Valley of Ashes

This is really my final piece for this blog. I must have decided to title this blog "Valley of Ashes" because the landscape that Fitzgerald paints doesn't seem to be that far from the one I'm living in now. I live in Manhattan, and the Valley of Ashes, as I've discovered from an article by Roger Starr in The City Journal, is Flushing Meadows. Quite literally, the valley of ashes was just that: a dumping ground for waste and ashes until Robert Moses, the city Parks Commissioner decided to remove them and create a parkway.

I can't help but note that the defining passage in The Great Gatsby is the one that describes the Valley of Ashes. The imagery, the tone, the austere and penetrating eyes of T.J. Eckleburg loom large and fierce in the novel. Even after reading the final chapter, it isn't the green light at the end of the dock that I leave with - somehow, the story seems to reach its climax at the beginning in Chapter 2. Many people have written about the valley as a symbol of America's moral decay or spirituality. I tend to see it as the latter - a lack of concern, a carelessness, and a Marie Antoinette-like ability for us to create a bubble and ignore a world outside of the bubble. Connectedness to others is a sign of spirituality - out of it grows concern and compassion, and genuine relationships.

Years from now, when I'm my long black hair grows long and grey, I'll remember that this blog was written during one of the major economic downturns of American history. Unemployment is now at its highest in 30 years, President Bush signed an agreement to withdraw troops from Iraq, Obama's inauguration is fraught with a wary sense of hope, Americans are losing their homes, companies are bankrupt, and the Madoff scandal has ruined the lives of countless families and companies. But the reality of it hasn't sunken in - why do I see so little compassion in the streets? People seem detached from the reality of it the way Tom and Daisy, and even Jordan and Nick are detached from one another. And even they seem to live disillusioned, if not with the world, then with love. In Gatsby's world of ashes, romance is an impossibility when everyone is in a fraudulent relationship.

Hope you enjoy exploring the blog as much as I enjoyed putting it together.

The Reinvented Man

One prominent theme in Fitzgerald's stories and novels is the ability for characters to make themselves over. After Fitzgerald wrote a letter to his sister about becoming popular, Fitzgerald revisited this theme in nearly all of his stories. Perhaps this was reflective of his own efforts as a teenager, to join the ranks of the elite through the art of manners, or a recognition in his numerous relationships with women of the importance of money in winning their hearts. Indeed, it was only after his first novel received widespread recognition that his wife, Zelda, agreed to marry him.

Fitzgerald's novel is essentially a biography of the character Jay Gatsby. Each chapter unravels the mystery around the character. Gatsby is at first an elusive figure - a curiosity to his neighbors. The party scene in the novel, artfully captures the gossip surrounding him - his participation in the war, even the possibility of his "killing a man." As his guests unintentionally but correctly surmise, beneath the glitz and glamor of Gatsby's party lies a dark past. Later, the source of Gatsby's wealth is revealed to be from illicit trading and connections; we learn his name is changed from Gatz, and his father as we discover in the final chapter, is a foil for the debonair and complex Gatsby. Jay Gatsby is not only a self-made man, but his greatest accomplishment is his ability to reinvent himself through two crucial elements of high society: manners and money. As Nick tells us, Gatsby writes in a majestic hand. His house is beautifully manicured. His speech has no trace of his father's earnest and folksy mannerisms. Gatsby's dream of riches requires him to dispense of his past - his father provides evidence of his determination to reinvent himself:

Rise from bed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6.00 A.M. Dumbbell exercise and wall-scaling . . . . . . 6.15-6.30 ” Study electricity, etc . . . . . . . . . . . . 7.15-8.15 ” Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8.30-4.30 P.M. Baseball and sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4.30-5.00 ” Practice elocution, poise and how to attain it 5.00-6.00 ” Study needed inventions . . . . . . . . . . . 7.00-9.00 ”

This past semester, we read Charles Chestnutt's story "The Wife of His Youth," a story which also explores and challenges the past identity of man, Mr. Ryder. Mr. Ryder is the president of a society that maintains "correct social standards" and comprised of black men and women who are educated and accomplished. When he is about to announce his engagement at the society ball, the wife of his past - a plantation cook - appears looking for him. Mr. Ryder then decides to announce the woman and in his introduction or her, quotes Shakespeare's famous line, "To thine own self be true."

