F. Scott Fitzgerald-The Works, The Life discussion

1925

The Great Gatsby, to me, is almost a post-bildungsroman gone awry. I've always pondered what Gatsby's childhood must have been like, where he got the idea that there was a world beyond what he knew. It was pre-radio, pre-Dale Carnegie, largely pre-self-improvement, in terms of what we think of today. How did he come up with "the list"? Maybe there was a moving picture show he saw? What an amazing kid he must have been, and how different he may have been if he'd run into someone who'd truly educated him, truly. I didn't know what to make of Gatz, except that he seemed to have some sort of almost inexpressible admiration for his son. But I don't know if he'd become that way with age, or had always been more or less non-communicative.

There's so many shoulda, oughta, coulda's in this book, but the biggest one for me has always been what might that boy have become if things were different before we meet him, and what might he have decided if he had lived?

There have been comments in open threads that TGG is a failed philosophical treatise. My. take, highly personal vs didactic, is that a novel is an account of interactions of persons and the melding,clash, and/or abandonment of their internal philosophical filters, or how they mentally process input, assimilate knowledge of the world and the other sentient beings sharing that world. Not every book intends to be "Thus Spake Zarasthustra." A philosophical treatise is that; a novel is a tale of the interweaving of people and their intellectual constructs, overlaid and clarified or obscured by the reader's prejudices. That's "pre-judgements," and we all have them. As we learn, intelligence, psychology, and emotional state control whether a reader can modify or abandon their prejudices, or will reject a piece of fiction because he or she is incapable of assimilation, is capable only of defending what they cling to, that which they already "know." This type of reader should choose say half a dozen novels they are intellectually comfortable with and not venture beyond those. I'm obviously being cynical, drawing something out to exaggerated cartoonish lengths to make a point.

AnnLoretta wrote: "There have been comments in open threads that TGG is a failed philosophical treatise. My. take, highly personal vs didactic, is that a novel is an account of interactions of persons and the melding..."

I think that if one picks up a novel with preconceived notions about what that novel should be or do is missing a big part of the reading experience. I also think it is one of the reasons that the publishing industry evolves at such a glacial pace. Some influential critics can easily keep down fresh talent who don't "follow the rules," and scare publishers into releasing only money-makers that please the critics.

I do not have the intention or inclination to use this private FSF group as an immune platform from which to argue with non-members. (That's an extraordinarily ambiguous sentence.) Nonetheless, there has been a tremendous amount of discussion on open threads regarding TGG about Nick Carraway being an unreliable narrator because he was homoerotically attracted to Gatsby. As I posted in those threads (a) Who cares, since all first-person, non-omniscient narrators have their prejudices and (b) I didn't see any homoerotic references (not that things don't constantly go over my head -- being me is like living in the midst of a low-flying flock of barn swallows).

I've just read a letter from FSF to his daughter Scottie, October 1940, which is a response to a letter she had written from Vassar, apparently mentioning homoerotic undercurrents in Death in Venice and The Picture of Dorian Gray. And in this letter, FSF replies, yes, that's there. Nothing further.

FSF believed in himself. He had to, as it was his belief that no one else did. IF he had any intention of portraying Nick Carraway as having a sexual attraction to Jay Gatsby, there is not a doubt in my very small mind that FSF would have replied to his daughter, "Both Mann and Wilde would have benefited from studying the subtle way I treated the homoerotic in TGG." But FSF did not say this.

BELIEVE me, I have no dog, in terms of who is attracted to whom, in this fight. I just want everyone to be happy and to leave everyone else alone. But I ask anyone who's participated in these discussions to consider this letter of 10/5/40 from FSF to his daughter. Would he not have mentioned his treatment, if there had been any, of same-gender attraction in TGG?

I do not mean to open a discussion. I am attempting to close one. Not because it is inappropriate or because I have the least problem with gender or sexuality. I simply do not see the homoerotic between Carraway and Gatsby, and this letter seems to be the perfect opportunity for FSF, the, bless him, self promoter, to speak up on his intentions, had he had any.

AnnLoretta wrote: "I do not have the intention or inclination to use this private FSF group as an immune platform from which to argue with non-members. (That's an extraordinarily ambiguous sentence.) Nonetheless, the..."

I have three comments on this topic;

1. As a gay man, I missed any references to Nick being gay in the book, subtle or not. If Fitzgerald were writing about a character he was attracted to, I don't think he would have been able to hide it. It would have raised at least the question in an obvious manner if he didn't want to state it outright. I see nothing obvious here.

