A Short Reflection on Gatsby's Debt

Was the Great Gatsby Broke? (via NY Magazine)

Perhaps The Great Gatsby, in addition to being a parable of a gilded age, is also meant to be an example of what happens when a man loses control of his checkbook.

 Article Author Kevin Roose goes through Gatsby's finances with a fine-tooth comb and comes out the other end with a less-than-startling realization: Jay Gatsby spent a lot of money. Even by today's standards, the amount of excess present in the West Egg in the fictionalize 1920's was remarkable. Here's a quick breakdown of the kind of life the titular character of Fitzgerald's classic lived:

Parties: $165,000
House Downpayment: $1,000,000
House Monthly payments for the duration of the novel: $161,000
The famous Rolls Royce: $15,000
Boats (got to get to that glowing green light somehow): $10,000
Clothes (especially when you go around throwing them off balconies, making it rain Euopean cotton): $2,000 Miscellaneous Expenses: $25,000
Total: $1.378 million

Now, let's look at what kind of money Gatsby was pulling in during that same time period in order to pay for that kind of excess (according, again, to the author's calculations):

Bootlegging: $1 million
Side Projects at $100,000/year (this is according to Tom's comment to Nick early on in the novel): $250,000
Total: $1.25 million

Difference: -$128,000

That's right: Gatsby was in debt. Just like hundreds of thousands of today's cash-strapped college students, and most of the American population, the Great One owed money to someone. A considerable amount, too.

But that was the point! Gatsby was out to prove something, to himself, to his naysayers, to his past, and, most of all, to the lost love of his life, Daisy. He had to flash to be seen, and what better way to flash than to explode. And like any explosion, there's always going to be something to clean up afterward. Had the man (SPOILER ALERT) lived past the confines of the novel, I'm sure he would have answered to his creditors at some point in his life. As the novel stands, though, Jay is allowed to remain the pinnacle of American excess, all in the name of an otherwise unattainable (in his mind, at least) goal of love.

As the author of the article also indicates, the lavish life that Gatsby made for himself was not uncommon for the time period. Even the author, Fitzgerald himself, was known to live beyond his means, spending large amount of cash on parties and frivolities. Bootleggers, stocks-and-bondsmen, and anyone deep in the trenches of the "Golden Age" saw fit to spend everything that came in, to let the money fly out just as easily as it seemed to fly toward them.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I'm not entirely surprised at the findings. I think that any reader would notice that monetary values are rarely mentioned in the novel. Instead, we are given vague details of grand excess, with only scant information coming to our narrator, Nick. And I believe it was posed this way for a reason: we are supposed to be just as enamored with Gatsby's ability to spend (and bring in) as Nick was. We are supposed to see Gatsby as the lion of his age, the ultimate expression of a way of life that cannot last. And in his demise, we are supposed to see the frailty of this type of existence. Putting number values on everything would damage the point being made. The Great Gatsby is "great" simply because he is unknowable. To know him would be to make him a man, to bring him back down to earth, where he does not belong.

So, we let him live that way for a 100-odd pages of a novel, watching helplessly as we hope for redemption and fail to find any for this doomed character. We see that blinding green light out beyond the peer, and secretly hope that Jay will find his way there one day, but ultimately knowing that it's beyond his -- and our own -- grasp. Instead, our modern-day Icarus must fall back to Earth with the rest of us, wishing that someone (Daisy, in his case) would see the man behind the greatness, and love that being despite it all.

-JJ