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Lesbian, gay, and queer criticism
Gatsby’s death, he tells us, “I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever” (6; ch. 1). At the same time, however, Nick seems to go out of his way to be sure we see him as an active heterosexual. For example, he tells us he “had a short affair with a girl who . . . worked in the accounting department” (61; ch. 3) at his place of employment. Why does he give us this apparently irrelevant bit of information except to make sure we know he’s heterosexual? Having told us that the young woman he’d been seeing back home, whom everyone expected him to marry, was just “an old friend” (24; ch. l), he wants to reassure us that he’s capable of being more than just friends with a woman. Similarly, when he describes his evenings in New York City, “loiter[ing] in front of windows” (62; ch. 3) with other young men like himself, Nick deflates the homoerotic potential of the scene by relating in detail his fantasies about following “romantic women . . . to their apartments on the corners of hidden streets” (61; ch. 3). Finally, when Nick talks about dating Jordan Baker he implies, as we saw ear‑ lier, that she is sexually promiscuous. And to make sure we know that Nick is a recipient of her sexual favors, chapter 4 ends with a description of his kissing Jordan during a romantic carriage ride through Central Park—“I drew up [Jor‑ dan] beside me, tightening my arms. . . . [She] smiled and so I drew her up again, closer, this time to my face” (85; ch. 4)—and chapter 5 opens by telling us how late Nick got home: “When I came home to West Egg that night . . . . [it was] [t]wo o’clock” (86; ch. 5) in the morning. In other words, Nick wants us to know that the kiss was just the beginning of his romantic encounter with Jordan. Indeed, it seems that Nick insists on his “normality” and honesty rather too much. On the very first page of the novel Nick contrasts himself to the “wild, unknown men” at his college who wanted to reveal their “secret griefs” to him because they knew he was “inclined to reserve all judgments” (5; ch. 1). He says, “The abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality when it appears in a normal person” (5; ch. 1). That is, Nick may be surrounded by “abnormal” men who press themselves upon him, but he himself is “normal.” Later, he tells us, “I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known” (64; ch. 3). And lest we forget, he reminds us in the very last chapter, “I’m thirty. . . . I’m five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor” (186; ch. 9). Jordan, however, finally sees through Nick’s self-deception. She tells him, You said a bad driver was only safe until she met another bad driver? Well I met another bad driver, didn’t I? I mean it was careless of me to make such a wrong guess. I thought you were rather an honest, straightforward person. I thought it was your secret pride. (186; ch. 9)
In other words, Jordan has come to believe that Nick is (as is she) transgressive and dishonest about his transgression. Through a queer lens, by this point in
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