Lesbian, gay, and queer criticism
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Nick Carraway, who is, I believe, unaware of his gay orientation. Put another way, The Great Gatsby’s sexual ambiguity results from the delivery of a hetero‑ sexual plot through the medium of a closeted gay sensibility. In addition, I will suggest that the novel’s sexual ambiguity mirrors the conflicts Fitzgerald appar‑ ently experienced concerning his own sexuality. Although the depiction of transgressive heterosexuality cannot by itself create a queer subtext in a heterosexual novel, The Great Gatsby’s apparent obsession with sexual transgression, which as we shall see includes intimations of gay and lesbian sexuality, sets the stage for a queer interpretation. For one thing, the three romantic triangles that generate most of the novel’s action are all adulter‑ ous: Daisy, Tom, and Myrtle are all breaking their marital vows. And Daisy’s illicit reunion with Gatsby is arranged by Nick, a male relative who, tradition‑ ally, should protect her virtue but, instead, facilitates her losing it. Furthermore, Gatsby had premarital sex with Daisy during their initial courtship, when “he took [her] one still October night, took her . . . ravenously and unscrupulously . . . because he had no real right to touch her hand” (156; ch. 8). And Nick and Jordan, too, are apparently engaged in a premarital affair, neither of them for the first time. Indeed, Nick believes that Jordan is sexually promiscuous: he speculates that she is “incurably dishonest” because she wants to “keep that cool, insolent smile turned to the world and yet satisfy the demands of her hard, jaunty body” (63; ch. 3). Of course, the riotous parties depicted, both in Tom and Myrtle’s apartment and on Gatsby’s lawn, also contribute an ambience of sexual transgression. For example, Tom and Myrtle’s party is an outgrowth of their illicit affair, about which they and their guests talk openly. And the descriptions of Gatsby’s par‑ ties are peppered with sexually transgressive images, such as Tom’s attempting to pick up a “common but pretty” young woman (112; ch. 6); Gatsby and Daisy’s sneaking away from the party to be alone at Nick’s cottage while Nick stands guard lest they be intruded upon; the unidentified man “talking with curious intensity to a young actress” while his wife “hisse[s] ‘You promised!’ into his ear” (56; ch. 3); “Beluga’s girls” (66; ch. 4), with the implication that phrase carries of their being his sexual objects; and such implicitly transgressive couples as “Hubert Auerbach and Mr. Chrystie’s wife” (66; ch. 4) and “Miss Claudia Hip with a man reputed to be her chauffeur” (67; ch. 4). What Nick says of New York City is thus true of the sexual atmosphere that pervades the novel: this is a place where “[a]nything can happen . . . anything at all” (73; ch. 4). Indeed, it is at these parties where we see the striking examples of gay and les‑ bian “signs” that initiate the development of the novel’s homoerotic subtext. For example, at the party where Nick first meets Gatsby, he sees “two girls in twin yellow dresses who stopped at the foot of the steps. ‘Hello!’ they cried together”
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