Thursday, September 16, 2010
The Value of Relationships
F. Scott Fitzgerald does not believe that marriage or relationships can be pure or perfect, and he portrays this in The Great Gatsby through scenes of cheating, fighting, and divorce. First, there are numerous characters who have more than one relationship at once, such as Tom Buchanan, who has "some woman in New York" (p.15) and dates "one of the chambermaids in the Santa Barbara Hotel" (p.77) while being married to Daisy; Myrtle Wilson, who is Tom's mistress and the wife of George Wilson; Nick Caraway, who had been "writing letters once a week and signing them: "Love, Nick,"" (p.58) to one girl, while "all (he can) think of" (p.58) is Jordan Baker; Mrs Chrystie, who attends Gatsby's parties with Hubert Auerbach while being married to Mr Chrystie; and other men at Gatsby's parties, including some who talk to other women while attending the party with their wives. The dishonesty in relationships is so common that it is not narrated from a shocked or confused perspective, but rather accepted as the nature of the world. The fighting between married couples is almost as bad as the cheating, and Nick describes the ending of the parties where "most of the remaining women were now having fights with men said to be their husbands." (p.51). Other images of violence in relationships can be seen when Nick mentions "that Muldoon brother, who afterward strangled his wife" (p. 62), a woman who "resorted to flank attacks" (p. 51) on her husband, and also Tom Buchanan, who breaks Myrtle Wilson's nose. Finally, Fitzgerald shows the reader the first instance of divorce, in the family Quinn. However, the reader can safely assume that, with all of these cases of violence and deceit, there are more divorces to come. There is not a single healthy relationship in the first four chapters of The Great Gatsby, and from this the reader can deduce that Fitzgerald does not believe such a truthful and pure connection is possible. In regards to the value of love and relationships, I pose these two questions: First, should there, or will there ever be a punishment for the lying and cheating characters in this book? And second, will there be a 'happy ending' in this book, where one couple finds 'true love?'
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I agree with you that Nick is cynical about the man-woman relationships. Perhaps he is saying that this particularly commonplace in the upper class, but we have yet to experience lower class relationships, so we cannot be sure. I am unsure if Fitzgerald is trying to say that the concept of marriage is shallow and pointless, or if he is only saying that about modern (upper class) marriages. I do not think that this will be resolved, because it would involve all the other characters realizing the errors of their ways, or them all being "punished" in some way. I cannot see either of those things happening, because this does not strike me as a happy book.
ReplyDeleteExcellent observations! Yes, adultery, abuse, and overall dishonesty are definite patterns.
ReplyDeleteTim, Myrtle and George Wilson are certainly of the "lower class", and Myrtle is having the affair with Tom. Affairs seem to be prevalent no matter the class.
Having finished the book, I can’t answer these questions. However, I think that the relationships portrayed in The Great Gatsby are reflections on those of Fitzgerald. F. Scott and Zelda had a notoriously rocky marriage. It is said that Zelda’s outward and flirtatious behavior often times left F. Scott feeling jealous and hopeless – something shown repeatedly in his writing. A spin on/extension of Lex’s ideas: are the relationships in Gatsby symbolic of Fitzgerald’s or do they lean more toward zeitgeist? … or are they a combination of both?
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