Many modern readers wouldn't give it a second thought if he had. I still don't think there's enough evidence in TGG to show Fitzgerald had meant most contemporary readers to think Nick Carraway was gay. Both Dick and Nick, at that stage, are picking up the pieces.
Also, it's Dick Diver (whose point of view we are in) who deals with the repercussions there, in a rough equivalent of Nick putting McKee to bed. When Fitzgerald chose to deal with homosexuality, as he did in Tender Is The Night, he wrote an implicit rather than explicit scene. At worst, it's people being gossipy and thinking this is somehow scandalous and controversial, which is just an insult. In my opinion, there are just a lot of other straight people who, at best, are making speculations because it seems like the thing to do these days. If you look around here, I don't think you're going to find people like you much, people who want to learn the truth and give credit where it's due. How they struggled to hide it or be accepted is part of what their stories so inspiring and tragic, and it is they who are deserving of attention. These were/are great writers, thinkers and philosophers and what's more, their sexual orientation is a well known fact. But how about we acknowledge actual gay artists and historic greats? People like Walt Whitman, Oscar Wilde, Seigfried Sasoon, Wilfrid Owen, Thompson Highway, or Alan Turning. If you care and want to acknowledge gay artists, that's great. And considering the lack of evidence and the assumptions being made here, I don't see how that's helpful to gay rights and tolerance. Who's trying to erase anything? This entire debate, like the case I mentioned about Shakespeare, is about projecting an idea onto the person and the text, not acknowledging something that we know to be there. Fitzgerald agonized enough over writing this book!" I don't think Nick's sexual orientation changes anything about this great novel. I would also like to counter Philip's claim that the novel is not "sufficiently about Nick." He may not be the title character, but this novel is more about Nick than it is about anyone else.Īnnette wrote: "Thank you Matthew. So is Nick gay? Is he straight? All I suggest is that there is evidence of both.and so, he is bisexual, "half in love" with Jordan but not adverse to serious infatuation with Gatsby or a quickie with McKee. Could it be that her presence (he knows she is a cheat at golf but he forgives her for it) reminds him of the possibility of getting away with certain improprieties? And here are Nick's musings on turning 30: "Thirty-the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning briefcase of enthusiasm, thinning hair." The next few lines mention "the reassuring pressure of hand" in his, but it is not clear what exactly he is being reassured about. Well.McKee's wife (described by Nick as "shrill, languid, handsome, and horrible) could have made sure her hubby (described by Nick as "a pale feminine man") got home and into bed. It matters to the reader by not mattering to the characters.
This impotence of Nick's emotional quotient is completely the opposite of Jay's passion, yet somehow weirdly similar to his cousin Daisy's.
Had Nick attempted with either Jay or Jordan what he did with the stranger McKee, they'd have cut his balls off. It is what blocks him from inclusion among the people with whom he shares a common birthright, and from the ultra hetero Jay Gatsby. Nick's "gayness" is a foil for Gatsby and the crowd. Unquestionably Nick had sex with McKee, but it's dry, unsentimental, nothing like the sex Gatsby wants to have with Daisy, or Tom with his mistress. Gatsby's disqualified from equality by birth, but in the New America, he believes that equality can be attained through money, gotten however necessary. What he wants is to be attended to, liked, even considered co-equal, which is the main theme of the book, and Gatsby's great failure. He neither wants to have sex with Gatsby or with any of the women. Nick's sexual persuasion is confused, purposely, as is his reliability as a witness. Having taught this book for twenty years I feel I have some handle on this.