Chicago '09ers: let's get to know each other!

drownergurl29
Thu, 04 Dec 2008 22:16:05 +0000

I would argue that the scene is not ambiguous, simply obscured–probably he didn’t want to draw uproar, but given the end of that chapter, it seems pretty unambiguous to me.

However, that isn’t the main point here. Ignoring ambiguity, we agree that he is a homosexual. Why would Fitzgerald put that in? He could have put it in because he felt like it, but I don’t think Fitzgerald ever did anything in that book for no reason, especially something important like the protagonist’s sexual orientation. Yes, there was a negative stigma associated with homosexuality, but Fitzgerald was a man of the world, he lived in France for several years–to be frank, this was the world of Wild. I think that Fitzgerald was focusing less on the inherent evilness or insanity of homosexuals (if I remember correctly, one of “Leopold and Loeb” was counseled to plead innocent by reason of insanity by Clarence Darrow because of his homosexuality), and more the way that nearly all homosexuals lived in the United States, that is, in the closet. I think that it sort of went along with the theme that Nick was self-deceiving and that his claim of honesty was the worst claim of all.