2. I can't say one way or another if he would have expanded on the topic in the letter to his daughter if he were, if fact, gay. If he was gay, and tightly closeted, he would most likely keep his comments to a minimum. And if he were not gay, he wouldn't have much to say.

3. The idea that Nick being gay makes him a special case of an unreliable narrator is biased nonsense. No story has ever existed or will ever exist with a reliable narrator. All voices come with built in biases. Nick is no different from any other narrator in that respect.

The be perfectly frank, I think those who read homosexuality into Nick are revealing much more about their own preconceptions, biases and even their own sexuality than describing the character.

Nick is sometimes given a range of characteristics from an agonizing passivity to passionate love for men, Gatsby in particular, but in truth FSF was trying to make him as neutral an observer as possible. He's "knowing" enough to understand the nature of the society in which he is living (and that Gatsby is attempting to penetrate) but he's on the periphery of that "power group" and is well aware of that status.

There are definitive qualities of the character that FSF gives us, but he leaves much up to the reader, and as a result Nick turns into a kind of litmus test. The first person narrative and reflective nature of the character makes him a good subject upon which to project. So, people see what they want in the character. Someone anxious about their own sexuality projects that characteristic into Nick, and if you look at the amount of abjectly desperate hand-wringing and minutiae that gets thrown into that interpretation it becomes quite pointed. If a reader thinks that another character touching an elevator handle is Fitzgerald indicating a sexual encounter, or that the admiration for Gatsby is repressed sexual attraction then I would have to suggest that is really the reader seeing a handle as a phallus and that reader himself finding himself confused about his reaction to the description of Gatsby.

At a certain point the argument turns into a situation that Shakespeare might describe as the lady protesting too much, and as an astute reader of readers you have to wonder why someone would spend so much time and effort trying to point out the sexuality of an imaginary person. It doesn't take long before it evokes the cliche of paranoia about one's own sexuality leading to all kinds of weird accusation and imaginings about others.

Gary wrote: " So, people see what they want in the character. Someone anxious about their own sexuality projects that characteristic into Nick, and if you look at the amount of abjectly desperate hand-wringing and minutiae that gets thrown into that interpretation.
Ni..."

From the book: ... 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 cold lower level of the Pennsylvania Station..."

The scene after the elevator, which I interpret as a dream while Nick is lying asleep on the train platform, is the closest thing to indicate a gay character in the novel. The sequence is Nick's view of this "feminine" "artistic" man whose chief relationship is between himself and his art, who sees himself as married to the beast, to the nag, and his relationship to her the equivalent of selling the Brooklyn Bridge to anyone who will buy it. But I see no indication that Nick is gay. Just him observing a gay man trapped in his day.

That said, I think that saying in a sweeping way that those who see Nick as gay are "anxious about their own sexuality" is a curious comment to make today. Don't discount proudly gay people trying to claim a gay character they think may have been overlooked in a great piece of literature. (I just don't happen to think there is enough to support such a claim.)

James wrote: "That said, I think that saying in a sweeping way that those who see Nick as gay are "anxious about their own sexuality" is a curious comment to make today. Don't discount proudly gay people trying to claim a gay character they think may have been overlooked in a great piece of literature. (I just don't happen to think there is enough to support such a claim.)"

I'm sure that's possible, but I've never heard a proudly gay person try to claim Nick. Whenever I've encountered the argument, it's been more of an accusation, and one that accompanies a whole range of (re-)interpretations of the book that includes similarly strange ideas. Nick's sexuality is exemplified by a range of "evidence" that is all critical of his character and, by association, homosexuality, and invariably nonsense. His "passivity" is sometimes cited. He effeminately cow-tows to Tom. He idolizes Daisy as a sort of surrogate for his own physical ideal. Etc.

Edit: To get a feel for what I'm talking about here, have a look at the first few pages of this thread: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

No need to go through the full 2000+ (!) posts in there to find a characterization of Nick (and by association homosexuality) that is dubious and negative.

All things considered, there are plenty of obvious and definitively gay characters in fiction and reality for proudly gay folks to invest their time in without trying to rewrite The Great American Novel as a clandestine civil liberties manifesto. Hemingway would probably be a better target for that kind of thing than Fitzgerald....

