The Artifact in Imagery: Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

Author(s): M. Bettina
Source: Twentieth Century Literature, Vol. 9, No. 3 (Oct., 1963), pp. 140-142
Published by: Hofstra University
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/441031
Accessed: 02-08-2015 02:42 UTC

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 THE ARTIFACT IN IMAGERY:
FITZGERALD'S THE GREAT GATSBY
SISTER M. BETTINA, SSND
That F. Scott Fitzgerald was an
ironist,simultaneouslyengaged in and
detached fromhis subject, has become
a critical commonplace.What remains
to be pointed out is his use of a par-
ticular type of imagery to create his
complexeffects.In The Great Gatsby,
his best finishedwork, there is evi-
dence of an image-patternapparently
calculated to form in the reader an
ironic double vision of the book's
events.
Fitzgerald in this imagerycounter-
poises the real and the artificial.Its
minor term is an artifact,often pre-
tentious or vulgar, which by asso-
ciation cheapens the object of com-
parison.Yet somehowthe object gains
significanceby juxtapositionwith the
artifact, so that it profitsas well as
loses by the relationship.
An uncomplicateduse of the image
climaxes a short descriptive passage
in Fitzgerald's notebooks: "Abruptly
it became full summer.After the last
April storm someone came along the
streetone night,blew up the treeslike
balloons, scattered bulbs and shrubs
like confetti, opened a cage full of
robins,and, aftera quick look around,
signaled up the curtain upon a new
backdrop of summer sky." Here he
touches nature herself with artifi-
ciality,and in the comparisonshe takes
on freshness. However, the brisk
rhythmof the passage does not per-
mit a reader to dwell for long upon
the sky as backdrop. The imageryof
Gatsby, in contrast to this, often
seems to emphasize the artifact.
One of the firstof these images in
140
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the novel is similar to that quoted
above. Nick Carraway, describinghis
feeling of freedomin his new neigh-
borhood, says as a glorious non se-
quitur, "And so with the sunshineand
the great bursts of leaves growingon
the trees,just as things grow in fast
movies,I had that familiarconviction
that life was beginning over again
with the summer."
To the reader, Carraway's remark
is not at all incongruous.Coupled with
the leaves bursting out on the trees
"just as things grow in fast movies,"
his ease in the neighborhood seems
cause enoughforlife's takingon added
significancethat summer. Fitzgerald
in this passage does more than freshen
nature by an associationwith an arti-
fact; he createswith it a sense of the
book's higher meaning. Yet, another
effectof the image is to hint that the
meretriciouswill figure importantly
in the summer'sevents.With the true
therewill be the tawdry,and the title
epithet for Gatsby will become both
an estimateand a mockery.
Another image in the novel's first
few pages makes use of an artifact to
attach paradoxical connotationsto its
hero. Carraway sums up the signifi-
cance of Jay Gatsby: "If personality
is an unbrokenseriesof successfulges-
tures, then there was somethinggor-
geous about him, some heightenedsen-
sitivity to the promisesof life, as if
he were related to one of those intri-
cate machinesthat registerearthquakes
ten thousand miles away."
What does this do if not magnify
Gatsby? But at the same time it sug-
gests a weakness in him. Awesomely
hinting at his almost machine-like
power, it neverthelesscauses to arise
a suspicionthat his very sensitivityis
senseless,as if he were, automaton-
like, to give over himselfpassivelyto
his experience.
Thus Fitzgeraldstimulatesthe dou-
ble vision of irony. Is Gatsby to be
taken seriously?On one level of mean-
ing, perhaps. The reader is not yet
quite sure.
Carraway'sdescriptionsof thethings
Gatsby owns strengthenthis irony.
His belongings are blatantly preten-
tious. He lives in a mansion which is
"a factual imitationof some Hste! de
Ville in Normandy,with a tower on
one side, spanking new under a thin
beardof raw ivy, and a marble swim-
ming pool, and more than fortyacres
of lawn and garden." He drives an
extravagantcream-coloredcar, "bright