But whereas the Chestnutt story is ironic and triumphant, The Great Gatsby is tragic. Sadly, Gatsby's reinvention of his persona could only be realized through the acceptance of a society characterized by hedonism, materialism, and the lack of genuine relationships. There are perhaps Marxist overtones in Fitzgerald's portrayal and critical look at Gatsby. For more on this, see my Marxist reading of The Great Gatsby.

Letter to Annabel - a Look into Fitzgerald's Quest for Popularity and Sex Appeal

Fitzgerald wrote several letters to his sister Annabel. One letter included instructions to his sister Annabel. She was unattractive, in contrast to his reputation as a fair and handsome figure. This quite likely prompted him to write the following lines in a letter to his sister:

• You are, as you know, not a good conversationalist
• Boys like to talk about themselves...always play close attention to the man
• Cultivate deliberate physical grace
• Learn to be worldly
• Remember that in society nine out of ten marry for money and nine out of ten boys are fools.
• You smile on one side, which is absolutely wrong. Get before a mirror and practice a smile and get a good one, a radiant smile ought to be in the facial vocabulary of every girl.
• Exercise would give you a healthier skin. You should never rub cold cream into your face because you have a slight tendency to grow hairs on it. I'd find out about this from some Dr. who'd tell you what you could use…

Daniel, Anne M. "F. Scott Fitzgerald". The Literary Encyclopedia. 22 July 2003.[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4922

Great Gatsby Trading Cards - Click to Download for Free

This is a terrific teaching tool for teachers. I created my own trading cards at the Trading Cards website by ReadWriteThink.org. Actually, it's adapted - I did my fair share of cutting and pasting, since the website wouldn't allow me to save my cards electronically. Encourage your students to use this website, or make your own version of character trading cards. I did have some trouble printing them out. Here's an idea for using character cards after reading a story... students could create 2 versions of trading cards: one with pictures and character names; the other with a character description. Students could play "memory" by matching all trading cards.

The Spirit of the Jazz Age

Below are quotes from Fitzgerald and his novel that capture the author's portrayal of his contemporaries or "the lost generation" and my short commentaries:

The people of the 1920's comprised "a whole race going hedonistic"
||| Very self explanatory. The novel shows plenty of scenes with drinking, dancing, driving, carousing.

And I like large parties. They’re so intimate.
||| An oxymoron. Also shows the irony of Jordan Baker's statement - intimacy is used falsely here.

She had drunk a quantity of champagne, and during the course of her song she had decided, ineptly, that everything was very, very sad—she was not only singing, she was weeping too.
||| The real tragedy is the woman's inability to articulate the reasons for her sadness and the inability of others to recognize it or understand it; Nick goes on to describe the makeup running down her face. Spectators respond cruelly by laughing and observing that the weeping woman sing the musical notes created by black ink on her face.

One of the men was talking with curious intensity to a young actress, and his wife, after attempting to laugh at the situation in a dignified and indifferent way, broke down entirely and resorted to flank attacks—at intervals she appeared suddenly at his side like an angry diamond, and hissed: “You promised!” into his ear.
||| Dignified and indifferent are used beautifully here by Fitzgerald. More irony as we learn that this woman, who is angry one minute and indifferent another is an actress. Also, seems to be a glamor but pretentiousness in her anger.

...but he had deliberately given Daisy a sense of security; he let her believe that he was a person from much the same stratum as herself—that he was fully able to take care of her. As a matter of fact, he had no such facilities—he had no comfortable family standing behind him, and he was liable at the whim of an impersonal government to be blown anywhere about the world.
||| Gatsby is back where he started.

Gatsby as the Young Fitzgerald; Nick as the older Fitzgerald?

The narrator of The Great Gatsby is Nick Carraway who closely resembles the his creator, F. Scott Fitzgerald:

• Nick Carraway comes from a "prominent, well-to-do people in this Middle Western city for three generations." Fitzgerald comes from Minnesota, a middle western city where his mother's family, the Keys have resided for three generations.
• Nick Carraway has a well known "great-uncle" he is "supposed to look like. Fitzgerald was related to composer Francis Scott Key.
• Nick Carraway describes himself as being "rather literary" at Yale just as Fitzgerald contributed to publications and theatre productions at Princeton.
  
