“True” Love: Gatsby’s Greatest Gaffe or Fitzgerald’s Fatal Flaw? A New Criticism View

After reading Tyson’s incisive chapter on New Criticism (as well as re-reading
Fitzgerald’s classic American novel), I must admit I thought the New Critic’s claim of “Single Best Interpretation” presumptuous, and their directive to stick entirely to the text at best implausible, and most likely impossible. Yet, surprisingly, after more than three quarters of a century since its writing (as well as more than a quarter of a century since my last Gatsby reading), the enchantment of the tale remained so strong that I almost felt the title character himself “stretching out his arms toward” me through the ages and pages, imploring this “old sport” to at least give it the ol’ college try. So without further adieu, I offer Jay and you this thesis; that the main (male) characters of The Great Gatsby are so busy pursuing the fountain of youth that they missed the eternal maxim which states that in order to find True Love, one must also learn to love Truth.

Although the novel’s main men (Jay Gatsby, Nick Carraway, and Tom Buchanan) all seem to be stuck in some spot in their not so distant youths, they all seek to reclaim a slightly different stage from their glory days. While Nick waxed about his “vivid memories … coming back west from prep school” (Chapter IX, pg.183), and Gatsby gabbed incessantly about “repeating the past” of “five years before” (116,117; ch. VI) when Daisy became not only Jay’s girl, but his holy “grail” (156; ch. VIII). Tom is described as drifting “forever seeking … the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game” (10; ch.I). Still, Buchanan’s “cruel body” (11; ch. I) and “simple mind” (131; ch.VII), which he uses to physically dominate the women (Daisy’s bruised knuckle (ch.I), Myrtle’s broken nose (ch.II)), and intimidate the men; “Don’t think my opinion is final … just because I’m stronger and more of a man than you are” (11; ch.I), seems to put Tom more in the Jr. High schoolyard bully category. But if these dominating descriptions offer little hope for Tom’s growth, Carraway’s “cardinal virtue” (64; ch.III) of honesty and Gatsby’s unwavering devotion to Daisy (every chapter!) appear to offer promise for our two heroes’ development, if not happiness. Instead, the exact opposite happens, as all true love is lost, and lies and violence triumph.

Indeed, an initial surface reading of Gatsby might lead the reader to conclude the novel rewards dishonesty and brute force and dismisses faithfulness and truth, based on the fact the book ends with Tom’s life-and handshake- (188; ch. IX) intact, but Nick left with the “foul dust” (6; ch. I) of disillusionment and Gatsby dead. However, upon further review, it is not Nick or Jay’s love of truth or true love that spells their demise, but their lack of it. While Nick does appear to be above board as to his past or the basic facts of his life, his blatant stereotyping of the bit characters in his life (“I laughed aloud as … the three modish negroes rolled … the yolks of their eyeballs toward us …” (73; ch. IV), “I had … the desperate suggestion that they help me … when the demoniac Finn brought it in …” (92: ch.5) ) not to mention his caricature of the “tiny eyed … flat-nosed Jew” Wolfschiem (73; ch. IV), betrays not only a profound racial prejudice but a total inability to perceive a person as he or she really is. Similarly, Gatsby may be totally true to Daisy, but his failing to bring this devotion up to date no doubt stems from his almost total dishonestly about the other facets of his life, most notably his line of work.

What my politically incorrect college professor once dubbed “the dark side” of the Protestant work ethic; that is, so long as you’re a devoted husband and good provider you are allowed to do whatever the hell you have to in your profession to maintain that status, could easily have been coined with Gatsby in mind. Not only does a Jekyll/Hyde (or his case, Gatsby/Gatz), from old sport to “looked like he killed a man” (142; ch.VII) personality transformation occur in our hero nearly every time the subject is changed from pleasure to business, any Jay/James attempt at honesty simultaneously goes out the window as well. And nowhere in the novel is this dichotomy more prevalent than the novel’s “True Love” turning point, the Chapter VII Gatsby/Buchanan standoff.