with nickel, swollen here and there
in its monstrouslength with trium-
phant hat-boxesand supper-boxesand
tool-boxes,and terraced with a laby-
rinthof wind-shields."He may wear
a whitesuit with silvershirtand gold-
colored tie or "a gorgeouspink rag of
a suit."
To Daisy Buchanan, the woman
whom Gatsby loves and for whose
sake he makes this tastelessdisplay of
wealth, these things also symbolize
him. In one scene she cries stormily
into a pile of gaudy, varicoloredshirts
whichGatsby
hasshaken
out forher
to admire. "They're such beautiful
shirts,"she sobs. "It makes me sad be-
cause I've neverseen such-such beau-
tiful shirts before."
Early in the book a readerfindsthe
conviction being born that, just as
these things stand for Gatsby, so he
himselfsymbolizessomething.And in-
deed he is the story'scentral artifact.
141
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A self-made phony, he too emerges
from his pretensionswith heightened
significance.
But there are many things besides
Gatsby to which Fitzgeraldgives con-
tradictoryconnotationsby means of
this imagery. A fantastic valley of
ashes is the moral settingof the book;
in this, man's firstand final artifact,
symbol of his refuse and decay, its
real action takes place. And over the
gray valley brood the dim, paintless
eyes, "blue and gigantic," of Doctor
T. J. Eckleburg. Disembodied on a
disusedoptical sign,theyare thebook's
only figurefor God.
In effect,The Great Gatsby is a
study of man alone and perhapsit is
primarilyto achieve a sense of lone-
liness,to create a distance betweenhis
characters and nature and God, that
Fitzgerald employs artifacts in im-
aggery. The storygives severalglimpses
of loneliness-Gatsby alone on his vast
lawn at night,stretchingout his hand
toward the light on the end of the
Buchanans' dock; Gatsby solitaryon
his marble steps,his right hand raised
in a formal gestureof farewell.One
of thesemomentsoccurs the firsttime
Carraway attends one of Gatsby's
parties. He finds a girl speaking to
someonewho has just walked away, so
that her remarkis addressedonly to
"the prematuremoon, produced like
the rest of the supper, no doubt, out
of a caterer'sbasket."
As natureand God stay aloof from
Gatsby, so does Daisy. And Fitzgerald
uses the mostcomplexand evocativeof
all these images to show the distance
between Gatsby and her.
Daisy's voice throughoutthe book
is made the epitome of her charm.
Carraway says he believes it is what
holds Gatsby most: "with its fluctuat-
ing, feverishwarmth . .. it couldn't
be overdreamed - that voice was a to him: "He musthave feltthat he
deathlesssong." had lost the old warmworld,paid a
"She's got an indiscreetvoice," he highpriceforlivingtoo long with a
remarks in thestory'scrisis."It's full single dream.He must have looked
of--- up at an unfamiliarsky through
Gatsby interrupts, "Her voice is frightening leavesand shiveredas he
full of money." foundwhat a grotesquethinga rose
"That was it," Carrawaymuses. is and howrawthesunlightwas upon
"I'd neverunderstood before. Thatwas thescarcelycreatedgrass."The reader,
theinexhaustible charmthatroseand though,has neverquite been drawn
fellin it, thejingleof it, thecymbal's into Gatsby's"warm world." With
songof it.... High in a whitepal- Carrawayhe has all along been ob-
ace the king's daughter,the golden servingwhatGatsbydiscovers onlyat
theend-the artificiality
of things.
girl..." to
Daisy, put it baldly,represents This sort of image Fitzgeraldhas
money.But Fitzgeralddoesnot put it used to createtwo levelsof meaning
baldly.He usesnot simplythe mean- as well as two pointsof view. With
ing of moneybut thesoundof it, its it he opensrealismand expressionism
color, and its rhythm,fusingwith to symbolism. And so Gatsby,disillu-
thesethemagicof theprincessin the sioned,becomesa symbolofhope.That
fairytale to evokeDaisy's tinselap- the readercan believethisof Gatsby
peal for the man whom she will and pityhimforit is in no smallpart
destroy. due to Fitzgerald'sdeft handlingof
And whenshe does betrayGatsby, realityand artificiality in imagery.
Carrawaymakes a final imaginative St. AnthonyHigh School,Detroit
summary of whatit musthavemeant

142

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