Is Nick gay (or bisexual)?

[robfearon]

Is Nick Carraway, the narrator, gay (or bisexual)? In chapter 2, he goes down the elevator with Mr McKee:

'Come to lunch some day,' he suggested, as we groaned down the elevator.
'Where?'
'Anywhere.'
'Keep your hands off the lever,' snapped the elevator boy.
'I beg your pardon,' said Mr McKee with dignity, 'I didn't know I was touching it.'
'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 lower level of the Pennsylvania Station, staring at the morning Tribune, and waiting for the four o'clock train.

Is that small passage enough to make a conclusion? Perhaps what Nick is really attracted to in Jordan Baker is her masculinity - she's described as being quite butch. What do you guys think?

Robert

[Dark_Link1]

Well, after reading the great gatsby the paragraph mentioned above is very ambiguous and could mean a variety of different things. However i percieved it as you did, i thought that he went to bed with the guy.

[optimisticnad]

sorry, not read that book. and your probably wondering why I am posting here...cos no one else seems to. so hi. and using my lack of analytical skills i would say yes, lever: phallic symbol? use of the word groaned, syntax structure: we groaned, not elevator groaned etc.

[djmyerhmgirl]

lol butch is an interesting way to put it!! In my mind, Jordan had a slim boyish figure. Definitely not butch!!
Maybe the scene you quoted was the result of Mr Fitzgerald being more drunk than usual.

[Plum White]

I always assumed Nick to be somewhat bisexual- Jordan is referred to as 'boyish' at one point, i think, and Nick describes Gatsby as having 'something gorgeous about him'. Plus that scene with the elevator which i never actually noticed before.

[-emily-]

Nick is not gay. He has been engaged before (to a woman) back in the mid-west and was attracted to Jordan throughtout the novel who was not butch but is refered to as a very attractive woman. They kiss and Nick only doesn't want to be with her at the end of the novel because of her attitude towards the accident involving Gatsby and Daisy and resulting in Myrtle's death.

[eilidhx]

Nick Carroway is not gay. Before he arrived at the Eggs he was engaged to a woman who he did not marry only because "he would not be gossiped into it" Furthermore, Nick only breaks up with Jordan after her insensitivity about the matter of Myrtle's death and her the fact that she represents so many of the negative issues of the hedonistic society she lives in, for example immorality. Furthermore, Nick kisses Jordan and is immediately attracted to her. This does not suggest that Nick is gay and if he was F.Scott.Fitzgerald would make more clear, as opposed to describing it through Nick's drunken state.

[baldy1]

Nick is not gay as he had strong feelings for Jordan even though she thinks he is quite shallow.:p

[tait]

I agree fully with Eilidh and Emily, well said ladies. xx

[dj Winston]

I agree with Taita xxxxxxx

[livelaughlove]

Yup, I don't think Nick is gay either, though there are some pretty sketchy parts that could certainly point to it. But I think that being that was one of the two times Nick was ever drunk, he just could not hold his liquor-- my Lit teacher also said that an elevator boy would not snap at a gentleman like that "Get your hand off the lever" unless they had not been behaving properly (which was most likely the case)

[darkmage2003]

Yes, Nick was engaged before and to a woman. You forget, this book is set in the 1920s, an era with a culture that is completely different from ours in most every way.

[Redzeppelin]

The ambiguity of the end of the chapter quoted is due largely to Nick's blurry recollection of the event (if you remember, he was quite drunk). It would be silly for Fitzgerald to have his drunk, first person narrator narrate in a perfectly coherent style. As the chapter winds down, the recollection becomes more fragmented to mirror Nick's patchy memory of the evening.

[alias3r]

sorry, not read that book. and your probably wondering why I am posting here...cos no one else seems to. so hi. and using my lack of analytical skills i would say yes, lever: phallic symbol? use of the word groaned, syntax structure: we groaned, not elevator groaned etc.

ya but i dont think he is gay. I think the author meant to say that "the elevator groaned" but he has a different way of describing things. I heard about it in my AP English class or somethign. Something about how F. Scott Fitzgerald knows what he is talking about but forgets to make it so that the readers know what he is talking about.

[obesechicken13]

'Keep your hands off the lever,' snapped the elevator boy.


'I beg your pardon,' said Mr McKee with dignity, 'I didn't know I was touching it.'
Robert

NIck is a pedifile! why would Fitzgerald write this if he didn't want to imply at least wavy orientation. The drunken argument doesn't work, Fitzgerald doesn't write drunk. He does everything else drunk, just not writing. The fact that Nick has been drinking only makes this passage even worse.

This allows me to formulate the conclusion that Nick is meant to like :banana: , Besides it says he loses interest with the lady from his past over a summer.

[Dante Wodehouse]

Yes, Nick was engaged before and to a woman. You forget, this book is set in the 1920s, an era with a culture that is completely different from ours in most every way.

The culture was of merely keeping your homo or bisexuality 'under wraps' so to speak. A lot of people were gay or bisexual (Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde, Shakespeare, and maybe King James). I haven't read the book, but the culture doesn't disprove orientation.

[Redzeppelin]

NIck is a pedifile! why would Fitzgerald write this if he didn't want to imply at least wavy orientation. The drunken argument doesn't work, Fitzgerald doesn't write drunk. He does everything else drunk, just not writing. The fact that Nick has been drinking only makes this passage even worse.

This allows me to formulate the conclusion that Nick is meant to like :banana: , Besides it says he loses interest with the lady from his past over a summer.

If you're referring to my comments, I didn't say Fitzgeral "wrote" drunk - I said Nick the narrator's descriptions of the evening are reflective of his drinking. You'll need more persuasive evidence than what you've quoted to be convincing.

[kathycf]

NIck is a pedifile! why would Fitzgerald write this if he didn't want to imply at least wavy orientation. The drunken argument doesn't work, Fitzgerald doesn't write drunk. He does everything else drunk, just not writing. The fact that Nick has been drinking only makes this passage even worse.

This allows me to formulate the conclusion that Nick is meant to like :banana: , Besides it says he loses interest with the lady from his past over a summer.

Well, this is the quote:

Keep your hands off the lever,' snapped the elevator boy.
'I beg your pardon,' said Mr McKee with dignity, 'I didn't know I was touching it.'
How you can conclude Nick is a pedophile by a comment directed at Mr McKee I am not quite sure...I would also like to point out that pedophilia and homosexuality are NOT the same thing.

I also don't think a dancing banana is the object of Nick's romantic or sexual interests. If you want to say you think Nick is gay, you could just state "Nick is meant to like other men." That works better than references to fruit, dancing or otherwise.

[grittylit]

i had thought this when i read the novel, i must admit. the main reasons being:

as others have said 'the elevator sequence'. why include that he had seen the man in his underwear? and he had also said that he left the party at 12 and then we next see him at a train station at 4am... all that is said in the mean time is that he was in the bedroom with a nearly naked man, and an 'artistic' type at that.

that he seems to regard women as simply forms of companions, or something that he should have as it is expected, such as the wealth in the book

he didnt actually like jordan, exept, as i said above, for the company. there is a statement in the book when Jordan explained the Gatsby/Daisy history and Nick states something like ' i didnt have a sparkle in my eye, such as a Daisy or a Gatsby, someone to hold close, so i turned to the woman sitting beside me and hugged her close to me.

also, he fell out of love with the girl 'back west' simply as he was physically not attracted to her 'i envisioned that moustache of sweat that would form everytime we would play tennis'

...just my two cents....but also women in the book are not looked very kindly apon, look at dishonest Jordan, silly ditzy daisy, and the silly girls that come to Gatsby's parties. perhaps this 'gay' persona of nicks was just the product of Fitzgeralds, either own gay inclinations, or he was simply going through a strained part of his relationship with his wife (it was known they had many) and was just not thinking kindly of us girls;)

[PAperson300]

One piece of evidence that I think suggests Nick may be gay is his 'insecurity'. Throughout the novel Nick is constantly reassuring the readers that he is an honest fellow. Perhaps Nick tells people he is honest because truly he [I]isn't honest. But rather, Nick is hiding a secret such as his homosexuality.

