The Death of Gatsby and the Birth of Modernism

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is a justified classic. Fitzgerald’s prose is so multidimensional it is pregnant with myriad interpretations. One of the texts most compelling features, however, is the tension between old and new. In this essay, I wish to provide a close reading analysis of Gatsby’s death which highlights the tensions between the death of Gatsby and the birth of modernity and how this relates to the particular context of the 1920s.

Although The Great Gatsby was written in 1925 and set in 1922, in the era of modernism, there are certainly elements of a traditional Greek Tragedy, many of which are evident in this passage. In essence, this passage is the demonstration of the catastrophe, the death of Gatsby, which was seen as the climax of Greek tragedy. This is evident in line 32, with “the thin red circle in the water” which indicates Gatsby’s death, and on line 34, when “Wilson’s body” is discovered. Fitzgerald makes a nod to Greek Tragedy by describing this as a “holocaust” (34), or a mass death, which is akin to the catastrophes of massive bloodshed in Greek Tragedies such as Othello, for example. In the descriptions of death, Fitzgerald’s language is uncharacteristically sparse. He refers to Gatsby’s death through synecdoche – the “laden mattress” (28) which contains Gatsby’s body, and through parallelism “the accidental movement with accidental burden” (30), while the treatment of Wilson’s body is much more declarative and matter of fact. The reader, who has become too attached to Gatsby, would prefer not the gory details of his death, but rather a romanticized version, while Wilson, the villain, deserves no ceremony for his death.

This passage also has elements of anagnorisis, or the moment of awareness. This is of course, all mediated through Nick’s perspective, who ascribes this anagnorisis to Gatsby, claiming that “he had paid a high price for living to long with a single dream” (14). In Greek Tragedy, anagnorisis is the moment in which the central character is made aware of his folly, usually his harmartia, or fatal flaw. In this moment, Nick gives Gatsby the awareness of the destructive nature of his love for Daisy. Crucially, however, there is also a strong element of context here, for Nick mentions that Gatsby had lost “the old warm world” which could, of course, refer to the old century of which Gatsby, born in 1890, was a part, but which Daisy and her modernist contemporaries, would never know. For Nick, Gatsby represented the nobility of the Victorian era, whose morals and work ethic were esteemed, while Daisy and her fast crowd represented a callous and corrupted world, which is course, ironic due to Daisy’s status as “old money” and Gatsby’s as “new money”. By making this link, Fitzgerald intimates that Gatsby’s harmartia is not his love for Daisy after all, but his fundamental incapability with the modern world – his anachronistic character with the morality and mannerisms of the old world thrust into the modern world. Fitzgerald makes this clear elsewhere in the novel with references to fallen clocks. In these ways, The Great Gatsby can be seen to be a type of “Greek Tragedy”, with particular reference in this passage to catastrophe, anagnorisis, and harmartia. This is used with the effect of making the reader even more sympathetic, and therefore affected by Gatsby’s death. The moment of anagnorisis allows us to pity Gatsby, and is also evidence of Fitzgerald’s criticism of the American Dream.

This passage also has many references to modernism and modernist ideas. This is evident in the unreliable narration, the references to the new world, and through the specific language of the passage, which is aligned with modern ideas. The whole novel is narrated by Nick, and therefore we see this description of Gatsby’s death through the eyes of someone who was not even present. This is connected to the unreliable narration that is prevalent throughout the entire novel as Nick is someone who is “both within and without”. Nick is not present when Gatsby dies, nor is he present to his last thoughts, but this passage imposes Nick’s romanticism on Gatsby’s character When Nick comes “rushing anxiously” (22) to see the massacre, he is the first to act,  but “firmly believes” (24) that the chauffer, the butler, and the gardener knew that Gatsby was dead. This idea of fragmented consciousness is central to modernism, with elements of the surreal – it is inline with the ideology founded after WWI in which the world was saturated with images of death, and therefore immune to them. This could be why the chauffer, who heard the shots, “thought anything much about them”(21). The imagery used by the surrealists, including overt references to eyes and circles is also evident in this passage, with the revolutions of the “cluster of leaves” around Gatsby’s body. In many ways, this passage could be a surrealist painting, like that of El Greco referenced elsewhere in this novel. The effect on the reader is haunting, as the whole scene takes on a dream-like quality.

The passage also makes explicit reference to modernism on line 17, when Fitzgerald writes, “A new world, material without being real” which is a reference to the time of the 1920s, with the glorious production of wealth and objects, but lacking morality and substance. This is emphasized by the symbology of modernist objects – the reference to the pneumatic air mattress, the telephone that could be brought to the pool, and of course, Gatsby’s magnificent car, now forever tarnished by Myrtle’s death. These symbols of modern enterprise are all, in a way, now complicit in Gatsby’s death – the mattress his resting place, the telephone which never rang with news of Daisy, and of course the car, which brought upon his murder. This is further evidence of Fitzgerald’s social critique of modernist society.  Again, Fitzgerald’s use of language is significant. He uses words such as “pneumatic” (3), “fender” (6) and later “corrugated” (29), words which had just come into usage in the 20^th C. With the word “corrugated” which is usually associated with iron used to describe the waves of the pool, we see Fitzgerald’s incredible ability to blend nature and modernism in one, again with the effect of creating a dream-like image for the reader. The cluster of leaves previously mentioned is also made both horrific and modernist in the simile “like a leg of transit” (31).

The final element of this passage I will address is Fitzgerald’s use of imagery. Throughout the novel, Fitzgerald makes associations of colour. In this passage, we see this done when Gatsby “disappeared among the yellowing trees”. Yellow is a symbol for decay and death, and here, Gatsby becomes one with the trees which have turned sickly with the autumn. It is indicative that Gatsby will soon be dying. This is later reinforced when Gatsby looks up “at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves” (15) and the “scarcely created grass” (17). The natural imagery which had been so romantic when used to describe Gatsby’s happiness or the opulence of his parties, is no made menacing as Gastby’s death approaches. When the “ashen fantastic figure” of Wilson emerges, this is reference to the Valley of the Ashes and the pitfalls of industry and the tragedy of the American Dream. The word ‘fantastic’ has a modern connotation meaning amazing, but at the time of writing it was more reference to fantasy, which again is linked to the dream like nature of Fitzgerald’s writing.

The imagery of a rose is central to our understanding of the novel, for when Gatsby has his anagnorisis he realises “what a grotesque thing a rose is” (16). This reminds the reader of the declaration that Daisy once made to Nick, that she reminded him of an absolute rose.  Here it is used to show the reader how deceit and evil can come in a beautiful package, like a rose with thorns, and also to demonstrate how love, like a rose, can be tainted with the thorns of death. This image, and the flower imagery, reminds the reader of Daisy, and of Nick, whose rather callous behaviour is symptomatic of a larger callous and uncaring world, the world where “poor ghosts”, which could be a reference to men come back from war, or poor men like Wilson, “breathing dreams like air”, a reference to Gatsby’s and Wilson’s dreams.

In conclusion, this passage is significant both in its status as the climax of the novel – the death of Gatsby, but also because of its literary merit. It refers to the conventions of Greek Tragedy employed by Fitzgerald throughout the novel such as anagnorisis, harmartia and catastrophe, ensuring the reader feels sympathy for Gatsby, while demonstrating Fitzgerald’s critiques of both modern society and the American dream and simultaneously showing, through figurative language and symbolism, the social commentary. This is all linked to the specific context of the 1920s through the use of particular language and imagery.