In The Great Gatsby, the wealthy character Jay Gatsby becomes synonymous with the concepts of loneliness and isolation. He believed that his wealth would be directly proportional with social connection, specifically a romantic connection with former romance Daisy Buchanan; however, that couldn’t be further from the truth. In fact, his wealth drew him further away from these authentic connections, and instead established his character’s inevitable isolation. I have come to discover that while the audience doesn’t fully come to terms with Gatsby’s isolation until his fate is revealed (and the overall dominance of the concept all throughout), Fitzgerald subtly references the concept within the last paragraph of every chapter of his novel.
At the end of the first chapter, Nick assumes that Gatsby’s appearance “gave a sudden imitation that he was content to be alone” (Fitzgerald I). As an educated audience member, I can concede that this is truly not the case—Gatsby is not content to be alone. His death was anything but content, and he was alone. This assumption also serves to confirm that Nick’s assumptions and judgements are not always correct, further establishing himself as an unreliable narrator.
At the end of the second chapter, Mr. McKee’s portfolio includes “Beauty and the Beast… Loneliness… Old Grocery Horse… Brook’n Bridge…” (Fitzgerald II). I cannot necessarily concede the importance of this specific reference rather than for continuity, but the concept is directly stated with no strings attached.
At the end of the third chapter, Nick’s unreliability is established by referencing how he believes himself to be isolated from society with his statement, “I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known” (Fitzgerald III). This statement is widely regarded as one of the most important statements to delineate Nick as an unreliable narrator, as he himself believes that he is different than most of society. With this, he isolates himself through his ideology. Once again, as an educated audience member, I can confirm that Nick is not necessarily “honest” himself either, further establishing delusion and negative connotations within this novel’s portrayal of isolation.
At the end of the fourth chapter, the concept is indirectly referenced through Nick’s comparison to Gatsby and Tom’s love interests and the lack of his own. This realization prompts him to engage in a relationship with Jordan Baker, which is fallible as the relationship falls through by the end of the novel. Did Nick truly love Jordan Baker, or did he love the idea of not being perceived as romantically alone in comparison to those whom he’d surround himself with? From these connections, I have come to believe that Nick’s relationship with Jordan had been produced from feelings of utter isolative loneliness.
At the end of the fifth chapter, the concept is geared towards Nick’s isolation within his presence alongside the pair of Gatsby and Daisy. He claims that the pair “had forgotten [him],” and that “Gatsby didn’t know [him] now at all” contrasting Daisy who at the least acknowledges him (Fitzgerald V). Nick’s isolation at the end of this chapter demonstrates Gatsby’s deceptive nature, as the man who prided himself on his friendship with Nick suddenly forgets his friend whenever he finally receives what he was using the said friend to obtain (a reconnection with Daisy). In this, Nick leaves the pair, which allows Daisy to fallaciously prompt Gatsby to believe that he still has a chance of romance with her. Therefore, in this chapter, isolation is detailed through Gatsby’s detrimental vulnerability and inability to mask his own intentions, which additionally affects Nick as well.
At the end of the sixth chapter, isolation is described through Nick’s inability to speak after witnessing Daisy and Gatsby kiss. This concept directly links to the end of the previous chapter, as if Nick did not already feel disconnected, he might have spoken up. I believe in this instance, he could have possibly spoken up about how fabricated the entire relationship seemed to be, as Daisy was in fact a married woman. At this point, Nick realizes that both Buchanan’s are in separate affairs with different people, and rather than involving himself to stop a situation from exploding (which it inevitably does), he remains quiet. While the audience doesn’t particularly know what Nick was prompted to say but didn’t, we can make these inferences based on contextual clues and our education of the entirety of the narrative. This moment could have been pivotal in the turning point of the narrative’s conclusion, but Nick’s isolative inability to act prevented such tragedy from falling through.
At the end of the seventh chapter, the tragedy begins to evidently unfold through Gatsby’s isolation as he “’want[s] to wait here till Daisy goes to bed” despite her realigning with her actual spouse. Supportively reacting to such, Nick “walked away and left him standing there in the moonlight—watching over nothing” (Fitzgerald VII). Once again, the emphasis of tragic isolation is made, as even when faced with the legal spouse of Daisy, Gatsby refuses to give into reality. His fantasies facilitate his fallacious belief that his isolation is not true isolation as he believes he reestablished his relationship; however, he didn’t, and instead Daisy is alone with her husband as both face the realizations regarding their affairs. In some respect, it could be understandable that Gatsby waits under the belief that Tom’s knowledge of Daisy’s marital deceit would destroy their marriage, but that is simply not the case. Daisy’s motivations for her actions instead could be attributed to her material consumerism, but also to the fact that she wanted to seek revenge on her husband by replicating his exact marital dishonesty. Overall, this chapter truly accentuates the delusion drawn from isolation within the novel, further emphasizing the concept’s overarching detriment to the characters.
At the end of the eighth chapter, the concept continues to prevail as Nick references his discovery of the casualties of Gatsby and Wilson, both of whom died alone. Poetically, isolation reigns key to the faults within this story, as especially Gatsby himself died alone in his pool. Representing sheer disillusionment, Gatsby couldn’t acknowledge the depth of trouble he had put himself in for taking the blame regarding Daisy’s vehicular manslaughter of Mr. Wilson’s wife, Myrtle. He was so isolated in his own false reality that he could not foresee his own murder, in which Tom orchestrated and Wilson executed. Wilson, on the other hand, ended up killing himself because of the marital isolation he had now definitively experienced with his wife also dead. He felt as though Gatsby had taken his only person, although Tom was the culprit behind her affair, and his only motive was to seek vengeance (and then end his own life, as he likely believed he had nobody left but himself). Altogether, this chapter establishes the tragically inevitable fates that this disillusioned isolation would bring to the characters.
Finally, at the end of the ninth chapter, Nick reconciles in his own isolation as all the core characters within his narrative have either disappeared or died. His isolation leads him to believe that in telling this story, “we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past,” ironically appearing to emulate one of Gatsby’s tragic flaws of believing that the past could definitively be repeated (Fitzgerald IX). In this sense, it appears that though his own isolation, he absolves himself by retelling the story of how he came to be where he is presently. In this respect, the effects of the concepts of isolation are left ambiguous, as we the audience are left with multiple reasons as to why Nick continues to retell the past. In his isolation, is Nick attempting to objectively retell the narrative to identify the faults that led to the ultimate outcome? Or is Nick retelling the story to convince himself that nothing was his fault as he was simply a bystander (who happened to be indirectly involved)?
Personally, I choose to believe that this final repetition of an indirect reference to isolation illustrates the concept in a positive light, contrasting the negative connotation the concept has received in prior chapters. In this sense, I choose to believe that Nick retells the story as objectively as he does specifically to highlight and identify the faults of himself and all of the other characters, but he could only realize such by himself. As he claimed, he is one of the few honest people that he has ever known, so who better to hear these objective faults from than himself? His self-honesty within isolation allows him to absolve himself after the tragic events of the narrative. By having this contrast, Fitzgerald is able to demonstrate the true ambiguity of the concept, as within the novel it is detrimental, but in the present, it is beneficially enlightening.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. The Project Gutenberg eBook of The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. eBook #64317. Project Gutenberg, January 17, 2021, online. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/64317/64317-h/64317-h.htm