). Gatsby reassures himself he is justified in waiting for Daisy, precisely because he believes the only thing that has kept both of them apart was his lack of millions. Now that he has made his fortune, he has entered the second stage of waiting, waiting with the "dazzling promise" of the two of them coming together. Gatsby is convinced that Daisy feels the same way he does. He tells Tom at the Plaza Hotel that he and Daisy "couldn't meet. But both of us loved each other all that time, old sport, and you didn't know. I used to laugh sometimes [. . .] to think that you didn't know" (138). In his waiting he displays infinite patience. Although he has gone to great measures to buy a house that has a view of Daisy's dock, he worries that it is an imposition on Nick to invite him over to tea to rendezvous with Daisy: "The modesty of the demand shook me. He had waited five years and bought a mansion where he dispensed starlight to causal moths so that he could "come over" some afternoon to a stranger's garden"(83).
At Nick's house for tea, Gatsby astounds both Daisy and
Nick with his heightened sense of time, an understandable effect of
basing one's life on waiting, as well as basing one's existence on the
interactions with the lover. To Daisy's vague time reference that she
and Gatsby "haven't met for many years," Gatsby quickly responds,
"'Five years next November.' The automatic quality of his answer
set us all back at least another minute" (92). It is therefore
appropriate that Gatsby be the one to knock a clock off of Nick's mantelpiece
while talking to Daisy of their time apart. After placing the clock
back on the mantelpiece, he sits in the pose of Rodin's The Thinker,
"his elbow on the arm of the sofa and his chin in his hand"
(91) (The Cleveland
Museum of Art owns one of only five casts of The Thinker supervised
by Rodin in his lifetime, click
here to go to the site.) Although it may seem a strange posture
for a man who has not seen his lover in five years to assume, it only
points toward his propensity for contemplation of his lover, even while
in her presence.
Finally, the woman in love sets herself up for disappointment, since she has set impossible standards for her lover. It will be revealed that her lover is not a god at all, and the grand amour is only an ordinary love affair. De Beauvoir describes the inevitable results of believing one's lover to be infallible:
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Because Gatsby has idolized Daisy, she will necessarily disappoint him.
For someone who believes it possible to relive the past, it is an unbelievable
proposition for Gatsby that his lover will not live up to his expectations,
since he believes any mistake can be corrected or accounted for. He
is prepared to repeat the courtship in Louisville, and he is willing
to forgive Daisy for not waiting for him five years ago. However, Gatsby's
logic on the possibility of repeating the past is flawed; the most ostensible
evidence against reliving the past is Daisy's child - the one event
that even Gatsby cannot imagine away. Gatsby also wants Daisy to impossibly
renounce all of the feelings and experiences that have culminated between
her and Tom in the five year interim of Gatsby's absence. It is easier
for Gatsby to believe in repeating the past because he has learned to
will his own persona into existence and to recreate his own destiny.
Since Gatsby's image of Daisy is that of the Daisy of
the past, she will, in her present incarnation, perplex him. Consequently,
he will constantly evaluate her behavior and actions against the Daisy
of five years ago. And, since this "measuring-up" will cause
the present day Daisy to act in ways the past Daisy did not, Gatsby
will make excuses to explain-away her behavior, claiming, whenever she
does not understand him, that she is "out of sorts," "not
herself" or "excited." At the first party of Gatsby's
that Daisy attends, he reminisces for the Daisy of the past. "She
doesn't understand [. . .] she used to be able to understand" (116).
It is doubtful whether Daisy even understood Gatsby five years ago,
but his image of her from the past will not be compromised. The disparity
in Gatsby's and Daisy's actions; however, speaks to the difference in
their feelings toward love and the different people they have become.
This is most evident in the way each respond to their time apart: Daisy
does not wait for Gatsby to return from the war before marrying Tom,
while Gatsby is still waiting for Daisy. Although Daisy admits that
she loved Gatsby the whole time they were apart, Tom more rightly assesses
the situation with the cruel, but accurate, "she didn't know [he
was] alive" (140).
Gatsby is confounded when Daisy reveals the truth at the
Plaza, "I did love him [Tom] once - but I loved you too" (140).
For Gatsby, there was never a question of his loving someone else and
Daisy. Gatsby, in light of this new information, tries desperately to
make excuses for his lover per de Beauvoir's description: that Daisy
is not herself, and she is too overwhelmed by the situation to act rationally.
Gatsby, seeing the change in her at the Plaza, panics, "I want
to speak to Daisy alone [. . .] She's all excited now -" (140).
Daisy, however, is thinking clear-headedly when she makes the even more
disturbing revelation to Gatsby, that even if she were alone, she couldn't
have admitted to never loving Tom. Gatsby holds on to the proposition
that Daisy is acting out-of-sorts, even after the accident that takes
Myrtle's life, hoping Daisy will come back to him. He explains to Nick
on the last morning of his life: I don't think she ever loved him [.
