Excerpt From My Undergraduate Dissertation

Introduction: Lionel Trilling praises Fitzgerald in The Liberal Imagination: Essays on Literature and Society, and quotes him thus: 'The test of a first rate intelligence,' Fitzgerald said, 'is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind, at the same time, and still retain the ability to function.' Using this quotation from Fitzgerald himself, I denote that the feeling of social, financial and personal separation or division from those around oneself is the feeling of exclusivity. To put it another way, the inequality between social classes, specifically pertaining to the wealthy isolating those less fortunate than themselves in one way or another, is how I define the term 'exclusivity'. Jay Gatsby's character is one that is in a state of opposition; from humble beginnings to unbounded wealth, Gatsby appears to belong solely in the upper echelons of society, however it is his mysterious background that ensures he is not of the same strata as the Buchanan's - Daisy and Tom - for whom money and status has been bestowed upon them. Gatsby has worked hard to earn his fortune, yet is still excluded by parts of society in ways that will become apparent in the course of this essay.

I will construct an image of the way in which the forms and techniques used by Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby denote exclusivity, and to what extent they are mirrored in both Manhattan Transfer and Tales of the Jazz Age, specifically focusing on the effect that technology, wealth and the voice as a literary tool, signify exclusivity. I will also seek to explore whether or not 'the world's second metropolis', New York, had any bearing on the division between characters. Fitzgerald writes in The Great Gatsby; 'gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailor's eyes - a fresh green breast of the new world.' Through the narrator, Nick Carraway, he is recognising the beauty and the wonder of a great-undiscovered land, ripe for cultivation and the American Dream, a blank canvas on which to build a new life and reincarnate oneself in one's ideal image. This was Gatsby's intention, from humble beginnings he travelled East to New York city, by way of Europe and the Great War, to set up his new life as part of the nouveau riche on the 'West Egg, the - well, less fashionable of the two [Eggs].' The relationship between Nick Carraway and the eponymous Jay Gatsby is at the heart of the novel as the narrative unfolds through the voice of Nick, his observations of Gatsby and the way in which he is at the 'center [sic] of all things' - to borrow a phrase from Manhattan Transfer - and yet at the same time, inherently excluded. Nick's house on West Egg is testament to the fact that he is more of a spectator than a protagonist as the Jazz Age - which was, according to Fitzgerald, an ' age of miracles, it was an age of Art, it was an age of excess and it was an age of satire,' - unfolded before him (Nick). His house is 'at the very tip of the egg, only fifty yards from the Sound, and squeezed between two huge places that rented for twelve or fifteen thousand a season.' In contrast to Nick's house, the house to the right 'was a colossal affair by any standard - it was a factual imitation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool and more than forty acres of lawn and garden.' The stark contrast between Nick's 'eyesore' and Gatsby's flamboyant mansion immediately creates a division between the pair. Fitzgerald implores the reader to recognise that both Gatsby and Nick, though seemingly at the heart of the excessive parties and frivolity throughout the novel, are in fact still inferior to the 'old money' of the Buchanan's. Again this reiterates the exclusivity found within Fitzgerald's novel, even though Gatsby is able to rise through the social classes, there is still an intangible force present that prevents him from being with Daisy.