Another similar point is that at the beginning of the book Nick says that he always reserves judgment on people. Perhaps he reserves judgment because he himself does not want to be judged (for being gay). Just an idea...

[PAperson300]

I am wrong. :banana:

[miniluv86]

I don't think that I can say that Nick is definitely straight because he was engaged to a woman before. Some people consider sexuality to be on an continuum, just because you start out straight doesn't mean you are going to be that way for the rest of your lives. Nick is most likely hetero, but that doesn't mean that he wasn't attracted to Gatsby in some way, that he didn't think Gatsby was actually pretty great despite the ambiguous nature of his wealth and his adulterous relationship with Daisy. I think Nick had a definite crush on Gatsby.

[ladysusan]

[QUOTE=robfearon;178192]Is Nick Carraway, the narrator, gay (or bisexual)? In chapter 2, he goes down the elevator with Mr McKee:

'Come to lunch some day,' he suggested, as we groaned down the elevator.


the fact that they are "groaning" down the elevator simply means that F.Scott was using a literary device.
why must we all be so immature?

[ZoeyJuly]

Nick is bi he totally has like this whole inuendo thing with the lever in the elebator but he is envolved with women...

[ZoeyJuly]

dude it's not immature... why do u have to be so literal at least sum people r reading into what Fitzgerald was trying to tell us...

[ZoeyJuly]

[QUOTE=robfearon;178192]Is Nick Carraway, the narrator, gay (or bisexual)? In chapter 2, he goes down the elevator with Mr McKee:

'Come to lunch some day,' he suggested, as we groaned down the elevator.


the fact that they are "groaning" down the elevator simply means that F.Scott was using a literary device.
why must we all be so immature?
it's not immature tothink he's gay or bi... it's immature to think that everything Fitzgerald wrote was supposed to be interpreted literally!

[aeroport]

I have to say it was rather shocking at first to see the title of this thread after reading through the "Nick" thread...
(I believe you are responsible for this, ZoeyZuly. ;) )

[HotKarl]

women in the book are not looked very kindly upon, look at . . . silly ditzy daisy . . .

I know this is a little off topic, but I always wondered why readers label Daisy as a ditz or space case. I think she's one of the more intelligent characters in the book. There are two scenes in the book people always refer to when making this case, and I'd like to refute them:

1. The part when Daisy says she hopes her daughter grows up to be stupid.

Most people look at this part and say "what a stupid thing to wish for." However, I think Daisy is making poignant social commentary. Daisy is aware that women are play things for guys like Tom and Gatsby. Women are usually dismissed in this time period as shallow, infantile, stupid, lesser than men, etc. Daisy is aware she's in a bad marriage with a racist brute of a husband. By saying she hopes her daughter is dumb, she's essentially saying that stupid women are almost better off--at least they don't realize their agency is non-existent.

2. The part when Daisy cries because Gatsby shows her the shirts.

Again, her tears at the sight of the shirts seem irrational and ridiculous. Think again--Daisy is crying because she's realizing that a man she hasn't seen in a decade has basically been living his life for her. The shirts are inconsequential; they might have well been mothballs, potatoes, lampshades. Gatsby takes her on this whirlwind tour of the mansion, basically saying, "I've done this all for you." How exactly is a married woman supposed to respond to the dramatic weight of Gatsby's grand gesture? Daisy's remark about the shirts is the only thing she can think of on the spot to conceal her true feelings about Gatsby's return.

When you compare Daisy to Gatsby (a guy trying to recreate the past), Nick (a judgmental guy who thinks he's non-judgmental), or Tom (a racist lunatic), suddenly Daisy looks pretty smart.

[HotKarl]

women in the book are not looked very kindly upon, look at . . . silly ditzy daisy . . . (my emphasis)

I know this is a little off topic, but I always wondered why readers label Daisy as a ditz or space case. I think she's one of the more intelligent characters in the book. There are two scenes in the book people always refer to when making this case, and I'd like to refute them:

1. The part when Daisy says she hopes her daughter grows up to be stupid.

Most people look at this part and say "what a stupid thing to wish for." However, I think Daisy is making poignant social commentary. Daisy is aware that women are play things for guys like Tom and Gatsby. Women are usually dismissed in this time period as shallow, infantile, stupid, lesser than men, etc. Daisy is aware she's in a bad marriage with a racist brute of a husband. By saying she hopes her daughter is dumb, she's essentially saying that stupid women are almost better off--at least they don't realize their agency is non-existent.

2. The part when Daisy cries because Gatsby shows her the shirts.

Again, her tears at the sight of the shirts seem irrational and ridiculous. Think again--Daisy is crying because she's realizing that a man she hasn't seen in a decade has basically been living his life for her. The shirts are inconsequential; they might have well been mothballs, potatoes, lampshades. Gatsby takes her on this whirlwind tour of the mansion, basically saying, "I've done this all for you." How exactly is a married woman supposed to respond to the dramatic weight of Gatsby's grand gesture? Daisy's remark about the shirts is the only thing she can think of on the spot to conceal her true feelings about Gatsby's return.

When you compare Daisy to Gatsby (a guy trying to recreate the past), Nick (a judgmental guy who thinks he's non-judgmental), or Tom (a racist lunatic), suddenly Daisy looks pretty smart.

[ZoeyJuly]

i totally agree, my friend actually wrote a song called perfect little fool because of daisy's comment... btw wat was i responsible 4?

[aeroport]

i totally agree, my friend actually wrote a song called perfect little fool because of daisy's comment... btw wat was i responsible 4?

Just for commenting on the two threads relating to people named Nick, so that they showed up really close together on my "New Posts" list. Thus, when I finished reading about the real, living-breathing LitNet member Nick, I was startled to see a thread titled "Is Nick gay?"
That is all.

[ZoeyJuly]

haha i have that effect on people jk..:lol:

[Egad!]

I think that what you are proposing is a bit of a stretch and not plausible in any sense, whatsoever, but it is still quite amusing. Good job mate.

[kelby_lake]

Is Nick Carraway, the narrator, gay (or bisexual)? In chapter 2, he goes down the elevator with Mr McKee:

'Come to lunch some day,' he suggested, as we groaned down the elevator.
'Where?'
'Anywhere.'
'Keep your hands off the lever,' snapped the elevator boy.
'I beg your pardon,' said Mr McKee with dignity, 'I didn't know I was touching it.'
'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 lower level of the Pennsylvania Station, staring at the morning Tribune, and waiting for the four o'clock train.

Is that small passage enough to make a conclusion? Perhaps what Nick is really attracted to in Jordan Baker is her masculinity - she's described as being quite butch. What do you guys think?

Robert

in a stage version of it, both he and jordan are gay. i think he might be, in the same way that it is hinted charles is in brideshead revisited.

[RingoLass]

I've always wondered this too but I think the front part of my head chose to ignore it, I always forget people are gay and then ask them what they think of someone and just get "that look". Maybe Fitzgerald is giving us "the look" right now? :D

[kelby_lake]

Maybe Nick is in love with gatsby...

[aschezuasche]

the fact that they are "groaning" down the elevator simply means that F.Scott was using a literary device.
why must we all be so immature?

it's not immature tothink he's gay or bi... it's immature to think that everything Fitzgerald wrote was supposed to be interpreted literally!

Literary device not literal intepretation. two different things. Literary devices refer to specific aspects of literature, in the sense of its universal function as an art form which expresses ideas through language, which we can recognize, identify, interpret and/or analyze. Literary devices collectively comprise the art form’s components; the means by which authors create meaning through language, and by which readers gain understanding of and appreciation for their works. They also provide a conceptual framework for comparing individual literary works to others, both within and across genres. Both literary elements and literary techniques can be called literary devices.

perhaps the 'underwear scene' was supposed to show how uncouth, slobbish, etc. that society truly was.
i agree with the drunk concept more than the gay one, though it is an interesting twist and take on Nick. xD

[aLaN!]

just reading the book... found this passage (is it correct to call it a passage?) chapter three when he describes other things he's done besides gatsby's party:

"I even had an affair with a girl who lived in Jersey City and worked in the accounting department, but her brother began throwing mean looks in my direction, so when she went on her vacation in July, I let it blow away quietly."

and this:

" I liked to walk up Fifth Avenue and pick out romantic women from the crowd and imagine that in a few minutes I was going to enter into their lives... sometimes in my mind i followed them to their apartments... and they turned and smiled back at me..."

so I'm guessing he's fascinated by gatsby but is capable of being attracted to women?

