I know, I am going CrAzY with The Great Gatsby! It is because I am currently doing a book club with this novel, writing my own review, and now studying architecture's narrating position. It's just on the brain a lot because of these posts all going at once. I hope you are enjoying reading my posts about F. Scott Fitzgerald's work as much as I am writing them. I'm not sure what order the previously mentioned posts will go live in, but just know they are all coming at some point!
Architecture is the greatest characterization of the main characters in The Great Gatsby. Each person's dwelling reveals their personality, marital struggles, hopes, and romantic interests through architectural style, era, and interior design.
Gatsby Mansion
The Gatsby Mansion, home of Jay Gatsby (the man's name that this book received), is Chateauesque and truly a Gilded Age mansion. The mansion is a "factual imitation of some Hotel de Ville in Normandy". The house is designed after a city hall (hotel de ville) in France and, thus, not designed for someone to live in at all. Jay Gatsby feels out of place in his own home, and he did not know what to ask for in a house design. He just decided to copy another building. The fact that he decided to copy a city hall makes the fact that he does not know what he wants painfully evident.
Also, the majority of the rooms in the Gatsby mansion our "period" rooms. "Period" rooms are themed rooms that emulate a historical time, era, place's, or person's style. By the 1920s, this type of decor was deemed tacky by the upper class and beyond. The fact that Gatsby's mansion has many period rooms shows that he doesn't know what is "in style" nor does he know what his style is or what he wants.
In sharp contrast with the extravagant design of most of the house, Jay Gatsby's personal spaces (his bedroom in particular) are described as the most simplistic in the house. This reinforces the idea that Jay Gatsby puts up an extravagant, over-the-top shell, but, in reality, is a simple person.
The marble swimming pool does not match the stone facade of the mansion further illustrating the gaudy nature of the property.
Buchanan Mansion
The Buchanan Mansion is a house built in the true spirit of tradition. The Buchanan residence is a red brick, expansive mansion with bright white columns to represent images of early and colonial America. The traditional, "old", and "early american" styles represent the Buchanans' wealth. The Buchanans are "old money" rich. Also, their house is located in East Egg - the "old money" side of the Sound.
While the exterior of the mansion is important to describing the Buchanan values and wealth type, the interior speaks marital dynamics and wealth as well. "The front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now with reflected gold and wide open to the warm windy afternoon." One of the most impactful scenes that features architecture, Nick not only describes the interior of the Buchanan mansion but also Daisy and Jordan's flying and dancing qualities that their white dresses and lively personalities give room. However, as soon as Tom steps into the room, everything changes. Tom slams the windows. The fluttering of the curtains and the ladies' skirts stop, Daisy's face drops, and Jordan stops her soft laughter. This characterizes Tom Buchanan as an overwhelming, overbearing person who has control over his wife's happiness at this point in the novel (whether she likes it or not).
The rest of the Buchanan property deserves commentary as well. The stables especially have architectural meaning. They represent Tom Buchanan's reaching for the past, the "old way", and order. Most residents of West Egg and East Egg have garages to house their new and shiny cars; yet, Tom has stables to board his polo ponies and carriages. Cars are the new mode of transportation of the 1920s, but Tom does not show off his cars in the beginning of the novel.
At the closing, he is tearing down some of his stables and building a garage for his cars. Also, more scenes toward the end of the novel feature Tom embracing the new mode of transportation and driving more often. This shows his listening and jealousy of progressive men like Gatsby whether Tom would have liked to "give in" to the aristocratic stereotypes. Tom may be changing with the times. For better or for worse?
Mansion Comparison
The difference between East Egg and West Egg mansions is profound. The expansive estate neighborhoods are the opposites of the wealthy. East Egg versus West Egg. Old Money versus New Money. Founded, Secure, Longlasting versus Ostentatious, Petty, Gaudy. "Glittering", Regal versus "Less Fashionable". Reality versus Superficiality. Buchanan versus Gatsby.
Nick's House
Nick's house is Western bungalow in style and is like "cardboard" compared to his neighbors in West Egg and on the Sound. It isn't a "noticeable eyesore" (so its off the road). It has a "car shed" instead of garage, so his car would not have been as protected from the elements. While he has a Finnish housemaid, he does not have the same luxuries as his friends on the Bay (like a garage and a manicured law, as his is "untidy".
Nick's bungalow brings out his more honest, what-you-see-is-what-you-get personality. While not the only details that discuss Nick's narration, the architecture of his house is a greater commentary on his reliability as a narrator. He's humble, a little rough around the edges, untidy, but honest and no nonsense.
Apartment in New York
Myrtle's apartment in New York (owned by Tom) represents her life's wish: to escape the lower class. Curtains with scenes of Versailles dripping in gold hang above the lofty windows. The apartment is "crowded to the doors with a set of tapestried furniture entirely too large for it". The quality of the furniture, tapestries, curtains, and her relationship with Tom (not to mention her accepting of the apartment) signify her obvious class hopping and social climbing.
Characters change as they enter the apartment as well. Tom changes into a man of free will, without a wife, without a child, without a family at all. He has no attachment to his home in West Egg with Daisy on the Bay. Myrtle leaves her lower class, garage life with her husband and upon entering the apartment becomes Tom Buchanan's lady in New York of the upper class.
The apartment is "one slice of a long cake of apartment-houses". Myrtle only gets "one slice" of Tom's life.
Wilson's Garage
Wilson's Garage is lower class and ties Myrtle to the bottom. It is made of yellow brick: the material of poverty. It's "dirty and dusty" and undignified. It stands as one of the only utilitarian symbols of the novel. The mansions drip of champagne, wealth, and bubbles. The apartment, while gaudy, is upper class. Nick's house is simple, but at least is in West Egg. Wilson's Garage is used by the wealthy, the Buchanans and Gatsby stop for gas, but they never inquire deeply with the owner - Wilson. Tom Buchanan even uses Wilson's wife to cheat.
Wilson's Garage is "a small block of yellow brick sitting on the edge of waste land, a sort of compact Main Street ministering to it, and contiguous to absolutely nothing."
Wilson's Garage is the site of Myrtle's tragic death as well, making the property morbid and dark as well as lower class. Fitzgerald even notes that Myrtle's body laid on a work table after she was struck by Gatsby's yellow car, leaving physical and mental stains for Wilson.
Happy Reading! Please let me know if you have any other ideas that I missed that pertain to the architectural narration realm in the comments below.
Comments
Post a Comment