Racial issues and African American literary history

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”

(47; ch. 3). These two young women are a striking example of same‑sex “doubles” that function as lesbian signs: they look alike, talk alike, are dressed alike, are apparently inseparable, and turn out to be a “pair of stage ‘twins’ ” who do “a baby act in costume” (51; ch. 3) at the party. In fact, the depiction of these two characters in the 1974 film version of the novel are that film’s only concession to the possibility of a queer dimension in the story: in the film, the women are portrayed dancing together in a manner the sexual meaning of which cannot be missed. At the party in Tom and Myrtle’s apartment, we see a series of gay signs during the encounter between Nick and Mr. McKee, “a pale, feminine man” (34; ch. 2), who lives with his wife in a neighboring apartment. The encounter begins when McKee falls asleep in his chair. Nick tells us, “Taking out my handkerchief I wiped from his cheek the remains of the spot of dried lather that had worried me all the afternoon” (41; ch. 2). When McKee wakes up and leaves the party, he leaves his wife—whom Nick describes as “shrill, languid, handsome and hor‑ rible” (34; ch. 2)—behind. Nick “follow[s]” (42; ch. 2) McKee out, and the latter invites him to lunch one day. Nick agrees. “All right,” I agreed, “I’ll be glad to.” . . . I was standing beside his bed and he was sitting up between the sheets, clad in his underwear, with a great portfolio in his hands. “Beauty and the Beast . . . Loneliness . . . Old Grocery Horse . . . Brook’n Bridge. . .” Then I was lying half asleep in the cold lower level of the Pennsylvania Station, staring at the morning Tribune and waiting for the four o’clock train. (Fitzgerald’s ellipses, ; ch. ) Obviously, both men are very drunk, and the scene easily can be interpreted as nothing more than a representation of their drunkenness. From this perspec‑ tive, the ellipses refer to the memory lapses that commonly occur in such a state of inebriation. Nick is saying, in effect, “That’s how drunk I was,” and that’s all he’s saying. Through a queer lens, however, the scene suggests another reading. The gay signs here are numerous, and the order in which they appear implies the pro‑ gression of a homoerotic attraction between the two men, if not the equally likely possibility of a sexual encounter in McKee’s bedroom. These signs include McKee’s feminine appearance, the masculine (aggressive, overbearing, “hand‑ some”) quality of his wife, Nick’s attention to the spot of lather on McKee’s face (in other words, Nick’s fastidious attention to McKee’s grooming), Nick’s “fol‑ lowing” him out of the room, the lunch invitation, Nick’s following McKee into his bedroom, McKee’s sitting in bed attired only in his underwear, and Nick’s remembering nothing else until he wakes up at four o’clock in the morning on

the floor of the train station (so whatever occurred in the interim has the status of a repressed memory). None of these signs would carry much weight by itself. But when clustered in this fashion they suggest a homoerotic subtext that no queer critic would miss. Perhaps the most numerous gay and lesbian signs are associated, however, with Jay Gatsby and Jordan Baker. Gatsby’s fastidious grooming and flamboyant clothing and other possessions function effectively as gay signs. “[H]is short hair looked as though it were trimmed every day” (54; ch. 3), and his impeccable wardrobe features various shades of lavender and pink, two colors that have been long associated with gayness. We are told that Gatsby owns dozens of “shirts with stripes and scrolls and plaids in coral and apple green and lavender and faint orange with monograms of Indian blue” (97–98; ch. 5), and his pink suit is mentioned at least three times. In fact, the manner in which Gatsby’s pink suit is mentioned underscores its function as a gay sign. Nick’s two references to the pink suit are phrased quite romantically, as if the clothing of a desirable woman were being described: “I could think of nothing but the luminosity of his pink suit under the moon” (150; ch. 7) and “[H]is gorgeous pink rag of a suit made a bright spot of color against the white steps” (162; ch. 8). And Tom’s reference to the suit foregrounds its function as a gay sign because that seems to be precisely how Tom, who is clearly homophobic, sees it. Let’s consider this last point a bit further. Tom’s numerous extramarital affairs with working‑class women, whom he parades in public (28; ch. 2) and whose socioeconomic vulnerability gives him a great deal of power over them, suggests a need to reassure himself of his hetero‑ sexuality, as does his constant, aggressive assertion of his manhood, which we see throughout the novel. As Nick puts it, There was a touch of paternal contempt in [his voice], even toward people he liked. . . . “Now, don’t think my opinion on these matters is final,” he seemed to say, “just because I’m stronger and more of a man than you are.” (11; ch. 1) This kind of macho overcompensation is directly related to homophobia: Tom’s need to prove his own manhood leads him to attack anything he perceives as an indication of homosexuality in others. So when Tom’s contempt for Gatsby expresses itself in a derogatory reference to the latter’s pink suit, it underscores the suit’s function as a gay sign: “An Oxford man! . . . Like hell he is! He wears a pink suit” (129; ch. 7). Gatsby’s other possessions also function as gay signs. Much of the decor of his house is extravagantly feminine: “Marie Antoinette music rooms and Restora‑ tion salons . . . [and] period bedrooms swathed in rose and lavender silk and

