Fashion and the creation of textual effect in Edith
Wharton’s The Age of Innocence and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s
Tender is the Night
Name Hana Fogl
Subject MA Thesis Comparative Literature Thesis supervisor dr. Hanneke Stuit
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Index
Introduction 2
1 Close reading of The Age of Innocence 5
- Ellen’s outsider status 8
- Fetishism 10
- Class distinction 13
- Clothing as an armour 15
- Symbolism of May’s wedding dress 16
- Cultural-historical shift 17
- Conclusion 19
2 Close reading of Tender is the Night 20 - The function of the uniform 22 - Consumerism: power and social status 25
- Style and metaphors 28
- Conclusion 32
3 Comparison and conclusion 33
- Similarities 33
- Differences 34
- Conclusion 35
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Introduction
At first instance studying fashion in relation with literature may not seem such a logical choice of subject matter. It may even seem frivolous. Suzanne Ferris notes in the foreword of the collection of essays: Dress and Fashion in Literature (2007) that before the end of the twentieth century such a collection would have appeared frivolous (xiii) . She notes that: “the focus on fashion emerged with the advent of cultural studies and the recognition of material and popular culture as worthy of serious investigation” (xiii). However, until the end of the twentieth century fashion “was considered the purview of those in the business of designing, creating, and marketing clothing, or perhaps historians tracing the development and changes of fashion as an art form, just as they would sculpture or painting” (xiii) . Through this thesis I want to analyze the function of fashion in literature. Questions that arise are: do descriptions of fashion have a literary function? Does it contribute to the atmosphere of the novel and in what why does it contribute to the narrative and characterization of characters?
The question that remains is why would one study fashion in relation to literature? As Barthes stresses in The Language of Fashion (2004): “described clothing is not entirely general, it remains chosen” (18). Therefore, descriptions of clothing in the novel always carry meaning, they have a function. This function however, can consist as Kuhn and Carlson state in the foreword of Styling Texts Dress and Fashion in Literature (2007) of far more than merely evoking a scene or the enforcement of characterization. They argue that while “aspects of the affiliations between the living body and its decorations can be represented in literature” similarly can “the written clothed body, as well as disembodied attire … function as a narrative element with multiple dimensions” (1). Hence, “while sartorial performativity is at issue, so is the employment of apparel or accessory as symbol, image, motif, or metaphor” (1).
I have chosen Wharton’s The Age of Innocence (1920) and Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night (1934). Since my aim is to study textual effect created through the written clothed body I have chosen two authors that are known for their detailed descriptions. Baughman states in the
Reader’s Companion to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender is the Night (1996)
that Fitzgerald
“recorded social history by means of selected evocative details” (173). Although Fitzgerald at times got the facts wrong, he was mostly celebrated for his use of accurate details leaving the reader with the impression that the author had actually been to the places and had operated in the social circles that he described. Wharton too was known for her keen attention to detail. In Pamphlets of American writers (1961) Auchincloss explained how her manifold use of descriptions could be of-putting to some readers,- 3 -
because it interfered with the action. He noted that “even in scenes of tensest drama” the reader is made to notice “a bit of red damask on a wall, a Jacqueminot rose, a small, dark Italian primitive” (Achincloss 6). In short, both Wharton and Fitzgerald were known for their attention to detail, and I figured this attention to detail would also be reflected in their descriptions of character’s clothing.
