Monday, January 7, 2013

EVERYBODY'S (insert theory here)!.......again

Lois Tyson's queer theory reading of The Great Gatsby serves to portray that Nick Carraway is a closet homosexual. And that idea can be seen in certain instances, such as at the party at Tom and Myrtle's apartment, where Nick wipes the lather from Mr. Mckee's face because it "had worried me all the afternoon" (Gatsby 41), as Nick describes. Tyson takes this scene and claims that it "implies the progression of a homoerotic attraction between the two men" (CTT 344). This attraction can be seen, and one might certainly have agreed with her entire essay, had she stuck with the fact that Nick Carraway was the homosexual main character of The Great Gatsby. But Tyson goes on to proclaim that almost every other character is homosexual: "Tom continuously...suggests a need to reassure himself of his heterosexuality" (CTT 345) and "Jordan Baker, whose name could belong to a man or a woman, is associated with numerous lesbian signs" (CTT 346). But seriously? If Jordan was a lesbian, then she and Nick would not have had sex. And Tom, although he constantly asserts his power over Nick, that assertion is only because of Nick's inherent shy and manipulable nature, which could stem from his possible (but very likely) homosexuality. Overall, Tyson makes some decent arguments, but her argument falls short when she tries to apply it to EVERY DAMN CHARACTER.

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