[rc2101]

Since homosexuality was rarely spoken of and thought of as vulgar during the 1920s, I think it's safe to say that Fitzgerald wouldn't blatantly create a homosexual character. However he does hint at the possibility of a sexual encounter with Mr. McKee through ellipses and the description of Mr. McKee "clad in his underwear."

With that being said, I think Fitzgerald's main point at the end of Chapter II revolves around moral corruption. As the alcohol sinks in around midnight, the party ends with Tom Buchanan breaking Myrtle's nose without an ounce of guilt. Then as Myrtle begins "bleeding fluently," she tries to cover "the tapestry scenes of Versailles" instead of attending to her nose.

Abruptly switching to Mr. McKee and Nick walking out on Mrytle's distress, Fitzgerald uses Nick's scene with Mr. McKee to further hint at the moral corruption of the party and of the 1920s in general.

[Le Banana]

"Mr McKee was a pale, feminine man from the flat below. He had just shaved, for there was a white spot of later on his cheekbone ... He informed me that he was in the 'artistic game', and I gathered later that he was a photographer."

"It was nine o'clock - almost immediately afterwards I looked at my watch and found it was ten. Mr McKee was asleep on a chair with his fists clenched in his lap, like a photograph of a man of action. Taking out my handkershief I wiped from his cheek the spot of dried lather that had worried me all the afternoon."

When Gatsby is talking with Nick:
"There was the smile again, but this time I held out against it. 'I don't like mysteries,' I answered, 'and I don't understand why you won't come out frankly and tell me what you want. Why has it all got to come through Miss Baker?'"

When Meyer Wolfsheim is talking with Nick:
"'Fine fellow, isn't he? Handsome to look at and a perfect gentleman.' 'Yes.'"

****

Part of me wants Nick to be bi, because it makes the story all the more interesting. So that's probably why I'm listing a bunch of quotes from the book that may not even have anything to do with the assumption. Eh! :p

[matrixmadu]

well, i think it's not so obvious, but if you read it over, it says that mr. mckee was "clad in his underwear," and our lit class discussed this scene, cause it was a bit weird, lol... but we basically realized that mckee and nick got drunk, they went to mckee's house and they did it , and mckee shows him pictures from his portfolio, because we already read that mckee is a photographer... and the "beauty and the beast..." are all the pictures he took... nick may not have deliberately had sex with mckee, as they were drunk, but throughout the novel, it kinda seems that he sort of a has the personality of a homosexual (no offense), cause he's not that very strong, and he's way more sensitive than most guys i know, he tells the story with a lot of detail, and he feels connected to gatsby, almost interested in him. i think someone before said something about nick only liking jordan because she was masculine... i agree with that, cause when nick first meets jordan, thats what he notices... so yeah, this is what i think, at the most he's probably bisexual, thats what our class thought when he discussed nick's sexuality...

[j.k.taylor]

considering Fitzgerald's style of writing, if Nick was gay, he would have made it a bit more obvious and there would be more quotes, however, i too got the impression that he went to bed with the guy.

[DeadliestSin]

I took that bit where he's in McKee's bedroom to mean he had passed out, because the of the passage after:


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.

I don't think he's gay, there would have been more clues in the novel if he was...

[kelby_lake]

I'm pretty sure that the passage in Chapter 2 hints that they did it, or at least did something. After all, it cuts from an offer to go to lunch to them suddenly in the guy's bedroom. It's purposely ambiguous because if he had been any more descriptive, we'd all be scandalised and it would have overshadowed the novel.

And of course Nick has to be near Gatsby a lot in order for him to narrate the novel but there's still something a bit creepy. Nick tells Gatsby off for having an obsession but Nick is a bit obsessive too.


* "They're a rotten crowd," I shouted across the lawn. "You're worth the whole damn bunch put together."
I’ve always been glad I said that. It was the only compliment I ever gave him, because I disapproved of him from beginning to end.

This is basically your airport moment. It's basically an 'I love you'

[Jozanny]

I do not mean to be obstinate, but I think reading TTG along the lines of new age homoerotic revisionism goes against the narrative angles of the novel, and does not in fact complete or compliment any undercurrent within the text.

Now, this doesn't mean that Fitzgerald doesn't leave odds and ends which aren't curious, and not worth chewing on--and I read the novel so long ago that finishing it over the course of these few weeks made it feel fresh, but I do not see an argument for the freedom of gay relationships in the book.

I grant that Nick isn't macho man, and I will even grant that Hemingway was impatient with the pathos of Fitz's touchy feely newspaper columns, but I think the undertow of the book leads elsewhere. We don't know what the obscene word was that Nick scratched off the step with his foot, but I do not think *faggot* was in use at the time of the novel's currency, and I don't think it matters what the word might have been; it signifies that Gatsby went from celebrated to ostricized, all in the course of protecting Daisy from her crime, and maybe Jay's possible exposure as a gangster.

Tom's racism as an obviously jarring note, that I cannot quite put my finger on, unless Fitzgerald was doing it to diminish a powerful character, but for me, the homoerotic subtext just doesn't fit, not even with the elevator episode--the men were drunk; they saw Tom seriously hurt his lover, did nothing to stop him, and that scene most likely evinces a cowardice they were trying to efface.

[Jozanny]

I went back and took another look at the elevator scene, and I think the younger generation, so immersed in identity coding, forgets to consider Fitzgerald's era.

Think of the locker room with the buddy bonding between jocks, and that is what is going on with Nick and his fellows. McKee is drunk, Nick helps him undress just like the Three Musketeers cut off each others boots. The key to the chapter is the portfolio with McKee's pictures--this is what the novel is pointing to.

I persist in debunking the same sex undercurrent not because I am a prude, but because it doesn't serve our responsibilities toward textual interpretation.
Beauty and The Beast is a fairytale about the incredible faith that is placed on love--something that Daisy fails. The bridge is both an escape route and a failed exit, and the Old Grocery Horse is the faithful, if lonely husband, that McKee represents.

This novel is about the lie of the American dream, not the secret coda behind homosexual unions.

[ktm5124]

'Come to lunch some day,' he suggested, as we groaned down the elevator.
'Where?'
'Anywhere.'
'Keep your hands off the lever,' snapped the elevator boy.
'I beg your pardon,' said Mr McKee with dignity, 'I didn't know I was touching it.'
'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 lower level of the Pennsylvania Station, staring at the morning Tribune, and waiting for the four o'clock train.


I think a close reading of the text does a lot to support the notion that Nick is bi/homosexual. For one thing, the lever strikes me as a phallic symbol. Furthermore, the hushed and racy feeling of the scene, the abrupt transitions through ellipses, the fact that Nick stayed the night (or at least until 4 AM), are all conscious decisions on Fitzgerald's part. How could he write these into the chapter without realizing what they suggest? He was, after all, one who re-wrote almost compulsively. He must have re-read (and perhaps re-written) this chapter many times.

I disagree with your assertion that homosexuality has nothing to do with the undercurrent of the novel. I think it would help explain Nick's character very much - Nick is a spectator, much like Jacob Barnes in The Sun Also Rises - and homosexuals, along with impotents, were often written into Modernist novels to play the part of spectators.

You can also read The Great Gatsby along the lines of masculinity, in which homosexuality would play a part. There are several contests of masculine authority in the novel (between Tom and Gatsby, Tom and George Wilson) and Nick plays a passive side-line role in all these struggles; in other words, his masculinity is absent. He does not interfere when Tom strikes Myrtle - the 'manly' thing would be to interfere. He is also not involved in any of the contests over women. Nick shares a lot with the homosexual.

Mr. McKee is also placed in the same capacity. He is described in Chapter 2 as a "pale, feminine man". He is said to be in the "artist's game"; it is interesting how the two most artistically-minded characters in the novel, Nick (by virtue of narration) and Mr. McKee (in light of his photography) are also the two most passive, feminine men in the novel. His body language is also effeminate - he appraises Mrs. Wilson's dress "with his head on one side, [moving] his hand back and forth slowly in front of his face" (Chapter 2). And then there is the inexplicable, effeminate preoccupation that Nick has with the lather on Mr. McKee's face which "had worried [him] all afternoon" (Chapter 2). Nick ends up wiping the lather from Mr. McKee's cheek while he is dozing, which is an odd thing for one man to do for another.

