Great Gatsby, psychoanalysis, psychology, Robert Redford, Leonardo DiCaprio, F. Scott Fitzgerald, meaning, narrative, fantasy/phantasy, book, movie versions.
I know that I have read The Great Gatsby before. I think I may have read it twice, but reading
it now – and because I sometimes get obsessed with such things, watching both
Robert Redford and Leonardo DiCaprio play the part, I am certain that I did not
get it when I read it before – probably as an adolescent – and even as a young
adult. I have been told that Shakespeare
is wasted on young people (with Romeo and Juliet as a possible exception). Well, for this guy, F. Scott Fitzgerald was
wasted on me (despite the romance that is central to the plot).
The fragment of memory that I had going into the book was
that Jay Gatsby killed Daisy by driving too recklessly – and somehow this was a
metaphor for the recklessness of the very wealthy and the indulgences that go
along with that. Well, there was a car
crash – Daisy was driving that car, not Gatsby – and someone was killed – Daisy’s
husband’s lover, and the wealthy are portrayed as reckless, but Gatsby,
reckless as he may be, is not reckless because he is wealthy (Tom, Daisy’s
husband, is) but wealthy because he is reckless, including reckless in his love
for Daisy.
So, to try to clear things up, Gatsby grows up Jay Gatz, living
with parents who don’t appreciate what a genius he is. His parents are dirt poor farmers out west
and he yearns to be something greater.
At this point I get confused. You
see, the two movie versions that, in my geeking out, the reluctant wife and I
watched – the Robert Redford version (no one looks better in a pink linen suit)
and the Leonardo DiCaprio version – have muddled my sense of what information
came from which source. The DiCaprio
version was, in our shared opinion, more true to the essence of the book – even
though the wealth and the music was depicted anachronistically (and Leonardo’s
failure to fill out a suit like Redford did may actually have suited the role
of Gatsby, the guy who appeared to glamorous from a distance but who, as we get
to know him, is anxious because he is pretending to belong to a social class
that he wasn’t born into).
There are actually five movie versions: 1926, 1949, 1974
(Redford), 2000,
and 2013
(DiCaprio). The 1926 silent film is lost
– not as surprising as it might sound.
The book was published in 1925 and it was a dud. No one bought it. There are promos for the 1926 film, but no
print of the film itself. The book was reissued
as a pulp novel and given to servicemen during the Second World War and they
came home raving about it, at which point it started its climb towards being
the great American Novel. The 1949 Alan
Ladd version is the favorite of NPR film critic Maureen Corrigan’s because it
emphasizes Gatsby as a bootlegger and downplays the romance. I didn’t want to make my wife any more
reluctant, so I didn’t push a third movie on her, and I was fine with the
romantic angle in the 2013 film.
I am starting my review with the main character, but the
book waits to introduce him as long as possible. He becomes a more and more mysterious person
as we wait for his arrival. Did he kill
a man? He has enormous wealth, but where
does it come from? How does he know the producers and actors and glitterati that constantly appearing at his home? He is a man of
mystery and so this is part of why it makes sense that I was confused about him
and his origins as I tried to reconstruct the novel in my mind.
The DiCaprio movie provides a backstory that is more cogent
than the Redford movie and maybe than the book.
Gatz ran away from home, rescued a wealthy, self-absorbed man who was
about to drown in a storm in his yacht; the man took him under his wing and
Gatz became Gatsby under his tutelage; learning how to call other people old
sport and, certainly in the movies, in part because of his good looks, he began
to run with a swifter crowd.
At some point, Gatsby joins the military – as an officer,
not an enlisted man (presumably because of the manners he has learned from his
mentor) and, before shipping off to the First World War, he is briefly
stationed in Lexington where, as a dashing young officer, he woos the most
desirable blue book woman in town, Daisy.
He falls for her, and she for him.
After becoming a war hero, he returns stateside to build a fortune that
will allow him to join the elite ranks so that he can finally win the love of his
life who, in the meantime, has fallen for a very, very old money rich fellow
who has swooped in from Chicago, married her, and installed her in his opulent
mansion in East Egg, Long Island.
Gatsby, by now having (very swiftly) made his immense fortune, buys an
even gaudier mansion across the bay in the nouveau riche town of West Egg.
The story, as I have straightforwardly laid it out, does not
unfold that way in either of the movies we watched nor in the book itself. The story is told through the eyes of Nick
Carraway, Daisy’s cousin. A would-be
writer and Yale classmate of Daisy’s husband Tom, he is selling bonds and
living a decidedly middle-class life, renting a carriage house in the shadow of
Gatsby’s manse. He ends up being the
fifth business in this story that allows the love triangle to emerge and to
play out.
I like the device used in the DiCaprio version where Nick is
in a Sanatorium and his psychiatrist is urging him to write about his
experience as a means of recovering from his madness. This introduction encourages us to wonder
what it is about Gatsby, and being in a relationship with him, that would cause
somebody to go mad. This is, I think, an
important question to ponder. That movie
suggests that there is a goodness about Gatsby that is not reflected in Nick’s
peers from the upper echelon. But there
is, certainly in Dowd’s favorite (1949) version, a fair amount of fault as
well. Gatsby’s character – his ability
to act, even if in shady ways, is a contrast to the constricted life that Nick
leads, especially as portrayed in the DiCaprio version.
