gattom Importance of the Automobile in The Great Gatsby

The Importance of the Automobile in The Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby was written about a time of gaiety for a certain set of people. One of the major thematic aspects of the book is driving and the automobile. At the time the book was written the car had begun its establishment as a national institution. This is apparent in one of the central events in the book. Tom's unfaithfulness first comes to light from a car accident in Santa Barbara. He misguides the car and the misdirection of his life is made glaringly evident. The automobile affected Fitzgerald and it influenced the writing in The Great Gatsby.

Driving is equated with living. Nick Carraway, describing their ill-fated trip from New York in Chapter Seven of The Great Gatsby says, "...we drove on toward death..."(143) This is both literal and metaphorical. They were driving toward the horrific scene of Myrtle's death. The entire novel deals with living, which is a movement toward death. Driving becomes a metaphor for living. Automotive transport becomes the rhetoric for describing everything. Even nature is related to automobiles. Nick describes the season in terms of elements associated with cars. "Already it was deep summer on roadhouse roofs and in front of wayside garages where new red gas-pumps sat in pools of light..."(25). For these people driving is about the new way of getting around quickly and living life fully. No one is exempt from being touched by the influence of cars. Fitzgerald incorporates the automotive metaphor into every aspect of his novel.

This is especially evident when Fitzgerald describes people. Often the basic terminology used is automotive related. Daisy describes Tom as a "great big hulking physical specim...

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...ed" that draws the automobile metaphor into it. It is the hit and run style of living that makes The Great Gatsby such a wonderful book, and Fitzgerald's continuous use of cars helps to keep this a vivid image.

Works Cited

Berman, Ronald. The Great Gatsby and Modern Times. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1994.

Dillon, Andrew. "The Great Gatsby: The Vitality of Illusion." Arizona Quarterly 44.1 (1988): 49-61.

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York. New York.: Scribner., 1995.

Godden, Richard. "The Great Gatsby: Glamor on the Turn." Journal of American Studies 16.3 (1982): 343-371.

Mizener, Arthur, ed. F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963.

Trilling, Lionel. "F. Scott Fitzgerald." Critical Essays on Scott Fitzgerald's "Great Gatsby." Ed. Scott Donaldson. Boston: Hall, 1984. 13-20.