I really don't think it's a coincidence that these two characters are so effeminate, and are placed alone together in a scene at 4 AM where one man is in his underwear, getting out of bed. There is no shortage of evidence to support it and, as I have argued, it also does much to explain the characters. There are more themes to The Great Gatsby than the American Dream; there are also themes of actor/spectator, masculinity, etc.

[DrBobCat]

I think that everyone is missing the point that Fitzgerald is trying to impress. He was writing about the decline and fall of the 2nd Roman empire as he saw post war America. What he is showing with Nick's seemingly easy going way in regards to his sexuality i.e. straight, gay or bi; was to convey the air of total hedonism that existed is the Jazz Society of the period. Nicks brief affair with the effeminate man from the party(as FSF described him) was no different than his affair with the woman from his firm or the eluded to fiance back west; it suited his wants at the time.

[OrphanPip]

You can also read The Great Gatsby along the lines of masculinity, in which homosexuality would play a part. There are several contests of masculine authority in the novel (between Tom and Gatsby, Tom and George Wilson) and Nick plays a passive side-line role in all these struggles; in other words, his masculinity is absent. He does not interfere when Tom strikes Myrtle - the 'manly' thing would be to interfere. He is also not involved in any of the contests over women. Nick shares a lot with the homosexual.

Meh, it's a heterosexist presumption to read effeminacy in men as inherently homosexual. If Nick lacks an active will to interfere, and we want to typify this as being a quality of effeminacy, it does nothing to support a reading of him as homosexual beyond merely reinforcing prejudices. You're also ignoring the fact that Nick is a war veteran. Moreover, to draw so much significance on his passivity is to ignore the relative passivity of almost every character in the novel apart from Gatsby.



Mr. McKee is also placed in the same capacity. He is described in Chapter 2 as a "pale, feminine man". He is said to be in the "artist's game"; it is interesting how the two most artistically-minded characters in the novel, Nick (by virtue of narration) and Mr. McKee (in light of his photography) are also the two most passive, feminine men in the novel. His body language is also effeminate - he appraises Mrs. Wilson's dress "with his head on one side, [moving] his hand back and forth slowly in front of his face" (Chapter 2). And then there is the inexplicable, effeminate preoccupation that Nick has with the lather on Mr. McKee's face which "had worried [him] all afternoon" (Chapter 2). Nick ends up wiping the lather from Mr. McKee's cheek while he is dozing, which is an odd thing for one man to do for another.

I really don't think it's a coincidence that these two characters are so effeminate, and are placed alone together in a scene at 4 AM where one man is in his underwear, getting out of bed. There is no shortage of evidence to support it and, as I have argued, it also does much to explain the characters. There are more themes to The Great Gatsby than the American Dream; there are also themes of actor/spectator, masculinity, etc.

I'm not sure this isn't an anachronistic reading as well as being heterosexist. Effeminacy has been used historically to paint a male character as inferior to other males, but not really to codify homosexuality that often until the 50s onward. Was there something sexual that occurred? Maybe. Even so, this does not make Nick gay. Nick makes reference to past relationships with women, and pursues a superficial relationship with Jordan. Would Fitzgerald share our contemporary medicalized definitions of sexuality as inherent to a person's "true self" rather than a matter of self-identity or merely a matter of action. Are we to assume that Fitzgerald didn't just consider the supposed homosexual act as an immoral action of debauchery and it was just yet another condemnation of these characters.

The case for Nick being gay, in the sense that he held a sexual identity, or even a desire to pursue exclusively male sexual relationships, doesn't pan out from the textual evidence as far as I'm concerned.

[livwheat101]

i think the whole idea that "Nick was engaged to a woman at the start of the book, so he cant be gay or bi-sexual" is a very weak reading of the whole premise. Surely if the chapter is trying to tell us anything, it is that many people during this period and in this social circle were living double lives. Just because Nick was once engaged and seems to find women attractive still, doesnt mean that he doesn't harbour gay or bisexual (albeit, repressed) feelings. Think of the time period! Of course he is not going to be open about any homoerotic feelings he has.

[kelby_lake]

i think the whole idea that "Nick was engaged to a woman at the start of the book, so he cant be gay or bi-sexual" is a very weak reading of the whole premise. Surely if the chapter is trying to tell us anything, it is that many people during this period and in this social circle were living double lives. Just because Nick was once engaged and seems to find women attractive still, doesnt mean that he doesn't harbour gay or bisexual (albeit, repressed) feelings. Think of the time period! Of course he is not going to be open about any homoerotic feelings he has.

Agreed. I think that Nick is just as directionless as all the other characters. He may know what they are but he doesn't know himself. The effect of the war also produced a totally different modern society, the possibility of breaking away from the conventional life-long marriage.

Nick is certainly meant to be effeminate. Whether this is to show his insecurity in his own masculinity or whether it's an indication of his sexuality is debatable. Gatsby shows slight effeminacy but there's no indication to suggest that he's homosexual.

[IndyMan123]

There is not enough evidence either way. Nick was a reserved man and he cared about people. Mr. McKee was intoxicated as well and it could be that he was moreso than Nick. I've babysat drunks before as well. He was STANDING beside the bed while underwear-clad McKee sat UP in his bed, showing Nick his photographs. I can't picture the hypothetical dialogue:

McKee: Want to have sex, then look at pictures?
Nick: Sure, but I have to be at Penn Station by 4am....:rolleyes:

Nick liked Jordans "jaunty" athletic body. He liked her celebrity status at first, then it became annoying to him and finally, he learned of her dishonesty and that turned him off. He also seemed a bit jealous when Gatsby spoke of Nick talking with Jordan.

When Gatsby died, Nick was there to take care of things. He wanted others to care, but they simply didn't. I don't think this automatically means that he was sexually attracted to Gatsby.

[JimNKnoxville]

I'm astonished at how naive folks are about sexuality. Just because Nick was engaged to a woman doesn't make him straight. Just because he finds Jordan attractive doesn't mean he would want to or be able to have sex with her. He's obviously a very conflicted man, as was Fitzgerald. (The whole rivalry with Hemingway? The fascination with Gerald Murphy? Please . . . .) As for claiming Fitzgerald would have made Nick a more obviously gay character if he'd meant for him to be gay, well, that is some faulty logic there. The novel was written in the 1920s, and homosexuality wasn't treated so openly in the literature of the time. It took subtle imagery-- and some not so subtle imagery, in the case of the elevator handle-- and implications of character "flaws" like effeminacy to get the subtext across. Oh, and having your characters be drunk also helped.

Thank you, ktm5124, for the most intelligent post on this subject.

[Emil Miller]

Nope.

[OrphanPip]

Thank you, ktm5124, for the most intelligent post on this subject.

What? All they did is imply that Nick is effeminate, and then equate effeminacy with homosexuality.

You're the one who is being naive about sexuality, because straight men can and sometimes do have sex with other men, and gay men can and do sometimes have sex with women. Otherwise, I would know far less 50 year old gay men with kids and prison sex would imply an unusually high crime rate amongst closeted homosexuals. Come on, :rolleyes:.

It's baseless speculation and entirely superficial to imply that Nick is gay because he is obsessed with Gatsby, well he's the narrator and he's the vehicle for telling the story so if he wasn't obsessed with Gatsby the story wouldn't be very interesting. What does interpreting Nick as a gay character do for the interpretation of the story? Practically nothing. So what is the point.

[Alexander III]

Just finished reading the book, and I think that nick is somewhat gay. Most people here seem to understand that being gay, is black or white or gray for bisexuality. In truth it is far more complicated than that. Everyone is partly gay, some people a lot more and some people less. We are all able to appreciate and recognize the beauty of individuals from our same sex, that in itself is a form of gayness so to say. It is really a spectrum and there are hundreds of stages in said spectrum not just 3: gay, straight or bi.

