Rizki Azhar Ramadhan

19/443420/SA/19909

Midterm Literary Criticism

Unconscious Roles in The Great Gatsby: a Psychoanalytic Reading

The Great Gatsby is a 20th romantic novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Great
Gatsby has several aspects that can be implied by the psychoanalytic lens. For instance, we will
see how the unconscious of each character affects their life, thinking, and act also it makes us
understand why they like that. First we will start from Jay Gatsby as the main characters in this
novel, in this novel we can say that Gatsby is what so called “romantic hero” after everything he
did for Daisy. Even though he dedicate himself to get Daisy back, it doesn’t mean that his own
life not interesting to be known. If we go in depth to Gatsby’s personality and life, we see that
Gatsby has a Core Issue such as fear of abandonment and the indication of his fear of
abandonment is seen when he talks to Nick and said, “You see, I usually find myself among
strangers because I drift here and there trying to forget the sad things that happened to me.”(52;
ch.4):

‘I’m going to make a big request of you today,’ he said, pocketing his souvenirs with satisfaction,
‘so I thought you ought to know something about me. I didn’t want you to think I was just some
nobody. You see, I usually find myself among strangers because I drift here and there trying to
forget the sad things that happened to me.’ He hesitated. (52; ch.4)

And yet we can also connect this kind of behavior with a Sublimation Defense since he tries to
forget bad things that happened to him by having a party and putting himself among a lot of
people, in fact before that he told Nick that he had done several things in Europe to help him
forget what happened to him in the past (51; ch.4):

‘After that I lived like a young rajah in all the capitals of Europe—Paris, Venice, Rome—
collecting jewels, chiefly rubies, hunting big game, painting a little, things for myself only, and
trying to forget something very sad that had happened to me long ago.’ (51; ch.4)
Gatsby’s fear of abandonment is not only by the society but by Daisy also, we know that he
literally doing everything he could to make Daisy back to him. It’s obvious that Gatsby didn’t
want Daisy to abandon him with any reason despite Daisy already had a husband. He keeps insist
to get Daisy back and try to separate her with Tom, Daisy’s husband.

Another Core Issue that Gatsby has is Insecure or unstable sense of self because we
know from the beginning that Gatsby “change” who he is in front of Daisy. When Gatsby met
Daisy for the first time, he was not rich at all even that’s one of the reason why Daisy eventually
marry Tom and somehow forget about her awaits for Gatsby. Of course after knowing that Daisy
got married, Gatsby didn’t stand still he went to Oxford to gain education and he eventually got
into a business which actually illegal but he did it anyway. After he finally reached the wealth
that he thinks is enough for Daisy, he asked Nick to invites Daisy for a tea and his real intention
is to impress Daisy with the wealth that he got and hope that the wealth is enough to make Daisy
back to him.

At the end of the story, Gatsby died because George Wilson killed him in order to
revenge his wife’s death, Myrtle Wilson, who died after she got hit by Gatsby’s car which Daisy
drive. So Gatsby took the blame for Daisy’s mistake and it shows how much he loves Daisy even
though he had to sacrifice himself. If we remember about his fear of abandonment, we should’ve
known that his fear of abandonment that he has all the time led him to the ultimate abandonment,
which is death. As a human being, we tend to have what so called death drive or in some point it
is seen as a self-destructive behavior which led us to death itself. In Gatsby’s case, we see that all
of his life dedicated for Daisy. All he thinks about is Daisy, Daisy, and Daisy. He seems to forget
or doesn’t even want to look another thing that could make him happy instead his mind is keep
thinking that Daisy is the only thing that can make him happy until the end of his life.

Prove of death as ultimate abandonment for Gatsby is in his funeral. People who came to
his funeral are only Nick, Gatsby’s father, and the man with owl-eyed glasses. All his servants in
the mansion, all the people who came to Gatsby’s party, his friend in business didn’t come to his
funeral, not even Daisy herself. She seems completely forget about Gatsby until she didn’t even
care about what happened to Gatsby:
“I tried to think about Gatsby then for a moment, but he was already too far away, and I could
only remember, without resentment, that Daisy hadn’t sent a message or a flower.” (128, ch.9)

All of the things that Gatsby going through in his life until his death was based on his
unconscious which is fears and desires. Even though he didn’t directly or consciously follow his
fears and desires but he let his unconscious drives him to.

Beside Gatsby, Daisy’s unconscious and behavior are also interesting. Daisy has a Core
Issue which is Fear of Intimacy towards a soldier after her relationship with Gatsby that end
because Gatsby go overseas for his military obligation, she also use Displacement Defense in this
matter where she kind of having a relationship with other men to forget about Gatsby;

“After that she didn’t play around with the soldiers any more, but only with a few flat-footed,
short-sighted young men in town, who couldn’t get into the army at all.”(58; ch. 4)

And this is still going until finally she met Tom and marries him;

“By the next autumn she was gay again, gay as ever. She had a début after the armistice, and in
February she was presumably engaged to a man from New Orleans. In June she married Tom
Buchanan of Chicago,” (58; ch.4)

Daisy also struggling with her desires where she loves Gatsby and Tom at the same time.
She seem doesn’t really mind her affair with Gatsby behind Tom, we can see it when Daisy
kissed Gatsby in front of Nick and Jordan while her husband makes cold drink for them:

‘Make us a cold drink,’ cried Daisy.