After some initial small talk, the G-B confrontation really begins with Tom accusing Gatsby of causing a “row … in my house” (136; ch. VII), as the reader quickly realizes that no less than Daisy’s hand is at stake. The encounter has the feeling of a prize fight, and the imagery Fitzgerald uses (“Gatsby sprang to his feet,” “the words seemed to bite physically into Gatsby,” “Tom’s words suddenly leaned down over” him) does nothing to discourage this. Notice that in the beginning, when Gatsby’s devotion was being compared to Tom‘s unfaithfulness, Gatsby spoke “earnestly” while Tom “groped unsuccessfully” as Jay clearly won the early rounds. In the middle section, Gatsby went for the knockout, but since his left hook that Daisy “never loved Tom” wasn’t entirely true he only connected with a glancing blow against his opponent, and thus that segment must be scored a split decision. However, in the later rounds, Tom’s tactical decision to concentrate on Gatsby’s “true” weakness; namely his ruthless (and almost totally dishonest) business dealings, clearly turn the tide. For although Gatsby initially answered the charges politely, Tom’s repeated blows returned that “unfamiliar yet recognizable look” to Gatsby’s face, and the fight (and Daisy) was lost when Jay turned to Daisy and began “denying everything, defending his name against accusations that had not been made.” Daisy had no doubt heard this tune before, and in the end she rejected Gatsby not because he was too different from Tom, but because he was too much the same, remaining with a man with whom she was not happy, but not unhappy (152), instead of one who dreamed of “sacredness”(153) but inspired terror.

In a way he didn’t realize, Nick was on the right track (pun intended!) with his longing for the joy that his “Christmas time” return home from prep school, and the renewal “of old acquaintances” (183; ch. IX) brought him. The problem with this longing is that, at thirty, Nick (and Gatsby) should be the one inspiring memories for children, not longing to be one, not caught up in his own “holiday gayeties,” but intent on bringing the true meaning of Christmas to others. Throughout history, successful societies have all realized the paradox that the normal way for couples to grow up yet stay young is to have and raise children, a fact that seems to escape the pampered inhabitants of East and West Egg. While it’s true that Daisy isn’t exactly the Hallmark Channel mother, Nick does nothing to encourage Mrs. Buchanan’s motherhood instincts, saying blasé-ly of the babe, “I suppose she talks, and-eats, and everything” (21; ch. I). Still, to Daisy’s credit, having realized Tom is pretty much out of the fatherhood picture (note not only Daisy’s quote, “She was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where,” but the ironic Chapter VII scene where he walks back into the room exactly when his daughter walks out), her groping comment to Pammy (as Daisy turns to Gatsby), “How do you like mother’s friends?” is no doubt delivered in hopes that Jay will show paternal interest. But Gatsby, still clinging to the Daisy of five years ago, instead “kept looking at the child with surprise … (as if) … he hadn’t really believed in its existence before” (123; ch.VII), therefore blowing a beautiful chance to strengthen his bond with his beloved.

Also, while there is certainly a lot of religious imagery in Gatsby, practically none of it is designed to inspire us to embrace the Faith. All the talk about Gatsby as “a son of God … about his Father’s business” (104; ch. VI), “his mind … like the mind of God” (117), merely seems to promote Gatz/Gatsby as a sort of secular savior, with Jay’s mansion (“I stared at Gatsby’s enormous house like Kant at his church steeple.” (93; ch. VI) “On Sunday morning while church bells rang … its mistress returned to Gatsby’s house” (65; ch. IV) serving as his house of worship. But unlike Gatsby, whose “Bootlegger’s Messiah” persona is borne out of a “ferociously indifferent” two week stint at “the small Lutheran college of St. Olaf” (105; Ch. VI) and is put to rest with a rather forgettable eulogy (unless you think “Blessed are the dead that the rain falls on,” is inspiring) by a Lutheran rent-a-minister, there is one solid family man in the story whose Faith is genuine, and who provides a powerful if brief counterpoint to negligent parenting and religious cynicism that permeates the story.