As for nick I think he is gay, but he is not sure of it himself, or rather he is very conflicted about it. In those times not only was homosexuality not accepted, it was considered a disease and a Moral Choice, like making the moral choice to steal or kill. The notion that homosexuality is simply the way we are not a choice is a modern idea.

Nick is attracted to Jordan and even Daisy, but he is incapable of falling in love with them. I think that the scene in question shows that Nick had sex with McKee. But Nick seems unable to conceive of himself as gay, his inability to love the women in his life is never attributed to himself as due to his homosexuality.

Also I disagree that Nick was in love with Gatsby. Lets face it if a straight guy can have a strong bond of friendship with a girl, a gay man can have it with another man. I think he does come to love Gatsby, but in a non-sexual way, he loves him as a friend - he admires him and is compelled to him due to pathos. The "your better than the lot of them" is not a expression of love, Gatsby just spent the entire night telling Nick the Truth about himself, something which no one knew - Nick's reaction is that of someone who feel's a strong bond because a huge barrier has been ripped down by Gatsby when he told him his true story. I am sure we can all think of moment in life when someone has truly opened up to you and they went from being a friend to a True friend, simply because that barrier has been removed.


I am sorry to disagree with you OrphanPip, but stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason. Those effeminate men you see walking around in big cities, with feminine postures and manner of clothing are more likely to be gay than straight. I'm not saying that all gay men are effeminate, or all effeminate men are gay, but effeminacy is a common trait of gay men.

Then again you seem to see effeminacy is a derogatory trait, I don't particularly think it so, it is simply a manner of being.

[OrphanPip]

I am sorry to disagree with you OrphanPip, but stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason. Those effeminate men you see walking around in big cities, with feminine postures and manner of clothing are more likely to be gay than straight. I'm not saying that all gay men are effeminate, or all effeminate men are gay, but effeminacy is a common trait of gay men.

Then again you seem to see effeminacy is a derogatory trait, I don't particularly think it so, it is simply a manner of being.

I didn't say it was, I said that ktm's interpretation of effeminacy was misguided and unlikely to codify homosexuality in the period. Especially, in the context of a Modernist reaction against decadence and feminine aesthetics that you can find equally in the works of Pound, Eliot, and Hemingway without any need to bring in sexuality.

The passivity of Nick is not abnormal in the novel, it is a common trait of pretty much all the characters.

And I've already tried to address the problem of applying a post-1960s concept of sexual identity to an early 20th century medicalized paradigm.

[kelby_lake]

I didn't say it was, I said that ktm's interpretation of effeminacy was misguided and unlikely to codify homosexuality in the period.

I think to an extent effeminacy might have been a bit of a code back then, when people had perhaps more narrow views of sexuality and if you weren't a big macho man, there was something a little bit suss about you.

I agree with Alexander III about there being a spectrum of sexuality and with the general agreement that Nick does not have sexual feelings for Gatsby. Nick does not really seem capable of forming satisfying relationships with women- perhaps there is a bit of confusion there.

[qimissung]

I agree with Kelby_lake on every thing she said, and with DrBobCat. But isn't asking this particular question kid of missing the point? If Nick did indeed do something sexual with Mr. McKee, wouldn't a better question be why? Why would Fitzgerald allude to this? What purpose does it serve in the greater scheme of things?

My feeling is that Nick was for the most part an observer, and throughout the course of the novel he is, like a scientist with a microscope and a perti dish, observing this particular group of people at close hand. On the one side there is Gatsby and his wild parties and his incurable romanticism, and on the other there are the Buchanan's, their Valley of Ashes, their immense wealth and barren emotional lives, and their decadence.

In the end, who was more decadent in this Jazz Age? Compare Gatsby's party:

"The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun, and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music, and the opera of voices pitches a key higher. Laughter is easier minute by minute, spilled with prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful word. The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath; already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment the centre of a group, and then, excited with triumph, glide on through the sea-change of faces and voices and color under the constantly changing light.

Suddenly one of the gypsies, in trembling opal, seizes a cocktail out of the air, dumps it down for courage and, moving her hands like Frisco, dances out alone on the canvas platform. A momentary hush; the orchestra leader varies his rhythm obligingly for her, and there is a burst of chatter as the erroneous news goes around that she is Gilda Gray’s understudy from the FOLLIES. The party has begun.

I believe that on the first night I went to Gatsby’s house I was one of the few guests who had actually been invited. People were not invited — they went there. They got into automobiles which bore them out to Long Island, and somehow they ended up at Gatsby’s door. Once there they were introduced by somebody who knew Gatsby, and after that they conducted themselves according to the rules of behavior associated with amusement parks. Sometimes they came and went without having met Gatsby at all, came for the party with a simplicity of heart that was its own ticket of admission.

And Tom's:

"The bottle of whiskey — a second one — was now in constant demand by all present, excepting Catherine, who “felt just as good on nothing at all.” Tom rang for the janitor and sent him for some celebrated sandwiches, which were a complete supper in themselves. I wanted to get out and walk southward toward the park through the soft twilight, but each time I tried to go I became entangled in some wild, strident argument which pulled me back, as if with ropes, into my chair. Yet high over the city our line of yellow windows must have contributed their share of human secrecy to the casual watcher in the darkening streets, and I was him too, looking up and wondering. I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life."

At Tom's party, perhaps Nick partook of the decadence of the the era; perhaps in the end, it was part of what he found wanting in these people who supposedly had it all. Perhaps that was why it was Gatsby, with his extraordinary gift for hope and his romantic readiness, who "turned out all right in the end."

Gatsby, the novel, is after all, a coming of age story, and the person who came of age was Nick. So while he was the narrator, a part that usually seems distant from the action, it is his own conclusions that profoundly change him, and not any others in the story.

He certainly could be trying to figure out his sexual identity. And it wouldn't be the first time that drink and shared emotional intensity led to passion. I think of the scene in Y Tu Mama Tambien where Tenoch and Julio shared a kiss and maybe something more.

[Alexander III]

To move this thread a bit more, if Nick was represented as sexually ambiguous, why did Fitzgerald portray him as such? For what purpose?

[Alexander III]

Going to bump this thread a bit more, for such a great novel I would have hoped more discussion around it.

[joelavine]

A man's finding masculinity attractive in a woman does not equate with being gay or bi. No more than a woman finding a man's femininity attractive means that the woman is gay or bi. Nor do I see anything in this passage, possible homoerotic subtext notwithstanding, that suggests an activated or important erotic interest in men on Nick's part. Moreover, some might find in Nick a semi-autobiographical voice, suggested by his midwestern origins and reflective character, and Fitzgerald, as far as I know, was straight. Zelda herself, who was I believe bi, may have had some masculine traits, albeit mingled with traditional southern feminine qualities.

[Sanamgoli]

When I read this passage I definitely thought Nick's character had enjoyed a night of drunken gay sex. Is Nick gay though? I wouldn't say so, but I would say he was definitely bi, at least. Nick's obvious admiration for Jordan, Daisy, Gatbsy, and even some of his descriptions of Tom have a sensuous quality to them. When it comes to Gatsby, Nick keeps going back and forth between extremes of love and hate for him, and in the end, he sticks by Gatsby's side despite him having been accomplice to the Myrtle's murder. No, Nick may not have been explicit about his sexuality, but during such a time of raucous-everything, it's hard to delineate the limits of sexuality/love/lust, even.

[irishpixieb]

NO! Nick is NOT gay! Why does everyone try to read homosexuality into great works? I feel like everyone who says that he is gay needs to reread the book without preconceived notions and just read the book for the book. Putting together passages like this will of course make you think that, but seriously, reread the book. He's NOT gay and there is no real evidence of it stated. Fitzgerald would have said it straight out and not have been cryptic.

[blue Rider]

I don't at what point in college lit crit it became mandatory to show that everything written is to be studied from the perspective that every word means something different than it is seems to mean. Then, the less imaginative instructors found an easy way to find such hidden meaning: it always peertained to Marxism, Freudianism, Gay-Lesbian issues, etc.
Boring. BORING.

Sure, Nick Carroway might have been gay. He might also have been Afro-American, a Hungarian Jew, an alien, a bug who woke up one morning and found himself transformed into a human, naive WASP living next door to Gatsby.

