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Masculinity In The Great Gatsby Analysis

Decent Essays

The main character in The Great Gatsby is the narrator, Nick Carraway. Since he is the focalizer, the other characters in the story are seen through his eyes. Nick is one of the characters in the novel who attempt to establish acceptable identities. However, all major male characters in The Great Gatsby share his struggle. Nick’s attempt to create a manly self is reflected in Jay Gatsby. Tom Buchanan appears to be situated safely within the boundaries of masculinity, but, as the novels shows, even a dominant and powerful masculinity may falter. George Wilson represents the “countertype” (Mosse 56) that reflects “the exact opposite of true masculinity” (Mosse 6). He, too, however, is struggling to establish himself as a man.

Despite the fact that Jay Gatsby figures in the title of the novel, it is mainly Nick’s struggle for manhood that is described in The Great Gatsby. Through his description of the other male characters in the novel, Nick reveals what qualities he sees as desirable. In other words, Nick’s portrayals of Gatsby and Tom, as well as of George Wilson, are also portrayals of himself.

Nick’s struggle to find his masculine self takes the form of a journey. This journey involves both an actual move from his hometown in Midwestern U.S.A. to New York City, and a symbolic move from the margin, which is the feminine realm, toward the center. The fact that Nick sees his motherland as the margin is signaled by his description of the West as “the ragged edge of the universe” (9)1 and “that vast obscurity beyond the city” (171) .

While the journey-to-find-a-self-motif is not uncommon in American literature, this journey mostly goes in the other direction, from the East Coast to the western part of the country. Nick, however, leaves the West to establish his self in the ordered East. The main reason why Nick leaves the West is that he has to leave his home, with its extended family of aunts and uncles, in order to become independent. Furthermore, nature, especially wild and untamed nature, like that of the West, is linked to women and femininity (Flannigan-Saint-Aubin 244). By moving to the City, which he perceives to be the center, Nick attempts to escape the feminine realm. It is not, however, just

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