From a psychoanalytic perspective, the mystery surrounding
Gatsby creates a space for us to fantasize about who Gatsby is or might
be. Another way of saying this is that
Gatsby becomes a transference figure – someone to whom we transfer the
experiences (or fantasies) we have had of someone like this from our past. In other words, just as the people who are
going to Gatsby’s imagine who it is that he is, so, too, does the reader/viewer.
Gatsby is certainly the creation of Fitzgerald – and in both Gatsby and Nick aspects of Fitzgerald’s own character are, I think, on display here. But so are aspects of our own character. We join Nick in observing and wondering about
Gatsby, in being enthralled by him, but also disturbed – by his consumption,
initially (we don’t yet know that these conspicuous displays of wealth through
obscenely expensive parties are primarily there just to attract Daisy’s attention), but then by his connections with unseemly characters. Though we don't learn much about the details of his shady dealings, we don't doubt that they are shady.
I think that, as a middle class high school student in the
Midwest, I imagined Gatsby to be a member of the rich upper class – someone
just like Tom, Daisy’s husband. The idea
of being upwardly mobile – of creating wealth – seemed as ridiculous to me as
the idea that science would continue to evolve and that there was room among
the pantheon of great scientists for me to make new discoveries. So, my guess is that I missed out on the
class distinctions that are at the heart of this book – because all of the
characters seemed out of my league, and they always would be. I had a static view of class and role.
Reading the book now, I am struck by that static conception
of class being spelled out in the novel – something that must have been opaque
to me then. Tom cites a eugenicist
psychologist, Goddard. Eugenics is
something that I was only vaguely aware of before I
started teaching the history of psychology, and I was completely unaware
(even though I had taken a class in graduate school that I cribbed some
specific readings about eugenics from in my teaching) of the role of British,
but especially American scientists in crafting the blueprint that would lead to
Hitler’s final solution. Eugenics is the
idea that we should improve the human race by improving the “stock”; by
selectively breeding smart people with each other and sterilizing “mental
defectives” (We sterilized over 70,000
Americans in the 1920s through the 1950s with the intent of cleaning up the
gene pool).
To hear Goddard referenced, in the book and onscreen, with
his blatantly racist ideas – ideas that were not just tolerated but taken (as
Tom does) as scientific fact – when the studies that he did were of such poor
quality and his own racism pre-determined the outcome of those studies – was
amazing to hear leaping out of the novel.
That said, it speaks to still deeply ingrained beliefs that we hold (as
I did as a child) that class begets class, and we are not as fluid a society as
Horatio Alger and his stories would have us believe.
So, who knows what version of this story led the service men
to get excited about it? Were they
dreaming of returning home and being able to become millionaires – to transcend
the class barriers that are so securely erected in American society? Were they aware that this was a story about a
society that they were risking their lives to protect that would, according to
the central premise of the book, never allow them access to that society? Or were they, as I might have been, taking
this simply as a fairy tale – like Romeo and Juliet – with star crossed lovers
who were separated mostly by time and opportunity? Or were they reading the more malevolent
story line that I see as Fitzgerald’s intent – to clarify that we don’t belong
in the upper reaches of society unless we are born there, and, that if we try
to get there from here, we will fail – or more precisely, the rich will close
ranks and keep us out.
I spend so much time on this because I think one reason that
this book has become the Great American Novel (or one of them) is that it is a
kind of dream. And, as in all dreams,
there is a tremendous amount of condensation, symbolism, and ambiguity. In interpreting a dream with a patient, or
interpreting one of my own dreams, there are generally at least three or four
plausible readings of the dream. And, as
in improv, it is not this OR that, it is generally this AND that… and that and
that and that. Because of the device of
letting the hero come onto the stage late in the first act, and our being
encouraged think about him a lot before he does, this novel, this movie, this
dream is not just his – or Nick’s – or Fitzgerald’s, but ours. We will hold it together with our own
understanding of how the world works.
To nerd out for a minute – the thesis that a narrative - a phantasy - underlies our actions in the world comes directly from
the work of a British Psychoanalyst named Spillius. She wrote a paper near the turn of the last
century defending Melanie Klein’s position that phantasy (spelled intentionally
with a ph) is the basis of our unconscious functioning – not, as Freud
would have had it, drives (or as Solms
has clarified – our feelings). Spillius,
and, more contemporarily, Thomas Ogden, maintain that we have narrative structures
deeply imbedded in our minds, and these structures determine how we see the
world and interpret it. These structures
can vary widely and they can be in conflict with each other.