Gary wrote: "I'm sure that's possible, but I've never heard a proudly gay person try to claim Nick. Whenever I've encountered the argument, it's been more of an accusation, and one that accompanies a whole range of (re-)interpretations of the book that includes similarly strange ideas. ... https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/..."

Wow. When you are talking about these people, I have to agree. Homophobia and ignorance abound on this thread.

Still, if Nick turned out to be gay, I would find him a very positive character given the timeframe. And I suspect many people who grew up gay and know what that is like would feel the same way.

This is really a fine conversation. Such interesting points of view. Thanks.

Very welcome, AL.

Personally, I'm not opposed to a re-interpretation of Nick as a gay character. The story is, after all, a re-interpretation of Satyricon so a re-re-interpretation has a certain charm. What's more, I'd love for it to be that subtle and subversive. I'm an unabashed admirer of Nabokov's work. If true, TGG would rival Lolita for subtlety and sheer prose genius.

But I see very little indication that that was FSF's intention in his book, and casting the character as gay makes for a weird muddle of the plot/theme. It turns Nick's efforts to arrange for Gatsby to meet up with his cousin Daisy into a kind of tragic third wheel story. Nick is in love with Gatsby, but using his cousin as a kind of romantic proxy. That means his love for Gatsby is so profound that he's willing to sacrifice his own happiness in order to make the object of his desire happy, and/or he's turning her into a kind of emotional surrogate. So, the story isn't really about Gatsby's tragic desire to recreate the past, but about Nick trying to manipulate his present--and that just doesn't seem likely.

Further, in order to make that kind of claim, one really needs to cite evidence both from inside and outside the text. Authors don't drop a theme like that into a work without mentioning it at some point somewhere other than the work itself--in their notes, in correspondence with editors, in outright explanations to fans. Yet, nobody's been able to cite anything like that. There is only the (dubious) reading of the text.

The only other readers I can think of who give the content of a book the kind of re-evaluation and re-interpretation that the folks in that "Is Nick Carraway gay?" thread do with TGG are, maybe, the folks who insist that Heinlein's career-long sexism in books like Stranger in a Strange Land and Friday was really a very subtle kind of satire. I do think Heinlein had a thematic/philosophical message to his work, and in some ways he was progressive towards gender issues, but there's just not any support for that kind of reading from within or outside his texts, so such a rationale is the product of the reader rather than the author.

But, honestly, I think the worst sin of these kinds of re-interpretations is that they are so goddamned deadpan serious. If FSF had meant for Nick to be gay, that'd be an incredibly funny joke to play on the literary community, and even the entire nation. Millions of kids whose parents would be appalled by such an idea have been assigned that book. I WISH it were that subtle and subversive; it'd be amazing and hilarious. Yet the re-interpreters find little humor at all in the situation. It's a "C'mon!" moment, not a moment of admiration for the craft and humor that would be required to pull such a thing off.

There are a few things in Gatsby in particular that I think rise to the level of abject, earth-shattering profundity, but--sorry to say--Nick's sexuality isn't one of them.

I couldn't agree more. And in a way, the meaninglessness of the conversation is what gets me going. It's prurient, when I'm in my best mood, and it's downright let's-look-for-somebody-to-string-up when I'm in a bad way. Do you know there's a question about My Antonia asking whether Burden is transgendered? People's sexual orientation is becoming like gluten allergies, all of a sudden it matters to everybody. Like religion. You've said it, Gary, I've said it, every narrator in the world is unreliable in one way or another. It's the peering through the shades into the neighbor's bedroom aspect of the whole thing that makes me crazy. That and wondering whether it's the schools, the churches, or the parents convincing kids (when it is kids) that sexuality matters. Never trust a homosexual. When it doesn't matter. Well, sorry, it's Friday, it's a long, long week, and Friday afternoon isn't my best time. I just think if a few more people had been drunk enough a few more times, Chapter 2 would be something they could relate to. Instead of endless discussions about gay men being unreliable witnesses. Where does that belief end?

Friday. It's all right, and you're right, it doesn't matter. But they don't talk about sacrificing self-realization, self-respect, for the American Dream. They talk about who wants to put what body part where on whom. It's a great picture, as Babbit is, of the morals and morale of the period. About rising above one's class or, at a minimum, maintaining one's standing despite one's behavior. It's about a lot. It's about a wild-child, young Gatz, who might as well have been raised by wolves, but did a pretty good job for himself, if you ask me.

