A Psychoanalytic reading of “The Great Gatsby”

One area of human behavior explored in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby”
(1925) that has important implications for psychoanalytic criticism is found in
the romantic relationships portrayed in the novel. If we don’t view the novel th
rough a psychoanalytic lens, we found it one of the great American love stories.
For many psychoanalytic literary critics, Jay Gatsby is a rather larger-than-li
fe romantic hero. For a psychoanalytic reading the interest created by the roman
ce between Gatsby and Daisy lies on the ways in which it mirrors all of the less
appealing romantic relationships portrayed and thereby reveals a pattern of psy
chological behavior responsible for a good deal of the narrative progression. Th
is pattern is grounded in the character’s fear of intimacy. This psychological p
roblem is so pervasive in the novel The Great Gatsby’s famous love story becomes
, through a psychological lens, a drama of dysfunctional love.
The clearest indication of fear of intimacy in the novel lies in Tom Buchanan’s
constant extramarital affairs, of which Jordan became aware three months after t
he couple’s wedding. Tom’s relationships with women, including his wife, reveal
his desire for ego gratification rather than for emotional intimacy. Daisy’s fea
r of intimacy is not quite as immediately clear. Her marital faithfulness and he
r suffering over Tom’s involvement with Myrtle might suggest to some readers tha
t Daisy desires emotional intimacy with her husband. It is obvious that Daisy di
dn’t love Tom when she married him. She tried to call off the wedding the evenin
g before when she’d received an abroad letter from Gatsby. Her behavior upon rec
eiving his letter suggests that she married Tom to keep herself from loving Gats
by. For both Tom and Daisy, fear of intimacy is related to low self-esteem. If T
om were as emotionally secure as his wealth, he wouldn’t work as hard as he does
to impress others with his money and power. Daisy’s low self esteem is indicate
d in large part of her relationship with Tom. Falling so much in love with a man
who was openly unfaithful to her suggests an unconscious belief that she doesn’
t deserve better.
Tom’s relationship with Myrtle lacks intimacy. He has no desire to be close to h
is mistress. She is merely the means by which he avoids being close to his wife.
His treatment of Myrtle certainly suggests no deep emotional investment. For My
rtle, Tom Buchanan represents a ticket out of George Wilson’s garage. Through To
m, Myrtle hopes to acquire permanent membership in a world where she can display
the “impressive haunter”. While economic extreme anxiety, rather than fear of i
ntimacy, is the only motive given in the novel for Myrtle’s pursuit of Tom, her
other relationship also suggests that she wants to avoid emotional closeness. Sh
e is in fact induced to marry George Wilson not by any personal feeling for him
but by her mistaken impression that he was from a higher class than the one to w
hich he belongs. The romance between Nick and Jordan reveals that they, too, rea
r intimacy. Nick is first attracted to Jordan by her self- containment, by the i
mage of emotional distance she projects. He frequently uses words such as “imper
sonal”, “Insolent”, “cool” and “contemptuous” to describe what he considers the
“pleasing” expression of Jordan’s face.
The instance affair between Gatsby and Daisy seems to be offered as counterpoint
to the Buchanan’s marriage of psychological convenience. Gatsby and Daisy’s rom
ance has striking similarities to the others. Daisy has no more desire for intim
acy with Gatsby than she has for intimacy with Tom. Her extramarital affair, lik
e her earlier romance with her lover, would not have occurred had she known that
Gatsby does not belong to her social class. Daisy’s marriage has become painful
, and her affair with Gatsby provides a welcome distraction. If she has Gatsby,
she doesn’t even have to think about Tom. Daisy’s affair functions as a psycholo
gical defense. It underscores the psychological importance of her dysfunctional
marriage. If her marriage weren’t a powerful force in her life then she wouldn’t
have to defend against it. It is the continued unconscious importance of her ma
rriage that finally makes Daisy feel safe enough to be with Gatsby again. Gatsby
and Myrtle are psychological tokens in the Buchanan’s marriage. It is symbolica
lly significant that Tom and Daisy kill each other’s lover. Although it is in fa
ct a real accident, Daisy is the driver who kills Myrtle with Gatsby’s car. From
fears of his and Daisy’s lives, Tom felt he had to tell Wilson that it was Gats
by who killed Myrtle.