Although Michaelis, the only consistently compassionate character in the novel, brings comfort only to Wilson, his advice could have just as easily applied to Caraway or Gatsby. Trying to calm Wilson down after the horrible death of George’s wife, he first asks if he “ever had any children” (165; ch.VIII), for he realizes from experience that the way for George to not be overcome by grief is to get him to concentrate on someone close to him who also might be grieving-and really need his help. Then, after realizing George is childless, Michaelis quickly shifts the discussion to religion (ironically, considering Gatsby’s faith encounters as well as Tom’s “Catholic lie” to Myrtle (38; ch. II), suggests a priest, not a minister!), trying everything in his power to get Wilson to seek God’s solace. For the simple Michaelis knows that when Christ talks about being “born again” or “becoming like little children,” it does not mean to remain in that childish stage that characterizes the main characters, but to grow in faith while still maintaining the child-like innocence that allows a soul to remain “young at heart”-surely that romantic state of being Gatsby was searching for in his eternal longing for “the single green light” (16; ch. I). True, any interpretation relying heavily on a minor character, not to mention a Christian critique, when Fitzgerald himself was not exactly religious, is going way against the grain. But when a New Critic notices the word “Church” urgently proclaimed no less than six times in two short paragraphs, he can rightly say the text itself is striking back at our illustrious author’s intent.

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You would think the New Critics would have learned their lesson from the Protestant Reformation, which Luther started by shouting “Sola Scriptura!” (although the Bible itself urged its followers to adhere to both the text and tradition)-only to get pissed off that men soon found his interpretation wanting and started their own (over 25,000 at last count) churches too, including “Christian” sects where everything is subjective, (subjective reader-response theory, anyone?) that even deny Christ! While Luther-or Lois Tyson (whose brilliant NC Gatsby essay first breaks the “text only” rule when she refers to Fitzgerald’s biographical love of Keats in the second sentence of her article!) would have to admit that staying solely in the text is literally impossible, attempting to can still be valuable. As far as Tyson’s interpretation (where interestingly, she states as fact, not opinion) that Gatsby “tells us that unfulfilled longing is universal and inevitable,” I can only counter with the famous quote by the forth century theologian (and reformed Gatsby-esque playboy) Augustine, “The soul is restless until it rests in You.” But I cannot claim my test for “True Love” is the best unless the reader sees through me that He is the best way to stay “young at heart.”

The Fight to be “Flannery”: A Good (Catholic) Woman (Writer) is Hard to Find

“Well, if [the Eucharist] is just a symbol, to hell with it.”
--Flannery O’Connor, when discussing Catholicism with writer Mary McCarthy

The above quote, blurted out at a dinner party with fellow writers McCarthy (a fallen away Catholic), Robert Lowell, and their two spouses, seems to perfectly sum up both O’Connor’s strong attachment to her faith and her irreverent (and often hilarious) way of expressing that devotion. Still, although the above statement is one of Flannery’s most popular quotes, it’s interesting to discover that really no critic, whether Christian or agnostic, has actually examined O’Connor’s fiction in regard to this “symbol.” In fact, when another noted Southern woman writer, Eudora Welty, took time off for her own fiction to teach college literature, and “reached a particularly dense and symbolic section of one of O’Connor’s stories, she would sigh and ask, ‘Is there a Catholic in the class?’” Well, there is a Catholic in your class, and, starting with "A Good Man is Hard to Find" and proceeding with some of O’Connor’s other famous short stories, this critic intends to do just that.

But before we proceed with her stories and an examination of the Eucharistic symbol itself, let’s take a look at a sample of the general criticism that O’Connor was up against. On the one side were non-believing critics like Philip Wylie, who claimed that “a Catholic, if he is devout … sold on the authority of his Church, is also brain-washed, whether he realizes it or not.” Of course, Wylie deserves the double whammy, for he does not even change the male pronoun when referring to O’Connor, but unfortunately, Flannery also had many (church-going) women critics--most notably those who wanted something that would uplift a soul after a hard day's work--something O’Connor’s fiction was decidedly not suited for. “I am to give a talk,” O’Connor wrote in a letter to University of Notre Dame professor John Lynch, “on the dizzying subject--‘What Is a Wholesome Novel?’ I intend to tell them that the reason they find nothing but obscenity in modern fiction is because that is all they know how to recognize.” Simply put, O’Connor couldn’t, in good faith, write classic sappy religious fiction, because she believed sentimentality was really the flipside of pornography. The latter, she wrote, “leaves off the connection of sex with its hard purposes, disconnects it from its meaning in life and makes it simply an experience for its own sake,” while the former “is a skipping of our slow participation … in Christ’s death to … a mock state of innocence.” Thus O’Connor could never please critics at either end of the spectrum, for neither side could grasp the Catholic concept of a symbol that was real.