The Age of Innocence was first published in Scribner’s Magazine in four issues. Likewise, Tender is the Night was first published in four issues in a magazine, Pictorial review, before being published as a complete novel. Both novels have been made into film adaptions and have been adapted for the stage. While The Great Gatsby (1925) is Fitzgerald’s best-known work, of which recently a 3D drama film of the Great Gatsby (2013) was released, I decided to choose a less obvious work. Unlike The Great Gatsby, fashion in Tender is the Night had not yet been lengthy analysed, this effectively left room for my own analysis. The two novels were published in roughly the same time period, The Age of Innocence was published in 1920 and Tender is The Night in published in 1934. Evron has argued in his essay Realism, Irony and Morality in Edith Wharton’s The Age of Innocence (2012) that her greatest strength as an author is as a novelist of manners (41). On the other hand, Rubin notes in Aspects of Naturalism in Four Novels by Edith Wharton (1957) that her work is suffused with a “powerfull strain of naturalism” and that this is “a strain too often overlooked by critics” (41). Wharton’s work has been deemed naturalist, realist and she a novelist of manners. While Perosa notes in The Art of F. Scot Fitzgerald (1965) that “Edith Wharton had given a pleasant and pleasing picture of the decline of New York society at the turn of the century” he claims that Fitzgerald too “can be seen as a representative of this group” (187). Meaning that Fitzgerald, like Wharton, portrayed the decline of New York society at the turn of the century. While Wharton has been deemed both a realist and naturalist writer, critics have noted the realism too in Fitzgerald’s work. Baughman argues: “Fitzgerald is thought of as an romantic- meaning an imaginative and emotional- writer, but he combined these qualities with realism, meaning accuracy of observation and characterization” (Baughman and Brucolli 172). “Fitzgerald properly belongs with the American social realists and social historians, the line that extends from Wharton, Dreiser, Tarkington (…) (173). Wharton was according to Evron: “an Old New York-bred elitist to the marrow”. She had “no illusions about her milieu and was never as beholden to its strictures as are the New Yorkers she depicts”. She rather “used her intimate knowledge of this clannish society’s customs and prejudices to became one of its most devastating critics” (38). Fitzgerald, in contrast was not born into this elitist milieu as Wharton. He was the son of an unsuccessful businessman, and “the mildly eccentric daughter of a wealthy St. Paul
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wholesale grocer” (Baughman and Brucolli 13). This led Fitzgerald to grow up “with a sense of being a poor boy in a rich man’s world”. Nevertheless, it also gave him “a sense of his own special destiny: both led him to believe in and pursue the American dream of success, personal fulfilment, and wealth” (44).
In short, this thesis will demonstrate how textual effect is created by the representation of fashion in The Age of Innocence and Tender is the Night. First I will analyse the symbolism represented through fashion in The Age of Innocence. I will show how the description of clothing is used to symbolize one’s outsider status and social-class, the symbolism behind May’s wedding dress and how it represents a cultural-historical shift. Furthermore, I will illustrate how desire functions metonymically in the novel and how objects come to represent a person since they are used as the metonymy the part for the whole. In the second chapter I will analyse the symbolic and metaphoric function of the uniform, how the display of wealth and status is portrayed and what effect Fitzgerald’s poetic style and use of metaphors has on the reading of the novel. In the third and last chapter I will compare the two novels and present the conclusion.
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1 Close reading of The Age Of Innocence
Wharton’s work is according to Rubin as he argues in Aspects of Naturalism in Four Novels by Edith Wharton (1957) suffused with a “powerful strain of naturalism” and he claims that this is “a strain too often overlooked by critics” (41). Naturalism is defined by Zola as Gauthier explains in Zola on Naturalism in Art and History (1955) as ”the choice of a commonplace contemporary subject, careful observation and painstakingly exact reproduction of nature ( 516). Characters were also presented as being controlled and held down by their environment, they could never break free from the social circle they were born in.
The Age of Innocence portrays a naturalistic theme in the sense that the deterministic faith of the main character Newland becomes apparent, he cannot be with the woman he loves because he is being held down by societies rules and conventions. Through the novel, Wharton recreates in meticulous detail the lost-world of the New York upper-class of the 19th century, where men would “wear dark grey frock coats and tall hats, and
always a button-hole – violets by day, a gardenia in evening-dress” (Achuncloss 27). Wharton had an incredibly eye for detail and when there was talk about adopting The Age of Innocence for the stage she wrote to her sister-in-law:
I am very anxious about the staging and the dressing. I could do every stick of furniture and every rag of clothing myself, for every detail of that far-off scene was inedibility stamped on my infant brain (Auchuncloss 27).
Wharton’s elephant-like memory was of great use to make both the novel and the screenplay as realistic as possible.