So, for Gatsby, he can have a structure – a phantasy – a
narrative, that maintains that his love for Daisy was real – it was meant to
be. He is not the child of his parents –
but the golden boy whose shining beauty matches that of Daisy and they,
together, are golden children destined to be soul mates. This phantasy is powerful enough to fuel his
engagement with whatever people he needs to build the image that he does of
being the powerful, knowledgeable, wealthy man of the world who is externally,
as well as internally Daisy’s match (Redford, by the way, seems to fit most
easily into this phantasy version).
There is, though, another operative fantasy. Gatsby also believes himself to be the son of
dirt farmer’s. Just as Nick, the writer,
never felt himself to be the equal of Tom, the football hero at Yale, even
though, as Daisy’s cousin, he should belong in this upper class world that Tom
effortlessly inhabits with Daisy – while Tom is also slumming it with his mistress who lives with her husband in his gas station between
East Egg and Manhattan – Gatsby doesn’t really feel that he belongs (DiCaprio,
to my mind, more clearly articulates this underlying phantasy). Gatsby worries about whether the flowers he
buys for the meeting with Daisy will be adequate – he sweats when, having
re-established his relationship with Daisy, he visits with Daisy and Tom in
their home.
Deciding to drive into town, Gatsby drives Daisy in Tom’s
car, while Tom takes Gatsby’s yellow Duesenberg (perhaps the sexiest car ever
built by humans) into town with Nick and the professional golfer girlfriend
Daisy has bestowed on Nick. All five of
them, after stopping at the gas station that Tom’s mistress’s husband maintains
in the slag heap between East Egg and Manhattan, an outpost overseen by the
all-seeing spectacles of an optometrist’s billboard, end up at the Plaza Hotel
where they rent a room for the afternoon to hang out and talk.
Gatsby forces Daisy to let Tom know that he is her true
love. She reluctantly acknowledges this
to be the case. Tom, taken aback,
reminds her that she loves him, too. She
agrees with this as well. Gatsby insists
that they will leave Tom. Daisy does not
seem convinced but leaves with Gatsby to drive back to East Egg. What we don’t find out until later – but
again I will tell the story in more traditional fashion – is that Daisy is
behind the wheel and they are now driving in Gatsby’s bright yellow car. When they drive through the slag heap past
the gas station, Tom’s lover, who had seen Tom at the wheel of the yellow car
on the way into town – runs towards the yellow car hoping to convince Tom to
take her away from her husband who has decided to leave town with her. Daisy runs her down, killing her, and then keeps
driving. Gatsby, when they get to her
house drops her off, but lingers nearby to make sure that the will be alright
when Tom returns – assuming Tom may harm her.
The next day, Tom’s lover’s husband tracks down Tom,
assuming it was Tom who Killed his wife.
Tom clarifies that the yellow car belongs to Gatsby and sends the angry
husband in Gatsby’s direction. Gatsby
has decided to take the rap for the hit and run to protect Daisy. He never the gets the chance as the dead woman's husband
kills Gatsby and then himself – and Daisy goes off, scot-free, with Tom. Nick is the sole person at Gatsby’s funeral
with the exception of Gatsby’s father who has materialized just as all of
Gatsby’s friends and acquaintances, including the “business” partners, have
melted away.
Nick mourns the loss of Gatsby, but perhaps even more so the
loss of his innocent sense that justice can or will be served, and that people
have genuine ties with each other.
Daisy’s casual dismissal of Gatsby may be the thing that drives him
mad. Daisy cares no more for Gatsby than
Nick’s golfer girlfriend cares for him, or he for her. We live in a world that is simultaneously
fluid and rigidly defined. The things we
might think of as being most valuable – relationships – seem the most
disposable, while wealth, which philosophers and theologians will maintain are ephemeral,
create unbridgeable divisions among us.
The phantasies and narratives that guide our lives need to
be constantly revised. Gatsby’s love for
Daisy seems to my romantic phantasy notion, to be the most desirable in this
story, but it turns out to be illusory or at least transitory. Daisy’s attachment to Tom – or perhaps more
to the point -Tom’s attachment to Daisy – seems to be solid, despite both partners having
philandered, and despite Tom’s despicable views about human beings and their worth being determined by their genes and therefore ultimately by their “race”. We’d like to think this would be the more
transitory belief, but it wins out, in the end.
The great American novel, then, appears to unmask the American dream. If we are able to listen to the underlying phantasy – if we are able (and this may seem obscure, and therefore I apologize) to give up the curmudgeon Freud’s naïve belief that we are driven by our optimistic wish to meet our own needs, but recognize that we are driven at least as powerfully by a narrative that is based in immutable power differentials – we may be better equipped to understand the paradoxes that lie at the heart of American Exceptionalism – that we are, ultimately, not that exceptional after all. Trump’s America is, indeed, a crass, uncomfortable phantasy that many of us abhor, but it is also a very real vision – perhaps a more honest vision – than we “enlightened” people would care to admit. No, I am not saying that the eugenicist vision is biologically or scientifically accurate, but it appears to be an accurate description of a more elusive, but perhaps powerful stratum of the human psyche – that I am superior to you and, if I have the means, I will hold onto that superior position – no matter how much evidence of our equality and profiting from each other you pile up.
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