For many readers, the most difficult case to make for fear of intimacy is the ca
se for Gatsby. Gatsby believes that his ultimate goal is the possession of Daisy
. Daisy is merely the key to his goal rather than the goal itself. Gatsby has se
t his sights on the attainment of wealth and social status long before he knew D
aisy. The boyhood “schedule” of Jimmy Gatz- in which the young man divided his d
ay, in the self- improvement tradition of Ben Franklin, among physical exercise,
the study of electricity, work, sports, the practice of diction and poise, and
the study of needed inventions- suggests that he’d long planned to live the “rag
s-to-riches” life associated with such self-made millionaires as John D. Rockefe
ller and Andrew Carnegie.
From a psychological perspective, Gatsby’s invented past is more than just a str
ategy to pass himself off as a member of an upper class; it’s also a form of den
ial, a psychological defense to help him repress the memory of his real past. An
d his claim that his desire to psychologically kill the parents whose wounding i
nfluence still inhabits his own psyche and receive from those parents the psycho
logical sustenance. The financial achievements Gatsby planned for himself reveal
ed their ultimate psychological payoff only upon meeting Daisy. Daisy is, for hi
m, not flesh-and-bone woman but a symbol of the emotional insulation he unconsci
ously desires. As we saw in the case of Tom and Daisy, the best way to achieve e
motional insulation from oneself is to avoid intimacy with others. Gatsby’s sham
eful idealization of Daisy as the perfect woman is a sure sign that he seeks to
avoid intimacy. A psychological lens reveals a much different love story than th
e one ordinarily associated with The Great Gatsby. As the novel illustrates, rom
antic love is the stage on which all of our unresolved psychological conflicts a
re dramatized, over and over. It is the over-and-over, the repetition of destruc
tive behavior that tells us an unresolved psychological conflict is “pulling the
string from the unconscious.”
A Marxist reading of “The Great Gatsby”
Written and set during the post-World War I economic boom of the 1920s, F. Scott
Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1920) can be seen as a chronicle of the American
dream at a point in this nation’s history when capitalism’s promise of economic
opportunity for all seemed at its peak of fulfillment. It was a time when stock
s could be bought on a 10 percent margin, which means that a dollar’s worth of s
tocks could be purchased, on credit, for ten cents. So even the “little man” cou
ld play the stock market and hope to make his fortune there.
The Great Gatsby does not celebrate the thrilling capitalist culture it portrays
but, as a Marxist interpretation of the novel makes especially clear, reveals i
ts dark underbelly instead. Through its unattractive characterization of those a
t the top of the economic heap and its sharp examination of the ways in which th
e American not only fails to fulfill its promise but also contributes to the dec
ay of personal values, Fitzgerald’s novel stands as a mocking critique of Americ
an capitalist culture and the ideology that promotes it. One of the most effecti
ve ways The Great Gatsby criticizes capitalist culture is by showing the devasta
ting effects of capitalist ideology even on those who are its most successful pr
oducts, and it does so through its representation of commodification. Nowhere Th
e Great Gatsby is commodification so clearly embodied as in the character of Tom
Buchanan. The wealthiest man in the novel, Tom relates to the world only throug
h his money: for him, all things and all people are commodities. His marriage to
Daisy was certainly an exchange of Daisy’s youth, beauty and social standing fo
r Tom’s money and power and the image of strength and stability they imparted to
him. The symbol of this “purchase” was the $350,000 string of pearls Tom gave h
is bride-to-be. Similarly, Tom uses his money and social rank to “purchase” Myrt
le Wilson and the numerous other working-class women with whom he has affairs. T
om’s regular choice of lower-class women can also be understood in terms of his
commodified view of human interaction. Tom’s works of commodification are not li
mited to his relationships with women. Because capitalist promotes the belief th
at “you are what you own”- that our value as human beings is only as great as th
e value of our possessions- much of Tom’s pleasure in his expensive possessions
is a product of their sign-exchange value, of the social status their ownership
confers on him.
A result of Tom’s commodification of people is his ability to manipulate them ve
ry cold-bloodedly to get what he wants, for commodification is the treatment of
objects and people as commodities. In order to get Myrtle Wilson’s sexual favors
, he lets her think that he may marry her somebody that his hesitation is due to
Daisy’s alleged Catholicism rather that to his own lack of desire. While a char
acter such as Tom Buchanan is likely to make us sympathize with anyone who is de
pendent upon him, Daisy is not merely an innocent victim of her husband’s comodi
fication. In the first place, Daisy’s acceptance of the pearls is an act of comm
odification. Daisy’s extramarital affair with Gatsby, like her earlier romance w
ith him, is based on a commodiefied view of life. The Buchanan’s’ commodificatio
n of their world and the enormous wealth that makes it possible for them to “sma
sh up things and creatures and then retreat back into their money” are rendered
especially objectionable by the socioeconomic contrast provided by the “valley o
f ashes” near which George and Myrtle Wilson live. The “valley of ashes” is a po
werfully chilling image of the life led by those who do not have the socioeconom
ic resources of the Buchanan’s.