As he [Tom] left the room again she [Daisy] got up and went over to Gatsby and pulled his face
down, kissing him on the mouth.

‘You know I love you,’ she murmured.

‘You forget there’s a lady present,’ said Jordan. (86; ch.7)

And she said she love Tom when the tension between Tom, Gatsby and Daisy at its peak.
Exactly after Tom confronts Gatsby to tell the truth about Gatsby’s past with Daisy and we can
see Daisy’s struggle to say what exactly she feels toward Tom and Gatsby (96-98, ch.7):
‘Even alone I can’t say I never loved Tom,’ she admitted in a pitiful voice. ‘It wouldn’t be true.’
(98; ch.7)

Even Daisy also shows denial defense to defense Gatsby from Tom’s accusation that Gatsby
causing a row in his house or marriage:

‘What kind of a row are you trying to cause in my house anyhow?’

They were out in the open at last and Gatsby was content

‘He isn’t causing a row,’ Daisy looked desperately from one to the other. ‘You’re causing a row.
Please have a little self-control.’ (96; ch.7)

But we know that Gatsby indirectly indeed causing a row in Tom and Daisy marriage.

At this moment, Tom’s unconscious, which is selfish needs and desires, showed to the
surface as he doesn’t accept his wife’s affair with Gatsby while on the other hand he also had
some affairs behind Daisy, one of them is with Myrtle Wilson. It shows that Tom has a core
issue which is fear of intimacy since he seems that he didn’t want to get to intimate with Daisy so
he was having an affair with Myrtle and so the other way around, he didn’t want to get to
intimate with Myrtle so he wouldn’t let Daisy go or even tell her the truth.

We can also see other Tom’s core issue which is low self-esteem when he confronts
Gatsby (96; ch.7):

‘I know I’m not very popular. I don’t give big parties. I suppose you’ve got to make your house
into a pigsty in order to have any friends—in the modern world.’ (96; ch.7)

While Tom, Gatsby and Daisy are in tense arguments, Nick and Jordan barely put their
hands in the “conversations” between the three instead they being some kind of spectator but the
fact is these two also have an interesting unconscious problem. We obviously can see that Nick
and Jordan have love interest to each other even they didn’t really show it much.

One moment that shows Nick attraction towards Jordan was after Jordan told Nick her
story when she was first met Daisy and spill Gatsby’s intention on asking him to invites Daisy
for a tea in Nick’s house (57-61; ch.4). Then Nick asked Jordan for a dinner together:
“It was dark now, and as we dipped under a little bridge I put my arm around Jordan’s golden
shoulder and drew her toward me and asked her to dinner.” (61; ch.4)

And even Nick kissed Jordan, it seen in:

“Her wan, scornful mouth smiled, and so I drew her up again closer, this time to my face.” (61;
ch.4)

On the other hand we can see Jordan kind of gives Nick codes about her attraction to him when
they get back from the town after an intense argument between Tom, Gatsby and Daisy. She
asked Nick to stay for a little longer before he back to his house but he insisted to go home
because he felt sick (105; ch.7):

Jordan put her hand on my arm. ‘Won’t you come in, Nick?’

‘No, thanks’

I was feeling a little sick and I wanted to be alone. But Jordan lingered for a moment more.

‘It’s only half-past nine,’ she said. (105; ch.7)

Despite their “romantic” interactions, until the end these two never ended up being a
couple. It’s because they both have two core issues which are fear of intimacy and fear of
betrayal. The main reason why they both have the same core issues is because they saw people
that close around them have problems in relationship, take an obvious example, the affairs of
Tom with Myrtle behind Daisy and Daisy with Gatsby behind Tom. So it makes them worried if
they both ended up in a relationship, they would be like them.

At the end, we can use the story and characters of The Great Gatsby as an example on
how our unconscious takes big roles in our life whether we realize it or not.
Sources & References:

Ackerman, MSc., C. E. (2020, February 12). Psychoanalysis: A brief history of Freud's

psychoanalytic theory [2019].

PositivePsychology.com. https://positivepsychology.com/psychoanalysis/

Cherry, K. (2019, September 28). The structure and levels of the mind according to Freud.

Verywell Mind. https://www.verywellmind.com/the-conscious-and-unconscious-mind-

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Fitzgerald, F. S. (1926). The Great Gatsby. Canada: Al Haines, Cindy Beyer, & the online

Distributed Proofreaders Canada Team.

Tyson, L. (2015). Critical theory today: A user-friendly guide (3rd ed.). Routledge.