Could Nick have been a middle American type, Fitzgerald's major audience in the 1920s, who described Gatsby strange, louche world to his middle American cohorts, Jordan and Wolfstein included?

By the way, a "boyish" figure for a woman was quite desirable and sexy for men in the roaring twenties.. Also, the tough immigrant types (Jews, Irish, Italian) who would have been running elevators in those days would have had no trouble insulting and threatening any fool of any social class who tried to mess with their controls.

[Buh4Bee]

I think Fitzgerald was straight, but may have had some homosexual tendencies and this came out in his writing. I personally never thought Nick was gay, but I need to reread the book.

[kelby_lake]

I don't think that Nick is gay or that the lever is necessarily a phallic symbol, but I think Mr McKee might be.

[Fishbowl123]

I think it is wrong for someone to disagree with something that another person says on here because of course, these are all just interpretations and should be considered and respected just as people would wish their own interpretation to be.
I personally think that Nick is bisexual, in the first chapter he describes Tom's physical appearance in great detail, talking about how the muscles in his shoulders are shifting and admiring his appearance. However I can see how people would disagree with this as it would almost seem as if he is just jealous of his appearance.
I could also point out that the 'moustache of sweat' on a woman could show that he found the masculine feature in her attractive which ultimately could lead to him being bisexual.
I can see how the context will effect this gay/bisexual theory, however, maybe this is why it is only suggested rather than said openly almost like how Keats implies things in his poems because he wasn't able to say it at the time.
I look forward to any further theories on this gay/bisexual insight into the book.

[Emil Miller]

To move this thread a bit more, if Nick was represented as sexually ambiguous, why did Fitzgerald portray him as such? For what purpose?

He didn't.

[Alexander III]

He didn't.

You must be a frequentor at many parties, with that maginificent witt and verbal flamboyance of yours.

[Emil Miller]

You must be a frequentor at many parties, with that maginificent witt and verbal flamboyance of yours.

I'm serious. There is no indication, except in the minds of those who want to read it into the text, of Nick Carraway as being anything other than someone who is a little out of his depth among those of both Gatsby's and Daisy's circles
He is not only the narrator but also an uneasy bystander who is forced to take sides in something he would rather not have become involved with. Hence, his hesitancy with Jordan Baker.

[Charles Darnay]

I think it is wrong for someone to disagree with something that another person says on here because of course, these are all just interpretations

I completely disagree. I never do nor will claim any objective truth when it comes to literary interpretation, but the view that anything goes is just as bad, and produces the "Wolf Larson" effect in the field of literary analysis.

There is a difference between formulating a new theory based on great evidence from the text, and taking a few sentences out of context (which many in this thread have done) to "prove" something that, whether it is there or not, has no relevancy in the story.

I don't believe Nick is gay or bisexual, but even if I accepted the pitiful "evidence" offered in these threads, the fact is that Nick's sexuality has nothing to do with the story. If Gatsby was gay (which I have also seen argued) then there might be more of an impact on the story, given that his attraction to Daisy is a key point. But who gives a damn who Nick is attracted to?

[Buh4Bee]

I think it goes back to the author- that Fitzgerald was probably somewhat bisexual. I don't think he acted on it though.

[Emil Miller]

I think it goes back to the author- that Fitzgerald was probably somewhat bisexual. I don't think he acted on it though.

Once again this is pure conjecture and until something more definite by way of authentication turns up, it will remain so. The words 'probably' and 'somewhat' give little credence to the suggestion.

[Buh4Bee]

Sure, Emil, there isn't any documented evidence. However, in his autobiography, This Side of Paradise, he makes a pretty explicit reference to wanting to flash a male bellhop when in a hotel room at the end of the book. It seemed a bit off. Oh sorry, used another indefinite term.

[Emil Miller]

Sure, Emil, there isn't any documented evidence. However, in his autobiography, This Side of Paradise, he makes a pretty explicit reference to wanting to flash a male bellhop when in a hotel room at the end of the book. It seemed a bit off. Oh sorry, used another indefinite term.

Well I have read This Side of Paradise and don't recall the incident you refer to, but I will check it out and get back to you on it.

[KCurtis]

I can't believe this thread is ongoing. That is how much people want to see gay in everything. Emil is right, it has no bearing on the story. The book was written in 1925, or very close to that year. I have read The Great Gatsby twice, and I wasn't looking for any homosexuality in the story-probably because there is none, it doesn't matter, and isn't relevant. I also didn't know that This Side of Paradise was considered an autobiography.

[Emil Miller]

I can't believe this thread is ongoing. That is how much people want to see gay in everything. Emil is right, it has no bearing on the story. The book was written in 1925, or very close to that year. I have read The Great Gatsby twice, and I wasn't looking for any homosexuality in the story-probably because there is none, it doesn't matter, and isn't relevant. I also didn't know that This Side of Paradise was considered an autobiography.

Well. it's not an autobiography, as such, but it is based on Fitzgerald's early years and specifically those of his time at Princeton. However, since there seems to be a determination on the part of some to impute homosexuality to his works, it will be necessary to refute it where such imputation is unsustainable by what is currently known about the writer.

[KCurtis]

Well. it's not an autobiography, as such, but it is based on Fitzgerald's early years and specifically those of his time at Princeton. However, since there seems to be a determination on the part of some to impute homosexuality to his works, it will be necessary to refute it where such imputation is unsustainable by what is currently known about the writer.

Okay, fair enough. The homosexuality thing is so puzzling to me- the fixation of it takes away from the stories, in my opinion.

[Buh4Bee]

Fair enough, and I agree with you, Kay!

[OrphanPip]

There's nothing wrong with queer revisionism, but it has to be done right. It's strongest when their is obvious reason to suspect that there is some form of queer representation at work in the text. Then on the otherhand, you have to take into account certain works which are not queer in themselves, but have a long tradition of being read as queer so that the queer reading has certain cultural meanings in its own right.

However, if one was going to do a queer reading of Nick's character it would rather focus on his nontraditional relationship with Jordan and his homosocial occupation with Gatsby (and how these influence the reading of the text as a whole) rather than with anything homosexual going on in the text, which simply isn't there without participating in a game of fictional character outing, which is no more worthy of attention than celebrity gossip about sexual orientation.

To queer the text would be to look more at how the heterosexual relationships progress and how this reflects either a bias against decadence which (I'd wager) negatively codifies the non-heteronormative relationships of the text. Thus, a queer reading would not look for homosexuality in the text but rather look at how this text reinforces certain presumptions of idealized heterosexual relations.

[KCurtis]

Fair enough, and I agree with you, Kay!

:iagree:

[KCurtis]

There's nothing wrong with queer revisionism, but it has to be done right. It's strongest when their is obvious reason to suspect that there is some form of queer representation at work in the text. Then on the otherhand, you have to take into account certain works which are not queer in themselves, but have a long tradition of being read as queer so that the queer reading has certain cultural meanings in its own right.

However, if one was going to do a queer reading of Nick's character it would rather focus on his nontraditional relationship with Jordan and his homosocial occupation with Gatsby (and how these influence the reading of the text as a whole) rather than with anything homosexual going on in the text, which simply isn't there without participating in a game of fictional character outing, which is no more worthy of attention than celebrity gossip about sexual orientation.

Agreed.:iagree: Is "heteronormative" in the dictionary?

[Emil Miller]

Sure, Emil, there isn't any documented evidence. However, in his autobiography, This Side of Paradise, he makes a pretty explicit reference to wanting to flash a male bellhop when in a hotel room at the end of the book. It seemed a bit off. Oh sorry, used another indefinite term.

I've found the passage you refer to. It relates to the protagonist, Amory Blaine, who has booked a room at a New York hotel after going on a spree, waking up and asking the reception to send up some drinks. When he emerges from the bathroom wearing only a towel the bar boy brings in the drinks and he has 'a sudden desire to kid him. On reflection he decided that this would be undignified, so he waved him away.'
I don't think that's suggestive of homosexuality but rather to have a laugh at the bar boy's expense. In any case the last sentence rules out any suggestion of sexual intent.

[metafictional]

Whatever happened to enjoying ambiguity for its own sake?