But then, what exactly was this symbol, and why did it so captivate O’Connor? To get a better understanding of what the Eucharist (about which O’Connor, commenting on her famous quote, said, “It is the center of existence for me; all the rest of life is expendable,”) is about, we should turn to the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, a philosopher that O’Connor (who called herself a “hillbilly Thomist”) read every night for twenty minutes before she went to bed. To Aquinas, the Eucharist was “the perfect art,” for it was the only art that was exactly what it represented. Thus, although it was still a symbol, since the bread and wine did not (usually!) turn into Christ’s flesh and blood during the consecration, it somehow really becomes Jesus, and a devout Catholic believes that he (or she) receives Christ’s essence (His Grace, His Knowledge, His Love) when receiving the Eucharist. So to Thomas (and Flannery), while other art, whether words, picture, or performance, may, if it’s inspired, capture a part of a person, it pales in comparison to the Eucharist, which becomes Christ completely, “body, blood, soul and divinity,” at least according to the Catechism. Commenting on the opening quote, O‘Connor later concluded, “That was all the defense I was capable of then, and I realize now that was all I will ever say about it, outside of a story.” But where exactly are the Eucharistic images in her fiction, and how did these images succeed in capturing Christ--or Flannery?

"A Good Man Is Hard to Find" is probably the most popular of O’Connor’s short stories, and thus brings out all the critics’ usual suspects. Time Magazine’s 1955 summary, “Another talented Southern lady whose work is highly unladylike … Her instruments are a brutal irony, a slam-bang humor and a style of writing as balefully direct as a death sentence,” caught most of the surface goodies but missed all the spiritual depth, while Andre Bleikasten’s atheistic expounding, “In a world both frozen and frantic, God is the intruder … the divine primarily experienced as an intolerable invasion of privacy … O’Connor’s religious experience comes pretty close to Freud’s definition: a variant of obsessional neurosis,” saw a surface spirituality but mistook it for his own mental illness. Still, the most bizarre interpretation (not to mention the one that most got O’Connor’s goat) came from a college English professor who wrote, “I am writing as spokesman for three members of our department and some ninety university students in three classes who for a week now have been discussing your story,  ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find.’ We have debated at length several interpretations … in general we believe that Bailey … identifies with The Misfit … imagines his appearance and … plays two roles in the imaginary second half of the story. But we cannot determine at what point reality fades into illusion or dream. We are convinced we are missing something important that you intended … we will all be grateful if you will give us further comments about your intention.” Well, if you know even a little bit about O’Connor, you can only “imagine” her reply: “The interpretation of your ninety students and three teachers is about as far from my intentions as it could get. If it were a legitimate interpretation, the story would be little more than a trick, and its interest would be simply for abnormal psychology. I am not interested in abnormal psychology … where feeling for a story is absent, theory will not supply it. My tone is not meant to be obnoxious. I am in a state of shock.”

Since it’s quite evident from the above passage that Ms. O’Connor had no patience for psychoanalytic criticism, and thought deconstructive critics more destructive than her fictional criminals, we will turn our attention back to the more religious criticism to see if we can get back on track. Two excellent contrasting views of the spiritual message in "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" are supplied by literary critic Steven C. Band,y and English professor at Temple University, Miles Orwell. Bandy (literally) plays the devil’s advocate: “Much criticism of the story takes a sentimental view of the grandmother largely because she is a grandmother … her role as a grace-bringer is largely received, largely because the author said so.” Analyzing the two main characters, Bandy continues, “There is a fierce internal coherence to the character of the grandmother, and it has nothing to do with forgiveness.” As for The Misfit, “His inability to believe has destroyed his humanity. His nihilism is complete … to insist on this moment of mutual revelation that the grandmother is transformed into the agent of God’s grace is to do serious violence to the story.”