Ah, well.

AnnLoretta wrote: "But they don't talk about sacrificing self-realization, self-respect, for the American Dream. They talk about who wants to put what body part where on whom."

This might be a little off topic, but I suspect this kind of "critical thinking" (in America, anyway) is the result of 35 years of conservative politics and social engineering ushered in by the Reagan administration, the elevation and insertion of the "moral majority" into american politics. The already sex-negative attitudes of the population at the time have been amplified to a degree that public urination gets you on the sex offender registry now. It's no wonder people focus on sexuality so much and in such a negative way.

Getting back to the book, as I have said before, I agree that focusing on the sexuality of Nick Carraway is beside the point. And that his sexuality, in any case, bears no witness on his reliability as a narrator. I also agree with Gary that Nick being gay isn't supported by the story. His sexuality isn't even a central theme. And, as Gary has said, his being gay simply doesn't fit into the overall narrative.

[They talk about Nick's sexuality] "But they don't talk about sacrificing self-realization, self-respect, for the American Dream.": I think this points out the major flaw in focusing on Nick's sexuality. The book has so many other interesting aspects, this actually takes away from them.

There's a whole range of depredations I lay at Ronnie's door.... The "dumbing down" of America--or, at least, ramping up the process--is one of them.

One of the interesting things (to me, at least) is that if one wants to get a lot of attention as a literary critic/reviewer there's something of a formula. You have to be:

1. Well read.
2. Articulate.
3. Wrong.

All three of those things are necessary to become successful (read: famous) by commenting on artists' work. So, for instance, if an academic writes a book that accurately and astutely describes Huck Finn then s/he will get a due amount of professional attention. Maybe they can sell a few copies outside of their own academic circle; get a few awards. Etc.

However, if that person really wants attention then saying something provocative is much more effective, and that usually means sex, race or some sort of social/government conspiracy. So, we get books like Was Huck Black? or one of those "Hitler is alive in Argentina" books.

(Sidenote: I was talking to a publisher 20 years ago, and he told me that if I wanted to make $10k all I had to do was write a book and put Hitler on the cover. It didn't matter what the book was so much. Just Hitler's picture drives up sales to the point that authors can count on a certain return. I didn't really give it much credibility until a few years later (around 2008) when another publisher not only backed it up, but said that it had shifted to Osama Bin Laden, but was starting to shift back....)

Overall, though, I suspect the way this kind of thing ties into the subject at hand is that part of the "Is Nick gay?" theme comes from folks who (wittingly or not) are engaging in some sort of similar process. There's a lot of money/fame in saying something provocative--no matter how wrong and irrelevant it might be.

Gary wrote: "...the subject at hand is that part of the "Is Nick gay?" theme comes from folks who (wittingly or not) are engaging in some sort of similar process..."

The question becomes then, why is sexuality in america comparable in controversy (that can easily be monetized) to hitler and bin laden? And I suspect that the pandora's box that reagan opened is a good place to start.

I'd suggest that these ideas regarding controversy, the nature of the Reagan administration, and those aspects of how one can employ them to become successful (read: rich/famous) in America are directly connected to the theme of The Great Gatsby....

That is, we're talking about the perversion of the American dream, and how our reality fails to meet that idea. Maybe it never really existed at all, and was a scam from the very beginning? Those last few paragraphs of TGG seem to sum up Fitzgerald's own disappointment with that failure--and I'm not sure if he was saying it never existed at all or whether he simply meant that we fumble when reaching for it. He probably left it a little ambiguous either because he wasn't sure himself, or because he wanted the reader to reach his/er own conclusion.

When it comes to Reagan in particular, I see him as more of a benchmark than a originator of the issue. He was an incredibly accomplished cheerleader of what has become now a whole cancerous movement in the U.S. Whether he was himself a dupe or a decision maker I don't know. He was a very odd bird, and it's hard for me to get a read on his actual thinking. Did he realize he was spouting a bunch of anti-Humanist, corruptive rhetoric, or was he just parroting things fed to him by his various social/corporate masters in the American aristocracy? Honestly, I go back and forth on that one.

Gary wrote: "I'd suggest that these ideas regarding controversy, the nature of the Reagan administration, and those aspects of how one can employ them to become successful (read: rich/famous) in America are directly connected to the theme of The Great Gatsby....
"

Excellent point.