vivid with new flowers” (96; ch. 5). And Gatsby’s car has the flamboyance, as Tom puts it, of a “circus wagon” (128; ch. 7): “It was a rich cream color,” Nick says, “bright with nickel, swollen here and there in its monstrous length with triumphant hatboxes and supper‑boxes and tool‑boxes, and terraced with a laby‑ rinth of windshields that mirrored a dozen suns” (68; ch. 4). In fact, the artifice and theatricality of the life Gatsby has created for himself has a camp quality about it, a quality evident even in the fictional “autobiography” in which Gatsby describes himself as a “young rajah . . . collecting jewels, chiefly rubies, hunting big game, [and] painting” (70; ch. 4). Analogously, Jordan Baker, whose name could belong to a man or a woman, is associated with numerous lesbian signs. She makes her living in the, then, male domain of professional golf. And just as Gatsby is frequently described in femi‑ nine terms, Jordan is frequently described in masculine terms. Upon first meet‑ ing her, Nick says, “I enjoyed looking at her. She was a slender, small‑breasted girl with an erect carriage which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet” (15; ch. l), that is, like a young boy at mili‑ tary school. Even when dressed in her most feminine attire, she is described in rather masculine terms: “she wore her evening dress, all her dresses, like sports clothes—there was a jauntiness about her movements as if she had first learned to walk upon golf courses on clean, crisp mornings” (55; ch 3). Indeed, Nick’s frequent descriptions of Jordan’s appearance and behavior almost always evoke rather masculine images: she has a “hard, jaunty body” (63; ch. 3); “[h]er body asserted itself with a restless movement” (22; ch. 1); “her brown hand waved a jaunty salute” (57; ch. 3); she has a “wan, scornful mouth” (85; ch. 4); “her face [had] the same brown tint as the fingerless glove on her knee” (185; ch. 9); she “seemed to have mastered a certain hardy skepticism” (20; ch. 1); she’s a “clean, hard, limited person” (84; ch. 4); and the like. The possibility of a lesbian subtext in Jordan’s characterization is reinforced by her relationships with men. As Nick observes, Jordan “instinctively avoided clever shrewd men . . . because she felt safer on a plane where any divergence from a code would be thought impossible” (63; ch. 3). In other words, Jordan doesn’t want to be seen through. She doesn’t want to be thought to have a private life that “diverges” from the code, so she dates men she can manipulate, like the obviously immature escort who accompanies her to one of Gatsby’s par‑ ties, “a persistent undergraduate given to violent innuendo” (49; ch. 3), or like Nick, who is “flattered” to be seen with “a golf champion” (62; ch. 3) and whom she can wrap around her little finger simply by saying “I like you” (63; ch. 3). In this context, and despite her sexual relationship with Nick, the “demands of her hard, jaunty body” that Jordan “satisf[ies]” by “dealing in subterfuges” (63; ch. 3) imply lesbian desire.