Jay Gatsby reveals the hollowness of the American dream. In true rags-to-riches
style, Gatsby has risen from extreme poverty to extreme wealth in a very few yea
rs. His boyhood “schedule” resonates strongly with the American dream’s image of
the self-made man. If Gatsby is the novel’s representative of the American drea
m, the dream must be a corrupt one. Gatsby is certainly more charming than Tom a
nd Daisy, and more sympathetically portrayed by Nick, he commodifies his world j
ust as they do. Gatsby’s commodification of his world is linked to the cold-bloo
ded aggression with which he purses what he wants. The lap of luxury in which Ga
tsby lives does not exist in a vacuum. It is supported by a very dark and threat
ening world of corruption, crime, and death. The underworld activities from whic
h his wealth derives include stealing and the selling of false bonds. Gatsby is
not excused from the novel’s unattractive portrait of the wealthy. Indeed, his c
haracterization suggests that the American dream does not offer a moral alternat
ive to the commodified world of the Buchanans but produces the same commodificat
ion of people and things as does Tom and Daisy’s innate wealth. The Great Gatsby
’s representation of American culture reveals the debilitating effects of capita
lism on socioeconomic “winners” such as Tom, Daisy, and Gatsby, as well as on “l
osers” such as George and Myrtle. Operating against The Great Gatsby’s powerful
critique of capitalism is the novel’s reinforcement of capitalism’s repressive i
deology. This counter-movement operates in three ways. First, the unattractive p
ortraits of George and Myrtle Wilson deflect our attention from their victimizat
ion by the capitalist system in which they both struggle to survive. Second, bec
ause Nick is seduced by the American dream Gatsby represents. Third, the lush la
nguage used to describe the world of the wealthy makes it attractive despite the
people like the Buchanans who populate it.
The Great Gatsby’s most obvious flaw, from a Marxist perspective, is its unsympa
thetic rendering of George and Myrtle Wilson, the novel’s representatives of the
lower class. George and Myrtle try to improve their lot the only way they know
how. They are victim of capitalism because the only way to succeed in a capitali
st economy is to succeed in a market. Their characterizations are so negative th
at it is easy to overlook the socioeconomic realities that control their lives.
George and Myrtle are negative stereotypes of a lower class couple. The novel is
also flawed, from a Marxist perspective, by Nick’s romanticization of Gatsby. N
ick may like to think he disapproves of Jay Gatsby- because he knows he should d
isapprove of him for the same reason he disapproves of the Buchanans. The appeal
to readers to belong to the magical world of the wealthy is also a memorial to
the power of the commodity. Gatsby may not make the best use of his mansion, his
hydroplane, his swimming pool, and his library, but many of us feel that we cer
tainly would. Thus another flaw in the novel, form Marxist perspective, is the w
ay in which the commodity’s appeal is powerfully reinforced for the reader by th
e lush language used to describe this world of leisure and luxury.
While The Great Gatsby offers a significant critique of capitalist ideology, it
also repackages and markets that ideology anew. This double movement of the text
gives the closing line a special irony: if we do “beat on, boats against the cu
rrent, borne back ceaselessly into the past”, there is in this novel that which
strengthens the back-flow, bearing us ceaselessly back under capitalism’s spell.
In the end, Gatsby fails to realize the American dream, but because the novel f
alls prey to the capitalist ideology it condemns, many readers will continue to
invest in it.
A feminist reading of The Great Gatsby
The novel The Great Gatsby was written and set in the decade following World War
, which ended in November 1918. The Gazz Age, a word coined by Fitzgerald, was p
eriod of enormous social change in America, especially in the area of women’s ri
ghts. Before World War I, American women did not enjoy universal suffrage. In 1
920, two years after the end of the war, they were finally given the vote. Befor
e the war, standard dress for women included long skirts, tightly laced corsets,
high-buttoned shoes, and long hair diffidently swept up onto the head. A few ye
ars after the war, skirt became shorter, laced corsets began to disappear, moder
n footwear frequently replaced high-buttoned shoes, and “bobbed” hair became the
fashion for young women. Women’s behavior began to change. Woman could now be s
een smoking and drinking. They could also be seen enjoying the sometimes raucous
nightlife offered at nightclubs and private parties. During times of social cha
nge, a “New Woman” emerged in the 1920s. Her appearance on the scene evoked a go
od deal of negative reaction from traditional members of society, both male and
female who felts that women’s rejection at any aspects of their traditional role
certainly results in the destruction of the family and the moral decline of so
ciety as a whole.
