240
Structuralist criticism
reclaiming Daisy for his own—occurs. His adventures with Cody taught him the skills he needed to succeed in life, including the perseverance and tem‑ perance that mark the romantic hero. His military achievements resulted in his rapid ascendancy through the ranks from lieutenant to major and covered him with medals for his valor on the battlefield. Then with similar rapidity, he ascended the ranks of Wolfsheim’s organization, gaining a fortune to rival that of Tom Buchanan. Gatsby’s major adventure (his quest to regain Daisy) is also typical of the roman‑ tic quest to obtain a bride. Like the hero of the traditional quest, who is often separated from his love by a barrier of water, Gatsby is separated from Daisy by the bay between his mansion on West Egg and her home on East Egg. And, again typically, he can see the “promised land”—the green light at the end of the Buchanans’ dock—from his side of the gulf that separates them. Fur‑ thermore, his quest for Daisy pits Gatsby against an antagonist with whom the reader can have little sympathy. Indeed, Tom fills the role of the usurper, from whose selfish machinations Daisy must be rescued. The climactic struggle of the romantic conflict between hero and antagonist occurs, for Gatsby, during the confrontation scene with Tom in the New York hotel room. Although the hero sometimes dies as a result of this battle, his willingness to sacrifice himself for his quest proves him a hero. And, indeed, Gatsby does die, both symbolically—“ ‘Jay Gatsby’ had broken up like glass against Tom’s hard malice” (155; ch. 8)—and literally, when Tom sends George Wilson, armed and crazed, to Gatsby’s house. In fact, Gatsby’s willingness to sacrifice himself for Daisy becomes the dominant motif as the narrative moves toward his death. In a subtler fashion, Gatsby’s quest also resembles that of another incarnation of the romantic hero: the quester-hero who saves the kingdom from the ravages of a monster. As Frye puts it, “the quest-romance is the victory of fertility over the waste land” (193): the monster to be defeated is the sterile, fallen world that waits to be redeemed by some sort of messiah. For the modern wasteland embod‑ ied in the novel’s setting—including both the “valley of ashes” (27; ch.2) and the empty pleasures of the idle rich—Gatsby represents the renewal of life and vitality. In Nick’s words, Gatsby has a “heightened sensitivity to the promises of life,” an “extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again” (6; ch. 1). Gatsby has, in short, what the modern world desperately needs to save it from the hopelessness of its own sterility. Like a messiah-figure, he represents renewed hope. Although Gatsby may seem, on one level, part of the sterile modern world— he engages in criminal activities and throws parties that inevitably turn into
RT19943.indb 240
6/29/06 7:11:08 PM