On the other hand, Orvell takes Flannery’s analysis of the endgame in "AGMIHTF" to heart. “I don’t want to equate The Misfit with the devil,” said O’Connor. “I prefer to think that … the old lady’s gesture, like the mustard seed, will grow to be a great crow-filled dream in his heart … and will … turn him into the prophet he was meant to become.” Acknowledging that she is far from perfect, Orwell then states, “The grandmother is the only one in the family who expresses care; her personality moves outward toward others … and it is precisely this outward expression of care that will trigger The Misfit’s cold rage.” Thus to Orwell, “The old lady’s gesture, like Christ’s, throws everything off balance, and … The Misfit’s own act, that of shooting the woman, is conceived by him … as a reestablishment of the particular order of his own world.”

I believe Orwell’s view of the story has much merit to it, even hinting at the Eucharistic images in this tale. Miles describes the plantation house the grandmother had the family search for thusly; “What is barely concealed beneath the literal description of the mansion is its symbolic equivalence to a heavenly mansion, and the addition of the secret panel suggests its mysterious containment of the treasures of the past.” To the devout Catholic, this “heavenly mansion” is the Catholic Church, and this “secret panel” can be seen as the tabernacle, the sacred box where the consecrated hosts are stored 24/7. Not only does this perpetual Presence of Christ make a Catholic Church into a profoundly different space than any other place on earth for the believer, it sheds new light on The Misfit’s cryptic comment, “She would have been a good woman if it had been someone to shoot her every minute of her life.” For this Presence, combined with the fact that the Mass is being offered (and the Host is being consecrated) somewhere in the world every minute of the day, stands as a reminder of Christ’s continual offering of Himself--and a martyrdom the grandmother now shares in.

"Good Country People" is one of O’Connor’s more under-rated stories, but to me its Eucharistic allusions are every bit as profound. No doubt partly biographical, "GCP" stars the cynical Helga (formerly named Grace) who has a Ph.D., a wooden leg, and lives on a farm with her mother. Bored, she hopes to seduce a wide-eyed young Bible salesman named Pointer, only to have the tables turned as Pointer (which is also an assumed name) turns out to be a con man and steals her wooden leg, yelling as he goes to the helpless female atheist, “You ain’t so smart. I been believing in nothing since I was born!” While most critics of "GCP" rightly focus on this comic turn of events (“She has learned a little more, now, about what it means to believe in ‘nothing’”) I think the Eucharistic symbolism (in this case Helga’s artificial leg) is crucial. At first, the Bible, which to most Protestants is the leading sacramental, seems the symbolic focus, but when Pointer’s Good Book is filled with whiskey, pornography, and rubbers, our attention quickly turns elsewhere. Pointer’s statement about Hulga’s artificial leg, “It’s what makes you different,” shows he knows it is the most sacramental part of her--which makes his theft of it (to add to his collection which includes another conquest’s glass eye) all the more devastating--and humorous.

It also brings to mind two opposing facets of Eucharistic history. The first, the miracle of Lanciano, involved a priest who doubted the Real Presence--only to watch the bread and wine turn into actual flesh and blood as he consecrated them that fateful day. The flesh (still preserved after 1200 years) was tested during O’Connor’s lifetime, and was found to be that of a human heart--making the false leg and eye theft all the more interesting. Secondly, it brings to mind that, even though a lot of Catholics don’t believe in the “Real Presence,” a lot of demons do (James 2:19). This is why, despite the abundance of Bibles and black cats, the consecrated Host is the preferred object of art for the black mass as well.

While many critics are quick to point out that both "The Artificial Nigger" and "The Displaced Person" deal with the problem of prejudice, they don’t really grasp the sacramental solution. After tackling the question of whether or not O’Connor was racist (based on the fact Flannery made some questionable remarks about blacks in her private letters) Baylor University English professor, Ralph C. Wood, absolves the author, claiming that "TAN" “works a miracle … by inverting a racist symbol into an emblem of antiracial redemption.” While this grace (“They could both feel it dissolving their differences like an act of mercy”) may have been temporary, the fact that this lawn ornament was so weather-beaten (“It was not possible to tell if [it] were meant to be young or old,”) gave the symbol a universal, or “catholic,” connotation.