This view of woman as the standard-bearers of traditional values became the domi
nant patriarchal ideology of the industrialized nineteenth century as the home c
eased to be the place where the family worked together to earn their living and
men went off to earn the family bread at various occupations in the towns. As wo
men’s economic role in the home disappeared, a spiritualized domestic role was c
reated for her in order to keep her from competing with men on the job market. T
hus, although most Americans believed the survival of America’s moral structure
depended on traditional gender roles which gave economic dominance to men. Anoth
er advantage of keeping women at home was that it reaffirmed men’s ownership of
women’s sexual and reproductive capacities.
Literary works often reflect the ideological conflicts of their culture because
authors are influenced by the ideological tone of the times. Even a writer like
F. Scott Fitzgerald was subject to the ideological conflicts that characterized
his age. One might wonder that he was able to accept the New Woman only as long
as he could view her as psychologically troubled. We see cultural discomfort in
the novel’s representation of its minor female characters, and we see it in more
complex ways in the novel’s characterization of main character Daisy Buchanan,
Jordan Baker, and Myrtle Wilson, who are all versions of the New Woman. We can a
ssume that Nick’s description of these characters represents the novel’s ideolog
ical biases because the text portrays Nick sympathetically. In addition to the s
ympathy Nick evokes by the author’s use of first-person narration, Nick also gai
ns our sympathy because he tells his story in a sensitive and engaging manner, s
haring with the reader his personal feelings, his desires, dislikes, fears, doub
ts and affections. The novel flourishes in minor female characters whose dress a
nd activities identify them as incarnations of the New Woman, and they are portr
ayed as clones of a single, negative type. The novel’s bias is not “sexist” but
“classist”. For all the women described in the novel belong to the lower socioec
onomic strata of society. However, there are several male characters from these
same strata that are described sympathetically. The novel’s discomfort with the
New Woman becomes evident, in a more complex fashion, in the characterizations o
f main characters Daisy Buchanan, Jordan Baker, and Myrtle Wilson. Despite their
outstanding differences in class, occupation, marital status, personal appearan
ce, and personality traits, these three characters are all versions of the New W
oman. Their hair and clothing are very modern, and they don’t feel that they mus
t behave diffidently in public by avoiding hard liquor, cigarettes and immodest
dancing. All three women display a good deal of modern independence. Only two ar
e married, and they don’t keep their marital unhappiness a secret, although secr
ecy about such matters is one of the fundamental rules of patriarchal marriage.
Jordan has a career of her own and, on top of that, it’s in the male-dominated f
ield of professional golf. They all prefer the excitement of nightlife to the mo
re traditional employments of hearth and home. There is only one child among the
m, Daisy’s daughter, Pammy, and while Pammy is well looked after by her nurse an
d lovingly treated by her mother, Daisy’s life does not revolve exclusively arou
nd her maternal role. Finally, all three women violate patriarchal social taboos
: Jordan engages in premarital sex, and Daisy and Myrtle are engaged in extra-ma
rital affairs.
The Great Gatsby’s discomfort with the post-World War I New Woman which is respo
nsible for its negative characterization and disciplinary treatment of the moder
n women it portrays persists in some of the patriarchal ideology still operating
in American culture today. Women are no longer generally condemned for wearing
their hair or their skirts short, for dancing wild dances or for frequenting rou
gh nightclubs. But women are still often looked at doubtfully for other violatio
ns of patriarchal gender roles, such as opting to have children out of marriage
and raise them on their own, being sexually assertive, being “too” success-orien
ted on the job, or putting career before marriage and family, all of these behav
iors are frequently considered “too aggressive” for women and are often satirize
d by television and movie industries. Like Myrtle Wilson, American women today a
re often punished for what it perceived as their aggressiveness. Indeed, some Am
ericans want to blame women’s increased aggressiveness for the increase in crime
s of violence against women in this country. At the same time, the public doesn’
t want to admit that women’s gender is a factor in the crimes of violence commit
ted against them. Although laws have been passed to protect women from sexual ha
rassment on the job, to protect them from sexual abuse and other forms of domest
ic violence in the home, and to censure rape as a crime of violence rather than
tacitly overlook it as a crime of passion, public awareness and willingness to s
upport the victims of such mistreatment still cover far behind the legislation.