I accept the belief that applying a post-sexual revolution viewpoint has no bearing on the effect of the narrative but I refuse to believe that exploring the possibility that Carraway was gay has no academic value. The only people who are decidedly wrong in this thread are the people who have made a decision one way or the other.

[earp30wyatt]

NIck is a pedifile! why would Fitzgerald write this if he didn't want to imply at least wavy orientation. The drunken argument doesn't work, Fitzgerald doesn't write drunk. He does everything else drunk, just not writing. The fact that Nick has been drinking only makes this passage even worse.

This allows me to formulate the conclusion that Nick is meant to like :banana: , Besides it says he loses interest with the lady from his past over a summer.

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WEDNESDAY, JAN 9, 2013 12:28 PM CST
Nick Carraway is gay and in love with Gatsby
I've read the F. Scott Fitzgerald classic more than any other novel -- and with each reading, I grow more convinced
BY GREG OLEAR
701 175 0
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TOPICS: THE WEEKLINGS, THE GREAT GATSBY, F. SCOTT FITZGERALD, LITERATURE, MODERNISM, ENTERTAINMENT NEWS


This article originally appeared on The Weeklings.
I HAVE READ The Great Gatsby more times than any other novel. With each reading, my understanding of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s greatest work deepens, and I pick up something I missed previously. My first time was in high school, when our English class discussed the symbolism of the green light and the eyes on the billboard and the silk shirts in the vast closet. In college, I was drawn to Gatsby as tragic romantic and giver of epic parties of the kind I wanted to throw. After I moved to New York, I read the book again and finally understood its geography.

Subsequent readings have been slower, more careful. I parse the words—there are not many in this masterpiece of economy—and delve into the text in a way I was not capable of as a teenager. I’m reading like a writer, in Francine Prose’s phrase. As an adjunct professor, I always include the novel on my syllabus. My Gatsby lecture was a high point of my three semesters as an adjunct.

My reading of the book starts with this premise: Nick Carraway, and not the more dashing eponymous character, is the protagonist of the novel. This is not a hard case to make. It could be argued that the narrator of every first-person novel is the protagonist, even if the book is “about” someone else. Nick is the only character who “changes,” in the way they used to teach in high school, and anyway Gatsby is absent for many of the book’s scenes, including the drawn-out ending (which slow fade, incidentally, will forever doom attempts at cinematic treatment; sorry, Baz).

My other premise is less obvious, but no more difficult to argue: Nick is a) gay and b) in love with Gatsby.

Here’s what we know about Nick Carraway, from what he tells us in the first few pages of the book: he was born in 1896, so is about the same age as Fitzgerald; he went to Yale, as his father did before him; he fought in the First World War; he resembles his “hard-boiled” great uncle; his aunts and uncles are worried about him; he is, at age 25-26—his birthday is the summer solstice, and occurs during the action of the book—still single. Reading between the lines, we deduce that there is something unusual about him, something that concerns his family. So far, Nick’s is exactly the profile of a (closeted) gay young man in a prominent Middle Western family in 1922.
From here, we look to Nick’s impressions of the various characters—characters that, for many readers, are indelibly rendered.

Daisy Buchanan is the Southern belle with whom Gatsby is so desperately in love that he joins the underworld, amasses a small fortune, and ultimately ruins his life. It is safe to assume that a man as shallow as Gatsby would not be drawn to someone unattractive. There’s a reason Daisy has been played in the movies by fair beauties like Mia Farrow and Carey Mulligan. Yet here is how Nick, a distant enough cousin to lust for her with impunity if he had such impulses, describes her:

I looked back at my cousin, who began to ask me questions in her low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered “Listen,” a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour.

Essentially, Daisy, this legendary beauty, this great love of Gatsby’s life…had a nice voice. A voice they later realize sounds like money. (Note that “men who had cared for her” does not imply that Nick was among them.)

Next up, the golfer Jordan Baker. Nick’s take:

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. Her gray sun-strained eyes looked back at me with polite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan, charming, disconcerted face.

We can easily imagine Jordan, a prototype of the modern-day female athlete: sporty, fit, trim, and a bit flirty. Even reading this in high school I came away thinking that she was hot. But Nick doesn’t think so, any more than Humbert Humbert finds Charlotte Haze attractive, although the descriptions of Lolita’s mother suggest that in “real” life, the opposite is true. Also: other than the word small-breasted—which de-emphasizes the golfer’s feminine attributes—this could be a description of a man.

Nick spends a lot of time with Jordan during the summer when the story takes place—enough so that she is under the impression that he “threw her over.” But we never hear about this. Jordan Baker does not interest him. He is dating her to try and convince himself that he is attracted to her, this boyish woman, but he is not.

Then Myrtle, who we can also assume, because a wealthy and athletic man like Tom Buchanan could probably have his pick of available women, is easy on the eyes:

She was in the middle thirties, and faintly stout, but she carried her surplus flesh sensuously as some women can. Her face, above a spotted dress of dark blue crêpe-de-chine, contained no facet or gleam of beauty, but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering.

To Tom, Myrtle is the smouldering portrait of voluptuousness, but Nick is not taken with her at all. Granted, he might not be inclined to like his cousin’s husband’s lover, but I find it curious that he’s so sure her dress is made of crêpe-de-chine.

Compare the way the women are rendered with this description of Tom Buchanan, someone Nick does not particularly care for:

He had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a sturdy straw-haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his riding boots could hide the enormous power of that body — he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing, and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage — a cruel body.

Daisy is about the voice, Jordan the erect carriage, Myrtle the crêpe-de-chine. Only Tom is given such raw carnality. If you didn’t know you were reading Fitzgerald, you might think that this decidedly erotic description was lifted from Shoshanna Evers’Enslaved trilogy. I mean, this passage is racy.

The bodice-ripping language goes into overdrive when Nick meets his wealthy neighbor Mr. Gatsby for the first time:

He smiled understandingly — much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you might come across four or five times in your life. It faced — or seemed to face — the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.

Again, if you came across that passage out of context, you would probably conclude it was from a romance novel. If that scene were a cartoon, Cupid would shoot an arrow, music would swell, and Nick’s eyes would turn into giant hearts.

What’s that you say? This is all semantics, a matter of language, and you need action to prove that Nick prefers men? Fine, we’ll skip to the part where he hooks up with Mr. McKee.

This would be the end of chapter two, before he meets, and falls instantly in love with, Gatsby. He is in Manhattan with Tom, who wanted Nick to meet “his girl,” Myrtle. They are at Myrtle’s apartment with her sister Catherine (“Her eyebrows had been plucked and then drawn on again at a more rakish angle,” we are told, “but the efforts of nature toward the restoration of the old alignment gave a blurred air to her face.”) and some neighbors, Mr. and Mrs. McKee—the former being “a pale, feminine man.” They spend the afternoon together and drink into the night—it is, Nick says, one of the few times in his life he has drunk to excess. There are two couples plus Nick and Catherine, and that arrangement suggests that she is who he should wind up with, but at the end of the night, after Tom breaks Myrtle’s nose, here’s what goes down:

Mr. McKee awoke from his doze and started in a daze toward the door. When he had gone halfway he turned around and stared at the scene—his wife and Catherine scolding and consoling as they stumbled here and there among the crowded furniture with articles of aid….Then Mr. McKee turned and continued on out the door. Taking my hat from the chandelier, I followed.
“Come to lunch someday,” he suggested, as we groaned down in the elevator.
“Where?”
“Anywhere.”
“Keep your hands off the lever,” snapped the elevator boy.
“I beg your pardon,” said Mr. McKee with dignity, “I didn’t know I was touching it.”
“All right,” I agreed, “I’ll be glad to.”

Then the strange ellipses—the only time in the book Fitzgerald uses them—suggesting action that we’re not privy to. And I do mean action.

. . . 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 House…Brook’n Bridge….”
Then I was lying half asleep in the cold lower level of the Pennsylvania Station, staring at the morningTribune, and waiting for the four o’clock train.

The Great Gatsby is often praised, and rightly so, for its economy. So much is packed into this slender volume—not much more than 50,000 words, practically a novella. Why would Fitzgerald bother to include this strange interlude, a loopy Nick in bed with the “feminine” Mr. McKee in his underwear at 3 in the morning, if not to show the narrator’s sexual preference? What other purpose can it possibly serve? That Nick is interested in photography?