Given their function as repositories of gay signs, it is meaningful, from a queer perspective, that Gatsby and Jordan are the two characters in whom Nick takes the most personal interest. That Nick’s attraction to Gatsby is homoerotic is suggested by his focus on Gatsby’s feminine qualities, which mirrors his focus on McKee; his intense appreciation of Gatsby’s “gorgeous” appearance and “romantic readiness” (6; ch. 1); his frequent, passionate, and often blind defense of Gatsby as the victim of others’ selfishness and corruption; and the deep bond he feels with Gatsby after the latter’s death, when it is “safe” to feel love for him. Similarly, Nick’s attachment to Jordan seems as much the product of homoerotic as heterosexual attraction because he sees her primarily as a young boy. In this context, Nick’s successful effort to help Gatsby rekindle his affair with the unsuspecting Daisy also has a homoerotic subtext. Because of Nick’s homo‑ erotic attraction to Gatsby, he is likely to be curious about Gatsby’s sexuality and to want to be involved in his personal life in any way he can. “Pimping” for Gatsby (which is what Nick’s “procurement” of Daisy amounts to, as Gatsby’s offer to pay him for the service suggests) may let Nick feel sexually close to him. (An analogous argument can be made, of course, that Jordan’s interest in promoting Daisy’s affair with Gatsby springs from Jordan’s sexual attraction to and curiosity about Daisy.) In addition, by helping Daisy and Gatsby reunite in his own home, Nick may also experience a vicarious sexual thrill by identifying with Daisy during this episode. This is just what he seems to do as he chastises Gatsby for being insensitive to Daisy’s feelings: “ ‘Daisy’s embarrassed too. . . . You’re acting like a little boy,’ I broke out impatiently. ‘Not only that, but you’re rude. Daisy’s sitting in there all alone.’ ” (93; ch. 5). And during the subsequent tour of Gatsby’s mansion, Nick’s position is parallel to that of Daisy, as he, too, is getting a glimpse of Gatsby’s private domain for the first time. Indeed, Nick is a repository of gay signs, a fact that underscores the homoerotic dimension of his characterization. He is just turning thirty, has never married or been engaged, and, his heterosexual affairs notwithstanding, he doesn’t let his romantic relationships with women get serious. In fact, Nick fits the profile of thousands of young men who discovered their gay orientation during World War I. As George Chauncey observes in his gay history of New York City, [M]ilitary mobilization [during World War I], by removing men from the supervision of their families and small-town neighborhoods and placing them in a single-sex environment, increased the chances that they would encounter self-identified gay men and explore their homosexual interests. An extensive investigation of homosexuality among the men stationed at the Naval Training Station in Newport, Rhode Island, conducted by naval officials immediately following the war revealed that numerous sailors there had begun to forge identities as fairies and queers after meeting other gay-identified sailors during the war, and that a much larger number of men who did not consider themselves homosexual had nonetheless