. .] you must remember, old sport, she was very excited this afternoon.
He told her those things in a way that frightened her - that made it
look as if I was some kind of cheap sharper. And the result was she
hardly knew what she was saying. (159)
He cannot admit that she is human and that her life did not stop in
the years they were not together. He again uses the excuse of "temporary
insanity" to explain away Daisy's non-reciprocative behavior. In
this way, the lover is protected from any infallibility, and the illusion
of perfection can go on. Gatsby doesn't fault Daisy for her marriage
to Tom in the past, only makes excuses for her choice. "She only
married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me.
It was a terrible mistake" (137).
Perhaps Daisy's mistake is not so terrible as Gatsby thinks.
She and Tom are the only characters to escape unscathed from the incidents
of the summer. Although Nick gives them the epithet "careless,"
there are signs that Daisy Buchanan has found a way of coping with realism
that Gatsby never did:
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Daisy has the opportunity to embark upon a grand amour with Gatsby but
ultimately rejects that option twice: first in not waiting for Gatsby
and marrying Tom Buchanan instead, and second, in choosing to stay with
Tom over Gatsby. Although Daisy embodies some traits of a woman in love
in that she associates masculinity with power and status, we learn that
she was attracted to Tom's "wholesome bulkiness about his person
and his position and Daisy was flattered;" (159) she rejects other
key components necessary for inclusion into the definition of a woman
in love. Most noticeably, she does not wait for her lover, and she does
not pretend that she is in any way empowered or benefited by thinking
a love affair or marriage represents more than it really is.
In Louisville, it is revealed that Daisy has the same
propensity which de Beauvoir wrote an adolescent girl as having in the
presence of masculinity: she is susceptible to the "gleam of virility."
The circumstance is the dashing Jay Gatsby in his military uniform,
enough to win over the naïve Daisy Fay. Daisy also shows she is
not above acting irrationally for love. When Gatsby has to leave to
fight in the war, she packs her suitcase with the intent of seeing him
off.
Daisy, however, lacks the singularity of purpose and above
all, lacks the patience required of a woman in love. Daisy cannot wait
for Gatsby to return from the war. Since she desires a life which is
defined rather a life in limbo, she quickly accepts a new love in Tom
Buchanan. Her decision to marry Tom indicates that she, like Gatsby,
identifies wealth and possessions with love. We learn from Jordan that
her decision to marry Tom had much to do with the fact that he was ostensibly
the wealthiest man to come to Louisville: "He came down with a
hundred people in four private cars and hired a whole floor of the Seelbach
Hotel, and the day before the wedding he gave her a string of pearls
valued at three hundred and fifty thousand dollars" (80). Tom represents
a more tangible and concrete display of love than the abstract dreams
of Gatsby, so her decision is also based on "some force - of love,
of money, of unquestionable practicality - that was close at hand"
(159). De Beauvoir wrote of the difficult choice Daisy has to make,
one which requires her to choose between two undesirable alternatives.
There is the seemingly "easier" road of a marriage or the
"harder" road of independence:
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Daisy is at the mercy of various temptations. She has the attention
of all of the young officers in Louisville; the attention of a mysterious
Jay Gatsby; and the attention of a robust and wealthy Tom Buchanan.
In both Gatsby and Tom she can take pleasure in the different aspects
of their masculinity. Gatsby is the industrious self-made man who "always
looks so cool" (125), in whom Daisy can vicariously partake in
his purpose and drive. Tom is the "great big hulking physical specimen
of a" man (16); in whom Daisy experiences "virility"
personified.
However much Daisy is caught up by the masculine traits
which she finds appealing, she is not deluded by the false hope that
a woman in love must believe in to devote her life to a grand amour:
But it often happens that women succeed in deifying none of the men
they know [. . .] and when they glimpse some chance to salvage a disappointing
life by dedicating it to some superior person they desperately give
themselves up to this hope. (644) Daisy does not jump at the chance
to escape her marriage with Tom for a romance with Gatsby. She has not
deified any men in her life; there was only the brief exception of Gatsby,
once in Louisville before marrying Tom, and again in the few weeks before
the accident which kills Myrtle. Leland S. Person in his article, "'Herstory'
and Daisy Buchanan" notes the point at which Daisy's "romantic
readiness" changes and her cynicism regarding the possibilities
of romantic love begins - it is after the ice-cold bath on the day of
her wedding. "She has been baptized in ice, and with her romantic
impulses effectively frozen, Daisy Fay becomes 'paralyzed' with conventional
happiness as Mrs. Tom Buchanan" (Person 253). Daisy confirms her
despair in a tête-à-tête with Nick at his first visit
to the Buchanan's, "Well I've had a very bad time, Nick, and I'm
pretty cynical about everything" (21). It is not specified whether
Daisy includes her relationship with Gatsby under the clause of having
"a bad time," but certainly there is little evidence in the
text to argue that Daisy is happy with her choice in marrying Tom. As
a couple, Tom and Daisy can at best be described as content, not happy.