The last time I gave my Gatsby lecture, one of my students sagely asked, “So what? What difference does it make if Nick is gay?” I said something about how it’s important to know about the sexuality of the characters if we’re to really understand them. In truth, I was so pleased with myself for developing my theory that the notion had not occurred to me. But this is an important question.
First, it’s a testament to Fitzgerald’s talent as a novelist (or Maxwell Perkins’s talent as an editor, if you hold, as I might be inclined to, that Perkins had much more to do with Gatsby than did the drunken F. Scott) that he was able to provide so much textual evidence that Nick is gay without confirming it or drawing undue attention to it. Subtlety is an art.

More important is how Nick’s sexuality affects what we are reading. Gatsby is, after all, an account written by him in Minnesota the year after the events in the book. We see only what Nick lets us see, and our perception of the events and the characters are colored by his biases. If Nick is in love with Gatsby—and this seems pretty clear—then the entire novel operates as a rationalization of that misplaced love. Nick romanticizes Gatsby in the exact same way that Gatsby romanticizes Daisy.

Speaking of Daisy: One of the more interesting aspects of this novel is that Mrs. Tom Buchanan, for whom Gatsby has moved proverbial mountains, is unworthy of his obsession. Daisy is a piece of ****—one of the biggest pieces of **** in all of literature. As a young woman, she is in love with Gatsby, but when he ships out, caves almost immediately under pressure from her family and marries Tom, whose hateful and racist rants she permits. She has no job, no discernible skill (unlike her BFF the professional athlete), and her life is one of complete leisure. She is a lousy mother—her daughter, raised by a nanny, makes a cameo appearance but does not factor into any of her decisions. As soon as Gatsby reveals his ardor, she goes off with him, betraying her husband. And it is Daisy who runs down Myrtle Wilson, and then compounds the sin by driving away from the scene. Whatever dollar-pegged gaiety might exist in her voice, we can’t hear it, her voice is filtered through Nick’s; all we know is that she is a horrible human being.

Nick wants us to believe, as he does, that Gatsby is different, that “only…the man who gives his name to his book, was exempt from [his] reaction” of scorn because of Jay’s “extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such that I have never found in any other person and which it is not likely I shall ever find again.” Translation: “I loved this man.” Unlike the Buchanans, “Gatsby turned out all right at the end….”

But when we look at the facts about Gatsby, we see that he and Daisy have more in common than Nick would like to believe. In order to woo her, he changes his name, abandons his family, and turns to a life of crime. He takes up with a smuggler, and then goes to work for Meyer Wolfsheim—the man who rigged the 1919 World Series; in real life, the mobster Arnold Rothstein—and runs liquor. He amasses a fortune. He uses that fortune to throw lavish parties, in the manner of the nouveau riche, in the vain hope that they will register on Daisy’s radar. When this does not work, he befriends, with cold calculation, Daisy’s cousin and uses him to arrange a meeting. He thinks nothing of the fact that she is married, or that she has a child. And although Daisy drove the death car, Gatsby orchestrates her escape—he’s willing to take the blame for the crime, to sacrifice himself for her, but cares not a whit about the woman Daisy killed. Finally, when he dies in his useless swimming pool, no one comes to the funeral, which, irony and symbolism aside, speaks volumes about how well-liked he really was.

Nick runs into Tom one last time before he leaves New York. This is at the very end of the novel. Of the late Gatsby, Tom says, “That fellow had it coming to him. He threw dust in your eyes just like he did in Daisy’s….” And that’s why it matters that Nick is gay and in love with Gatsby: because Tom’s assessment is spot-on, but Nick will never admit it. Instead, he’ll write a whole book denying the truth. Nick Carraway, failed bond trader, unreliable narrator, believer in the green light, who knows that gay, exciting things are no longer hovering in the next hour, and never will again.

[heraclitus]

The whole scene is akward. It's not clear what's going on and Nick is drunk and perhaps what he writes reveals something about himself. He does seem to skip parts of his night with Mr. Mcgee. On the one hand one can say that Mr. Mcgee is gay (the feminant looking man) on the other hand nick has already stated that he is open minded about people and their strange ways and nonJudgemental. If nick has not been involved in a homosexual act he comes very close to it. He leaves out certain information to give us full knowledge. Or perhaps he is uncomfortable writing about this situation. But then why does he write about it while leaving information out. And what was it about the lather on Mcgee's face that he wiped off. This all points out that nick is aware of homosexuality but nonjudgemental. His interest in Jorden shows that he likes her jaunty body, but does this necessarily mean that there is some underlying homosexual attraction. And is Jordan Gay?

[Buh4Bee]

I agree that this scene implies some kind of "situation" between Nick and Mr. Mcgee. The guy is between the sheets showing Nick his work. It's left ambiguous as to whether a homosexual encounter actually takes place. It's one of those scenes that might cause you to raise your eyebrows. What the heck is going on here? But the whole crew is a bunch of degenerates. Why would a homosexual scene between a married man and Nick seem out of place?

[qimissung]

I agree that this scene implies some kind of "situation" between Nick and Mr. Mcgee. The guy is between the sheets showing Nick his work. It's left ambiguous as to whether a homosexual encounter actually takes place. It's one of those scenes that might cause you to raise your eyebrows. What the heck is going on here? But the whole crew is a bunch of degenerates. Why would a homosexual scene between a married man and Nick seem out of place?

Exactly. It's all about decadence. I don't think it really matters if we actually know whether or not Nick is gay.

[Buh4Bee]

Ah, I got an A for this response. Lol!

[theleafprince]

Nick could most likely be gay since the one woman he does fall for is "boyish" and rather stereotypically masculine in her behaviours.

There is also the point that Nick is very peculiar in how describes other people - especially those of whom that he does not like.
His first opinions of Myrtle:
"She was in the middle thirties, and faintly stout, but she carried her surplus flesh sensuously as some women can. Her face, above a spotted dress of dark blue crêpe-de-chine, contained no facet or gleam of beauty, but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering."

His first opinions of Tom:
"He had changed since his New Haven years. Now he was a sturdy straw-haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward. Not even the effeminate swank of his riding boots could hide the enormous power of that body — he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing, and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat. It was a body capable of enormous leverage — a cruel body."

To me this suggests that he does subconsciously prefer men, but he is not even aware of this himself. Both of these characters aren't liked by him, but he does focus more on Tom's appearance - especially the notice of his muscles.

At the very end of the novel Tom says to Nick: “That fellow had it coming to him. He threw dust in your eyes just like he did in Daisy’s…” and this just proves that since Nick forms all very strong negative opinions about every other character in the novella, except Gatsby, there is definitely a strong liking to him - whether it be subconscious, repressed or whatever else.

Also - why would he name the book after a bloke if he didn't have feelings for him? :brow: :lol:

[Zofia]

Nick is like the hidden gay of this book, we all know he wants to shag Gatsby but he just sucks it up and pretends he likes Jordan for the sake of being accepted. And like, who is so obssessed with someone like okay I love Rihanna but I’m not going to stalk her and talk about her all the time, I have my own life. And he’s just so vague anytime he talks with her it’s like he doesn’t give a crap. So he’s either gay but doesn’t show it OR he’s a f*ck boy and plays with Jordan’s feeling and only wants to shag her.

[Zofia]

Nick is like the hidden gay of this book, we all know he wants to shag Gatsby but he just sucks it up and pretends he likes Jordan for the sake of being accepted. And like, who is so obssessed with someone like okay I love Rihanna but I’m not going to stalk her and talk about her all the time, I have my own life. And he’s just so vague anytime he talks with her it’s like he doesn’t give a crap. So he’s either gay but doesn’t show it OR he’s a f*ck boy and plays with Jordan’s feeling and only wants to shag her.



UPDATE
I’ve been thinking about it and what if Nick is asexual? He just seems like a person lacking any kind of emotion and doesn’t really show love towards anyone and only admiration? He just seems to dismiss Jordan and the idea of being with her however, that could also be due to her being a “modern woman” BUT still I just don’t see him particularly loving anyone or anything other than weirdly obsessing over Gatsby.