• Nick is fascinated by the wealthy elite and becomes a temporary participant in their social circles, but remains critical of their disingenuousness and hedonistic lifestyles. Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda's lives mirrored those of the party scenes in Chapter 3, criticized his generation as a race "going hedonistic."
  
• Fitzgerald wrote, "Show me a hero and I will show you a tragedy." Nick's sentimental take on Gatsby is our first introduction to Gatsby, "who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn. If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life"

Paying Homage to the Great Gatsby

Many works play on the same themes and characteristics of The Great Gatsby. Many claim that novels like The Hotel New Hampshire, Tom Wolfe's Look Homeward Angel, James Baldwin's Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone, Styron's Lie Down in Darkness, and even the ABC show, "Jake Reinvented" come close to being Gatsbyesque. But none pay an homage as ardently as the recently published Netherland, and newest treatise on the American Dream. Check out Michiko Kakutani's New York Times review. Oh, and here is a passage from the blog Mookse and the Gripe:

The final page of Gatsby looks back to the settlement of New York by the Dutch and perhaps can be seen by a Dutch writer (O’Neill was primarily raised in Holland) as an invitation to compose an up-to-date perspective.

And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes - a fresh, green breast of the new world.

Here the Nick Carraway, the self-reflecting narrator telling a bigger story than his own, is Hans van den Broek, a Dutchman who has moved with his English wife to New York. The Gatsby, the aspiring (or deluded) object of affection, is Chuck Ramkissoon, an imigrant from Trinidad. Daisy Buchanan is invoked as a plan to build a cricket field that will reorient Americans to the world’s civilized sport - and rake in a lot of money.

A sports arena for the greatest cricket teams in the world. Twelve exhibition matches every summer, watched by eight thousand spectators at fifty dollars a pop. I’m talking about advertising, I’m talking about year-round consumption of food and drink in the bar-restaurant. You’re going to have a clubhouse. Two thousand members at one thousand dollars a year plus initiation fee.

Top 5 Fitzgerald and Gatsby Articles with Links

1. Scott and Zelda: Their Style Lives

2. A Life in Letters: A New Collection Edited and Annotated by Matthew J. Bruccoli

3. Short and Sweet Synopsis by Harold Bloom

4. Cultural and historical background 411s for young students of The Great Gatsby

5. The Great Gatsby - Yes, Old Sport it's the Whole Novel

Cocktail Trivia

• At the supper party in Paris where, thanks to the publisher and bookseller Sylvia Beach, he first met Joyce, Fitzgerald impetuously offered to prove his devotion to Joyce by throwing himself out of a window; in the copy of Gatsby he gave to Joyce after the party, Fitzgerald drew Joyce with a halo and himself on his knees, worshipping (Daniel, 11)
• During World War II, the non-profit organization, Editions for Armed Services, distributed pocket sized versions of The Great Gatsby to soldiers.
  
• Fitzgerald misused the term "flapper." Originally, it did not mean a dancing girl, who smoked or drank, but rather, was "English slang, and it meant a society girl who had made her debut and hadn't found a husband."
  
• Gertrude Stein wrote of The Great Gatsby "[I]t is a good book. I like the melody of your dedication it shows that you have a background of beauty and tenderness and that is a comfort. The next good thing is that you write naturally in sentences and that too is a comfort."
• For more facts about Fitzgerald and Gatsby, check out the University of South Carolina Fitzgerald site.
  

WHAT DOES FITZGERALDIAN MEAN?

Found this in the “New York Times Books” section. It means “a broad adjective and can be applied to the Roaring 20's, to zany authors, to Ivy League haberdashery, to excessive drinking, to extravagance or to disillusionment.”

I See Dead People's Books

Fitzgerald's 322 books are now cataloged in Librarything. Some interesting titles:



- The Land of Plenty by Robert Cantwell
- The Life of Jesus by Ernest Renan
- Manifesto of the Communist Party by Karl Marx
- Odette: A Fairy Tale for Weary People by Ronald Firbank
- The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde
- The Queens of Society by Katherine Thomson
- Safety First; A Musical Comedy in Two Acts by F. Scott Fitzgerald

To see the complete list, open a free account at Librarything.com and check out the I See Dead People's Books group.