In light of Daisy's less than perfect marriage, it seems
that a better chance for happiness for Daisy would be a life with Gatsby.
Even if her illusions of Gatsby are shattered when she finds he has
made his money through questionable means, he seems the lesser of the
two evils in comparison with Tom. Fitzgerald himself commented to Edmund
Wilson on a flaw which he thought weakened the novel: "The worst
fault in it [The Great Gatsby] I think is a Big Fault: I gave no account
(and had no feeling about or knowledge of) the emotional relations between
Gatsby and Daisy from the time of their reunion to the catastrophe"
(qtd. in Bruccoli 218).
Perhaps Daisy's skepticism provides enough of an explanation
to account for her rejecting the path of a woman in love. She has thoroughly
exhausted all options which were open to her, yet she still feels empty.
She reveals to Nick: "You see I think everything's terrible anyhow
[. . .] And I know. I've been everywhere and seen everything and done
everything" (21-22). She is particularly articulate when speaking
of the limited options available to women, which she reveals in her
description of the birth of her baby girl:
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Daisy's response shows that she has no illusions regarding her plight
or her daughter's. She is less naïve than Gatsby in her conception
of love, and knows that to participate in a grand amour would only mask
the reality of the world, which she "knows" to be terrible.
So, as Gatsby is seduced by its potential of the woman in love paradigm,
Daisy is able to see through its falsity.
How does an examination of Gatsby and Daisy using the women in love archetype enhance our understanding of The Great Gatsby, and by extension, de Beauvoir's premise of the woman in love? For de Beauvoir it shows that men can place as a high a value on love as women do, if they find themselves to be at a disadvantage in a love relationship, as Gatsby illustrates. In light of Daisy's analysis it shows too that not all women necessarily will accept the woman in love paradigm, even if they have exhausted all available options. For The Great Gatsby, analyzing Daisy and Gatsby using de Beauvoir's definition reveals an added dimension to each character. If we view Gatsby as a "man in love," his actions and behavior take on a consistency which before had him divided between acting as either a self-made modern man or an out-of-date romantic, or both. Daisy too is delivered from much of the negative criticism which surrounds her character, since she has all too often been examined as a victimizer rather than a victim7. If Daisy is viewed as a woman who rejects the false promises which a grand amour affords, she may be rightly understood as a tragic figure on par with Gatsby. Both are similarly oppressed, and, in finding ways to cope with the oppression, both adopt opposite conceptions of the redeeming possibilities of love. The tragic aspect lies in the fact that neither is fulfilled; Gatsby puts too much faith in love, and Daisy, too little.
Notes
1. Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, trans. H. M. Parshley, New York: Knopf (1957), p. 642.
2. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby, New York: Scribner's (1995), p. 6.
3. For a discussion of Odyssean parallels in The Great Gatsby see K.G. Probert, "Nick Carraway and the Romance of Art," English Studies in Canada, 10:2 (1984): 190.
4. For a comprehensive treatment of Arthurian themes in The Great Gatsby see Probert, p. 190-93.
5. For an in-depth analysis of Gatsby operating within the courtly love tradition see Elizabeth Morgan, "Gatsby in the Garden: Courtly Love and Irony," College Literature, 11:2 (1984): 165-172.
6. Mitchell, Giles. "The Great Narcissist: A Study of Fitzgerald's Jay Gatsby." The American Journal of Psychoanalysis, 51:4 (1991): 387-96.
7. Person, Leland S., Jr. "'Herstory' and Daisy Buchanan." American Literature, 50 (1978): 250.
Works Cited
Bruccoli, Matthew J. Some Sort of Epic Grandeur: The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Columbia: U. of South Carolina P., 2002.
de Beauvoir, Simone. The Second Sex. Trans. H. M. Parshley. New York: Knopf, 1957.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner's, 1995.
Mitchell, Giles. "The Great Narcissist: A Study of Fitzgerald's Jay Gatsby." The American Journal of Psychoanalysis 51:4 (1991): 387-96.
Morgan, Elizabeth. "Gatsby in the Garden: Courtly Love and Irony." College Literature 11:2 (1984): 163-177.
Person, Leland S., Jr. "'Herstory' and Daisy Buchanan." American Literature 50 (1978): 250-257.
Probert, K.G. "Nick Carraway and the Romance of Art." English Studies in Canada 10:2 (1984): 188-208.
*For a more extensive bibliography on Fitzgerald's treatment of
love in his works click here
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