Before Andrew Tate, there was Tom Buchanan. Did Fitzgerald actually favor Tom? America's culture war wrt masculinity has been long. No green light in sight.
Great essay! The difference between Tom and Nick is obvious, but the difference between Tom and J. Gatsby is a little more difficult to understand. Is it just the alpha and the challenger? That is, they are essentially the same breed but one is settled at the top and one is still trying to rise to the top?
Thank you and apologies I didn't state this more clearly in the piece. I think Tom and Gatsby are different sides of the same coin, hegemonic masculinity was the term of art here. The difference concerns their purpose (telos) in the novel. Tom is the old (falling); Gatsby is the new (rising). I see Fitzgerald choice to sacrifice the rising form despite an all out assault on the old form as a concession that the new may be worse. I am intrigued by Fitzgerald's ambivalence about who the paragon of man should be because I think it signals a need for a proper apologetics for masculinity all the way back in the 1920s - something we still struggle with today. It's interesting to see this come from Fitzgerald who seems to have conceived of himself as a bit of an effete outsider.
You delve into a new perspective on classic American literature with modern sex-based reflections. However your brief dismissal of “On the Right, masculinity is honored sometimes to the point of fetishization or explicitly at the expense of femininity” is undeveloped with no reflection on the left’s perverting feminism to brain wash women against healthy femininity and to label healthy masculinity as oppressive. I think socially, culturally, academically and biologically one cannot examine masculinity without comparing and contrasting to femininity and vice versa and how the yin and yang enhance the best aspects of each and mollify the worst aspects of each.
It interesting to reflect on the author’s artist interpretations to the point of climax but there was no denouement of you bringing this all together to forge a path of understanding the current cultural problems we are facing from incels, transing of children and young adults, plummeting birth rates, aging women who are husbandless and childless because they have been tricked into thinking becoming smaller versions of men is supreme, to the war on boys academically and the medicalization of children and young adults whose biologic birthright is culturally subjugated.
I've written about some contemporary sociological trends in other posts. I was just interesting in offering a reading of The Great Gatsby that I think has been overlooked in favor of its interest in class-based manners and the cultural and material ambiance of the 20s.
I guess I could have added that I think the persistence of Gatsby or even a more active version of Nick as today's model of the pinnacle of manhood has created a path for a particularly aggressive case for Tom to be made at the margins.
Great essay! The difference between Tom and Nick is obvious, but the difference between Tom and J. Gatsby is a little more difficult to understand. Is it just the alpha and the challenger? That is, they are essentially the same breed but one is settled at the top and one is still trying to rise to the top?
Thank you and apologies I didn't state this more clearly in the piece. I think Tom and Gatsby are different sides of the same coin, hegemonic masculinity was the term of art here. The difference concerns their purpose (telos) in the novel. Tom is the old (falling); Gatsby is the new (rising). I see Fitzgerald choice to sacrifice the rising form despite an all out assault on the old form as a concession that the new may be worse. I am intrigued by Fitzgerald's ambivalence about who the paragon of man should be because I think it signals a need for a proper apologetics for masculinity all the way back in the 1920s - something we still struggle with today. It's interesting to see this come from Fitzgerald who seems to have conceived of himself as a bit of an effete outsider.
You delve into a new perspective on classic American literature with modern sex-based reflections. However your brief dismissal of “On the Right, masculinity is honored sometimes to the point of fetishization or explicitly at the expense of femininity” is undeveloped with no reflection on the left’s perverting feminism to brain wash women against healthy femininity and to label healthy masculinity as oppressive. I think socially, culturally, academically and biologically one cannot examine masculinity without comparing and contrasting to femininity and vice versa and how the yin and yang enhance the best aspects of each and mollify the worst aspects of each.
It interesting to reflect on the author’s artist interpretations to the point of climax but there was no denouement of you bringing this all together to forge a path of understanding the current cultural problems we are facing from incels, transing of children and young adults, plummeting birth rates, aging women who are husbandless and childless because they have been tricked into thinking becoming smaller versions of men is supreme, to the war on boys academically and the medicalization of children and young adults whose biologic birthright is culturally subjugated.
I've written about some contemporary sociological trends in other posts. I was just interesting in offering a reading of The Great Gatsby that I think has been overlooked in favor of its interest in class-based manners and the cultural and material ambiance of the 20s.
I guess I could have added that I think the persistence of Gatsby or even a more active version of Nick as today's model of the pinnacle of manhood has created a path for a particularly aggressive case for Tom to be made at the margins.
delve?
“Analyze, dig excavate”
Interesting reading, Stetson!
Thank you!