Baz Lurhman's fleshy and flashy adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald's classic 1925 novel is in theaters everywhere. The same book was also featured in a classroom of 26 bright high school seniors I had the pleasure of leading through a semester of college level English composition. The themes of the novel are tried and true: the failing American Dream, the folly of challenging the passage of time, the hopeless romantic. One of the more remarkable aspects of the novel is Fitzgerald's eerily prescient portrayal of a decade sliding toward ruin. The book consists of nine chapters--nearly one for each year of the twenties. The story arc follows flawlessly the growth of optimism into chapter five (the chapter Gatsby and Daisy reunite) and then the spiral down toward both the death and dissolution--or the collapse of the stock market.
But the point I want to offer for consideration is this: in a novel that is propelled by duets--Gatsby and Daisy, Tom and Daisy, Jordan and Nick, Gatsby and Wolfshien--the most compelling may be the one seldom observed, that of Gatsby and Tom.
Certainly Gatsby and Tom are rivals for the attention of Daisy. But they are more than that. They are two sides of the same coin. They represent two distinct ways of relating to the past, to what was, to what cannot be again. And, consequently, how one lives into the future.
In the first chapter of the novel, our narrator Nick Carraway, describes Tom as "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." This description prepares us for understanding Tom as a forward looking individual, looking forward principally to his own best interests. His two eyes (in contrast to the neutral all knowing eyes of T.J. Eckleburg) are arrogant and consuming.
But what is truly the important insight into Tom's character--and what offers both a kinship and an opposition to Gatsby--is a throw away line that comes in the paragraph before this description. While reflecting upon the news that Daisy believes this move to East Egg is permanent, Nick offers this insight into Tom, a former Yale football player. "I had no sight into Daisy's heart but I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking a little wistfully for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game."
Irrecoverable.
There is little question that Gatsby's quest for the irrecoverable Daisy is the heart of the novel. Although Gatsby can accomplish the feat of once again being in Daisy's presence--even of receiving Daisy's love--he cannot make time vanish. It is not enough for Gatsby to regain Daisy. He must have her pure and unchanged by the five years that have interceded between when Gatsby left for the war and Daisy married Tom.
As Nick famously observes, "you cannot repeat the past." Gatsby's retort is equally famous. "Can't repeat the past? Of course you can!" But Nick is right. You cannot repeat the past. You might have Daisy in the here and now, but you cannot have her as if five years, Tom, and a daughter has not happened. You might play another football game, but you will never play again as you did at Yale. Some things might be wistfully sought, but they will never be found. Tom understands this. Gatsby is unwilling to.
Tom and Gatsby represents two ways of orienting oneself to thispassage of time. Tom is aggressively leaning forward, into tomorrow. Tom is willing to let the past go in order to insure his future. He lives, apparently, with little regret or moral compass. He loves Daisy and yet has multiple affairs. After Gatsby's death he carries on with Daisy as if nothing has happened. He protests bootlegging while offering his liquor. The only time that matters to Tom is time present and what it offers to him. He lives insulated from consequence or character.
Gatsby is a romantic. What captivated Nick was Gatsby's seemingly endless capacity for hope. As blind as Tom is to the past, Gatsby is to the future. Gatsby's future is the product of the hopeless dreaming of the past. Both Tom and Gatsby are presented as characters in the grips of elusive past glory; Tom's football career and Gatsby's relation to Daisy. Where they differ is how they will orient themselves to that which is irrecoverable. Tom is full speed ahead wrecking everything in his path. Gatsby is a hopeful romantic who believes it can and will be as it once was.
The cynic might observe that the novel ends practically. The pragmatic Tom has the girl, the wealth, and the trip to Europe before settling in the new house. The hopeful romantic lies dead and mourned by only Nick, his father, and Owl Eyes-- the living incarnation of the eyes of T.J. Eckleburg.
But there is a more uplifting way of understanding the Tom-Gatsby duet. And this is where, as a theologian, I might apply an idea Fitzgerald would not have intended. With the exception of George Wilson, there is really only one character who embodies the essence of love and that is Gatsby. He loves Daisy-truly loves her for all of her flaws, idiocies and betrayals. It is Gatsby who is willing to take the blame for the death for which Daisy is truly responsible. Gatsby waits outside of her house in the rain to make certain she is alright. Gatsby is not faultless to be sure, but his love is real and genuine and it is one of the tragedies of the novel that Daisy is, in the end, so indifferent to it.
But if we judged the efficacy of a virtue by its popular success there would be few virtues to celebrate. Gatsby is great--not for wealth or fame--but for love and fidelity. Gatsby's impracticable hope is rooted in a deep love that has survived separation, trial, rejection, and death. It is this understanding of love that makes Christianity both powerful and vexing. How can love matter, even God's love, if it ends up dead and buried? That Tom and Daisy ride off triumphant while Gatsby lies dead is not a repudiation of love. It is the affirmation of the biblical truth of the cross.
Within the narrative Gatsby does not rise. But his story continues to be the best selling novel year to year for its publisher, Scribner. There is always a new movie, a new interpretation. The story is read in high schools and colleges every year all over the country. Gatsby's hope, his love, his commitment, his combination of man and child, saint and sinner, lives on. If that isn't resurrection I don't know what is.
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