become familiar with the gay world and had homosexual experiences. Many of these men believed they could continue their homosexual lives only with great difficulty and circumspection if they returned to their hometowns, both because of the need to hide their homosexuality from their parents and because of the limited gay life available in most small towns. Military mobilization also gave many recruits the chance to see the sort of gay life that large cities, especially New York [the major port from which American troops embarked for Europe], had to offer. . . . It is impossible to determine how many gay soldiers stayed in New York after the war, but the growing visibility of gay institutions in the city in the 10s . . . suggests that many of them did so—that it was, indeed, hard to keep them down on the farm after they’d seen gay New York. (1) Nick is a Midwesterner, and like the soldiers described above, he returned from the war unable to readjust to life in his hometown. Nick says, I participated in that delayed Teutonic migration known as the Great War. I enjoyed the counter-raid so thoroughly that I came back restless. Instead of being the warm center of the world, the middle-west now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe—so I decided to go east. . . . (; ch. 1) And where in the East does he go? He goes to New York City, which both he and Jordan associate with transgressive sexuality. Nick says of New York, “I began to like . . . the racy, adventurous feel of it at night” (61; ch. 3), and Jordan observes, “There’s something very sensuous about it—overripe, as if all sorts of funny fruits were going to fall into your hands” (132; ch. 7). More precisely, Nick works in New York City, where he also spends most of his evenings, and lives at West Egg, “this unprecedented ‘place,’ ” as he puts it, “that Broadway had begotten upon a Long Island fishing village” (113–14; ch. 6), “a world complete in itself, with its own standards and its own great figures” (110; ch. 6), a world with a “raw vigor that chafed under the old euphemisms” (114; ch. 6). In other words, Nick is implying that he inhabits a transgressive subculture. And Nick’s observation that Broadway is responsible for this subculture is noteworthy both because Broadway was a gay cruising area in New York City at this time (Chauncey 146) and because the theatrical profession has always been associ‑ ated, whether accurately so or not, with sexual tolerance and experimentation. Of course, when we analyze Nick, we’re analyzing the novel’s narrator. So it is Nick’s point of view that produces the novel’s sexual ambiguities. Let’s take a moment to sum up those ambiguities. As we have seen, The Great Gatsby is a novel that seems obsessed with sexual transgression, but the nature of that transgression is not always clear. Nick sleeps with women but seems to be sexu‑ ally attracted to McKee and, more profoundly, to Gatsby. Nick’s attraction to Jordan seems to have a homoerotic dimension because of his fixation on her boyish appearance. Jordan, who is having an affair with Nick and could have

married “several” men “at a nod of her head” (186; ch. 9), is a repository of les‑ bian signs. Gatsby, the novel’s most important heterosexual romantic figure, is a repository of gay signs. Finally, Gatsby and Daisy, the heterosexual icon of the romantic couple, are brought together by Nick and Jordan, the novel’s embodi‑ ment of closeted gay and lesbian desire. The novel thus raises a number of questions about the sexuality of its characters, but it does not answer them. Is Nick heterosexual, gay, or bisexual? If there is a gay dimension to his sexuality, does he know it, and has he acted on it? What is Jordan’s sexual orientation? Is she aware of it? What should we make of Gatsby’s feminine, even camp, characteristics, given his romantic devotion to Daisy? Is the atmosphere of sexual freedom, even sexual license, that pervades the novel limited to the heterosexual domain, or does it include the gay world, and if so, in what ways? The explanation that, I think, best accounts for most of the novel’s sexual ambi‑ guity is that Nick’s sexual orientation is gay, and his gay sensibility influences his perception of the events he narrates. Thus, Gatsby and Jordan are repositories of gay and lesbian signs because we see them through Nick’s eyes, and this is how he sees them. His perceptions may result from his own projection (he has gay desire, so he sees signs of it in others), or he may be sensitive to the queer aspects of Gatsby’s and Jordan’s sexuality because he shares them, or both. But Nick has closeted the queer dimension of his narrative and made it a subtext of the heterosexual love story, because, I would argue, he has closeted his own gay desire. In other words, the novel’s sexual ambiguity is the result of a heterosexual plot delivered by means of a gay sensibility that is hidden not only from others but from itself as well. That Nick is denying his gay orientation is suggested not merely by his sexual affairs with women, which gay men in denial often have, but by his self‑presen‑ tation, which seems to try too hard to convince us, and himself, of his conven‑ tionality. For example, concerning romantic matters, Nick represents himself as the conservative, almost puritanical, consciousness of the novel. When he learns that Tom is having an affair with “some woman in New York” (19; ch. l), he says, “[M]y own instinct was to telephone immediately for the police” (20; ch. 1) and “It seemed to me that the thing for Daisy to do was to rush out of the house, child in arms—but apparently there were no such intentions in her head” (25; ch. 1). Similarly, before he allows himself to become romantically involved with Jordan, Nick feels that he must officially end his relationship with a young woman he’d been seeing back home because, as he puts it, “I am . . . full of inte‑ rior rules that act as brakes on my desires” (63–64; ch. 3). In fact, so repelled is Nick by the moral laxity of New York that when he returns to the Midwest after