In terms of the American Dream, and the California Dream that co-opted it, my feeling is that both were fabrications to draw people in. And it worked!

As for Reagan, I doubt very much he was a dupe. He didn't miss a line in his eight years in office. What actor can do that? And he was well aware of what part of his soul he sold to get into office. He stated later on that one of his regrets was giving voice to the moral majority and like organizations. By then it was far too late.

Did you ever see that SNL routine in which Hartman whips back and froth between Reagan as bumbling idiot and then Reagan as a political mastermind, working all this Machiavellian plots from the Oval Office?

http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-liv...

I mention it because I'm not sure which is more accurate. The truth is somewhere in the middle, of course, but was he closer to the clueless fool or the savvy political operator? It's an interesting question....

Gary wrote: "Did you ever see that SNL routine in which Hartman whips back and froth between Reagan as bumbling idiot and then Reagan as a political mastermind, working all this Machiavellian plots from the Ova..."

The video is hilarious. Thanks for that.

Here are quotes from Reagan from the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Pretty consistent attitude, I think. For me, this kind of consistency tells me that he is a man who has his own opinions and they match the actions of his presidency. I don't buy the clueless fool routine for a second. That's the actor in him.

"A tree's a tree. How many more do you need to look at?" -- Ronald Reagan (Governor of California), quoted in the Sacramento Bee, opposing expansion of Redwood National Park, March 3, 1966

"All the waste in a year from a nuclear power plant can be stored under a desk." --Ronald Reagan (Republican candidate for president), quoted in the Burlington (Vermont) Free Press, February 15, 1980

"It's silly talking about how many years we will have to spend in the jungles of Vietnam when we could pave the whole country and put parking stripes on it and still be home by Christmas." --Ronald Reagan (candidate for Governor of California), interviewed in the Fresno Bee, October 10, 1965

"...the moral equal of our Founding Fathers." --President Reagan, describing the Nicaraguan contras, March 1, 1985

"Fascism was really the basis for the New Deal." --Ronald Reagan, quoted in Time, May 17, 1976

"...a faceless mass, waiting for handouts." --Ronald Reagan, 1965. (Description of Medicaid recipients.)

"Unemployment insurance is a pre-paid vacation for freeloaders." --California Governor Ronald Reagan, in the Sacramento Bee, April 28, 1966

"We were told four years ago that 17 million people went to bed hungry every night. Well, that was probably true. They were all on a diet." --Ronald Reagan, TV speech, October 27, 1964

Well (which is a euphemism for "for good or for ill"), I've removed TGG from my "read" list, so I no longer see the open threads which, as my worst self, I feel morally obliged to respond to. Not good for me. Pointless discussion, with the exception of people I know (James and Gary and a few other rare exceptions) in which to engage. What is a person who can't differentiate a blow from a stroke? From now on, when I'm in a bad mood, I'll abuse my dog. Joke. These posts are there for ego, and what is ego to art? I don't know the answer. Although I have my suspiciouns.

AnnLoretta wrote: "Well (which is a euphemism for "for good or for ill"), I've removed TGG from my "read" list, so I no longer see the open threads which, as my worst self, I feel morally obliged to respond to. Not g..."

Smart move. I stopped going there after you opened this group. I miss not at all the intellectually empty nonsense that goes on among the usual suspects. Although out of morbid curiosity, I just went over and peeked, and, lo and behold, the thread on Nick being gay is positively blistering! I see that you and Gary got your requisite spankings. You should know better than to try to reason with people who rely almost exclusively on circular logic - but only when a handy tautology won't do.

There is the occasional good post in those threads--or, at least, harmless ones. I usually just block the strange, intransigent readers/posters whose ideas are more than a little... idiosyncratic, shall we say. It does make for a more pleasant GR experience. But whatever works best for you.

I think the unfortunate thing is that when a good post does pop up it is summarily smacked down by you-know-who espousing one of his but what about Gatsby being a criminal? are you being intentionally dumb? what? what? i'm just asking simple questions here. i just want to understand why people think such stupid things. After giving it much thought, ok some thought, ok a passing though, ok no thought at all, I have concluded that he thinks this is a game of whack a mole. (You know, those moles hired by Goodreads to stifle his self proclaimed "bulletproof content and logic" regarding his interpretation of The Great Gatsby.) I know I can block him, and I have, but the problem is that he chases away new people with potentially fresh ideas...

It's a mania.