Meanwhile, the racist as well as Catholic overtones in "The Displaced Person" are also quite evident. Unusual in the fact that "TDP" is one of the few O’Connor stories where several main characters are Catholic, Flannery once again starts with the racial dilemma and concluded with a Eucharistic solution. Although Mrs. McIntyre’s heavy prejudice against blacks is present throughout the story, it is Mr. Guizac’s mistaken belief that a black man can marry a white woman in the deep South that turns him from a “miracle” into a “monster.” Sister Kathleen Feeley is quite perceptive when she states “TDP” suggests man’s alienation from his true country--the supernatural realm … for to Mrs. McIntyre, ‘Christ is just another D.P.’” Noting “Only art can make such ‘terrible’ fiction beautiful,” she comments on the peacock/Transfiguration analogy in the story, but leaves the Eucharistic symbol alone. Of course, there is the actual Eucharistic reference; the priest “was slipping something into the crushed man’s mouth,” the final host a man receives in the Sacrament of the Sick. However, the story’s Eucharistic analogy, that of a martyr “crushed” and “broken,” goes back to the early second century and a saint named Ignatius of Antioch. “I am God's wheat,” wrote the soon to be martyred Ignatius, “and I shall be ground by the teeth of beasts, that I may become the pure bread of Christ.” Receiving Christ in the Eucharist, as powerful as it was, was one thing, but to be allowed to become Eucharist with Christ through martyrdom was quite another.

"Parker’s Back" is one of O’Connor’s final short stories, and thus the Eucharistic symbolism is even more evident. For in this story, we have an artistic form of Christ that, while not actually inside Parker’s body, is embedded into it, which is surely the next closest thing. Indeed, Richard Giannone, English professor at Fordham University, comes so close to the Eucharistic interpretation you can almost taste it; “Since Christianity is a material religion in proclaiming that the Word is made flesh, O’Connor finds no impediment to showing how Parker’s transcendence inheres in his body. Parker’s yearning to feel the activity of God in his flesh confesses the basic Christian hope.” Sadly, Parker has married a “Christian” (O’Connor made it clear she sided with Parker, commenting “The tattoos were not the heresy. Sarah Ruth was the heretic--the notion that you can worship in pure spirit”) who not only renounced Catholic art, but all Christian art, even the basic Protestant churches with the tall white steeples. Unbeknownst to her, Sara Ruth reenacted the Catholic Station of the Cross called “The Scourging at the Pillar” when she beats the image of Our Savior engraved in her husband’s back into a bloody pulp. Ironically, the Eucharistic Host is both the most powerful and the plainest form of Christian art--so plain that even Sara, with even a molecule of open-mindedness, should have been able to accept it.

And so, while a great majority of critics agree that O’Connor successfully defended the faith by depicting what it is not, we are still left with the question as to whether or not her Eucharistic imagery inspired readers to the Real thing. Or, more specifically, why didn’t Flannery just write about the Eucharist instead of alluding to it? One of her final letters, to Sister Mariella Gable, summarized her fictional quest by stating, “I’ve reached the point [in writing] where I can’t do again what I know I can do well, and the larger things I need to do now, I doubt my capacity for doing,” allows one to speculate that she would have attempted Catholic humor if she had only lived longer, but it also recalls the words of her hero Aquinas, who, after seeing a vision of God while praying before the Eucharist, stopped writing altogether, saying to those who wanted him to at least finish his Summa Theologica, “Compared to what I have seen, my writing is so much straw.” And yet, as an eternal fan of Flannery‘s, I’d like to think there’s another possibility …

While all the saints loved to laugh, they all seemed to have trouble putting the Lord’s own laughter into words. Thomas Merton, the prolific Catholic monk-mystic spoke of this dilemma when he said that O’Connor’s writing was “So funny you dared not laugh too loud for fear of demons.” Still, I think the question was best answered by Catholic convert G.K. Chesterton, in the conclusion of his classic apologetic Orthodoxy:  “Joy, the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian. Christ’s pathos was natural, and … He never concealed His tears, never hid His anger. Yet He hid something …There was some one thing that was too great for God to show us when He walked our earth; and I have sometimes fancied it was His mirth.” So either Chesterton was right, or the Gospel writers, like Flannery, were too in awe of their Savior to capture His humor. When I go to heaven, I hope I have the honor to ask O’Connor if ... but that’s a far too sentimental sentiment to end an O’Connor commentary with! So how’s this; if there is a heaven, the first thing I’ll do is get the lowdown from the Lord and Flannery on whether Real Faith can also be funny. And if there’s not a heaven--then to hell with it!