Well, I personally want to reread Tender, and I don't think I've ever read The Beautiful and The Damned. Not sure why, I own it. But I am somewhat bored with TGG, not bored, but I want to move on.

Gary, it is interesting to think of all that is going on beneath the main story, I love to think about Daisy in this new way. You mentioned you always thought the New Orleans man was Gatsby. Now I always thought the one Daisy was packing a suitcase to go meet in New York was Gatsby. I don't know what you think. Now I'm wondering if it wasn't another man altogether, and whether Daisy's family was frantic to marry her before she did something unspeakable! Because if, as I mentioned in one of those strings, Buchanan already had a reputation as a bad actor with women before he was married, why would her family have married her to him? They would have found out something about him, surely? Anyway, it's a whole new line of thought, two young people married off to each other by their families, each for their own familial, dynastic reasons, and what an outcome. I guess I'm thinking it was an arranged marriage?

The book upon which it's based pre-dates The Great Gatsby by a little bit (1918 rather than 1925) and the film is from 1942, but it's worth watching the introduction to Orson Welles' The Magnificent Ambersons to get a sense of the affectations of the Society that Fitzgerald was dealing with himself and portraying in his work: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ND1X5...

Oh, I remember seeing the movie in a previous lifetime! How interesting. All right, I'll add it. I don't mean to say that grudgingly, but I'm committed through 2023! But I love the suggestion! Thank you.

It's not a great film, to be honest. It's one of those films famous as much for the battle that Orson Welles had with the studio as the film itself. There's a mythical, long-lost, "director's cut" or footage that has been misplaced by vicious editors and locked away for decades which, supposedly, have the Great Man's vision in them....

I post that intro, though, just for the sense of the times that it conveys. The silliness of fashion hasn't changed all that much, really. They've changed in particulars, but I think most of the folks in this group lived through the Miami Vice period of American fashion (and we all have the mental scars to prove it) as well as... dare I say? Polyester? ::cringe:: People will wear just about anything to "fit in."

Society (capital S) was/is very involved in that sort of thing, and I think that introduction does a good job conveying it.

i GET it, aha! "She couldn't love {him]," so she'll spoil the children. It is a wonderful introduction to the right everyone had to the secrets of everyone else. Thank you! It is the trailer that matters when considering why a Louisville rich girl ended up marrying a Chicago rich boy. Thanks so much! It might be a long time after I grew up, that that's the same way people spoke about others, marriages, inheritances, who drank, who did ... everything. Just wonderful, Gary!

Let me add something that may be obvious to me, but only because I'm so old. There was a tremendous advantage to a marriage within a geographical area; it compounded property, political influence, and wealth itself. To sell a daughter out of town was to lose a powerful tool toward expanding a family's local influence -- and this is all, remember, before the U.S. holding companies that outdid most private family holdings, let alone the influence of the multi-nationals. It was a big deal, to my memory. I think it meant a lot, means something in TGG.

More. Sorry. Comparing the American system to the British system, the primogeniture concept, we're never told where Buchanan stood smongst the sons of his father. Perhaps he was the second son, and the first had already made a beneficial marriage (although given the extent of the wealth of Chicago at that time, it's hard to imagine there wasn't an advantageous Chicago marriage available to Tom if he was found worthy by the fathers of daughters). If Tom was a second son, it was the military; if a third, the clergy, had he been an aristocratic Brit. But in America, it was different. Any powerful alliance of any son with a geopolitical area was an advantage. Just musing. wondering how bad an actor Buchanan was in his youth, and how well that was known.

That inheritance issue is an interesting one, AL. I hadn't thought of it in those terms either, but Daisy would appear to be an only-child. At least, nobody mentions brothers or sisters that I recall. If she is an "only" and the sole inheritor of her family's money then that could alone be Tom's motivation to marry her.

Tom's own money would appear to be fully under his control. Nick notes how surprising it is to see someone of his own age having that kind of wealth at his disposal. But that's the thing about a lot of people with a lot of money--they always seem to want a lot more.

Oh, now, see, I hadn't thought of Tom being the one in control, I thought he had his share, which was huge, but I pictured a father back in Chicago at the helm. And coming from such a crew of big families, only children always seem the exception to me. My assumptions are more pervasive than I thought! I know this is not the way to read, but I guess I had written an entire backstory for Tom! I've read too many British novels. Which is no way to approach FSF, no way at all! Thanks, that helps clear some things up.