However, by placing Wharton’s work because of her faithful representation of reality in the realist tradition the symbolic function of her descriptions is overlooked. I argue that the role of fashion in The Age of Innocence shows that the descriptions in the novel are not only used as faithful representations of reality. Instead, they also symbolize wealth, social-class, Ellen’s status as an outsider and mark important shifts in the narrative.
I am going to discuss a couple of themes throughout the novel. First I am going to analyze Ellen’s outfits and the dichotomy between the individual en the group. I am also going to draw on her outsider status. Then I am going to discuss May’s way of dressing and how it symbolizes purity and virginity. After this, I will go dive into Newland’s fetishism and show how clothing represents class distinction. Next I’m going to explain how clothing is
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used as a metaphor for protection and following I will show the significance of May’s wedding dress. I will conclude with an explanation on how the changing in dress represents the changing of customs and a transition into a new era in The Age of Innocence.
In the novel, the opera is the playground for stylish, upper-class New York society who meet and closely watch each other in the red and gold boxes of the Academy of Music. It is here that Newland Archer, the protagonist of Edith Wharton’s novel the Age of Innocence, first sees Ellen Olenska. While Newland Archer is engaged to May Welland, a beautiful, young “Diana-like” girl (Wharton 122), he falls in love with May’s older cousin, Countess Olenska. The alluring, dark-haired woman has fled to New York to emotionally and physically distance herself from her abusive husband, Count Olenski. When the Welland family finds out Ellen is planning to divorce her husband, they give Newland Archer the task to prevent this disgraceful divorce. For, not only is he a successful lawyer, he is also marrying into her family and thus personally involved. The divorce would destroy Ellen’s reputation forever and bring shame to her family, thereby to Newland’s fiancée and himself. Although he succeeds in preventing the divorce, he fails to withstand Ellen’s charm and falls passionately in love with the exotic, eccentrically dressed Countess.
Fashion in The Age of Innocence reveals socio-economic identity. Clothing is used to symbolize virginity and purity on the one hand, and on the other to suggest sexual experience and lust. Furthermore, a function of the text is to show how fashion is used as a means to fit into a certain social-class or to (consciously) distance oneself from it. In other words, fashion is used to either conform to society or to rebel against it. Consequently it is shown that Countess Olenska’s way of dressing was ahead of her time, and that she as a result was frowned upon and tragically misunderstood. Ellen Olenska’s clothes symbolize the movement towards a modern world: “As Martha Banta has commented, Wharton here shows Ellen in attire that is both out of date and ahead of its time: she is “retro avant-garde,” a woman “whose look draws inspiration from the past and calls attention to itself in ways unacceptable to the present standards of New York society, yet will find approval at a future time authorized by Parisian high society” (Cain 98).
As previously mentioned, the first time Newland and thus also the reader sees Ellen it is at the opera at the New York Academy. The first one to notice her, however, is Larry Leforts. We only learn two things about him. First, that he is the man that “can tell a fellow just when to wear a black tie with evening clothes and when not to” and second that on “the question of pumps versus patent-leather ‘Oxfords’ his authority had never been disputed” (Wharton 6). It is clear from this description that Larry is an authority when it comes to fashion and dressing according to the social convention of New York in the 1870’s.
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Consequently, since we have just learned about his authority on dress, we understand the weight of his exclamation of “My God!” (Wharton 6) when he first sees Countess Olenska. It is clear through the chain reaction of glances that her entrance causes fuss amongst the attendees. Without saying a word, he hands the binoculars to old Sillerton Jackson. Newland Archer follows Larry’s glance that is directed to the person entering Mrs Mingott’s box, Ellen Olenska. Her brown hair, which she is wearing in curls is held together by a narrow band of diamonds. “The suggestion of this head-dress, which gave her what was then called a ‘Josephine look,’ was carried out in the cut of the dark blue velvet gown rather theatrically caught up under her bosom by a girdle with a large old-fashioned clasp” (Wharton 7). While her unusual outfit caused fuss amongst the fashionable New Yorkers, Ellen, however, “seemed quite unconscious of the attention it was attracting” (Wharton 7).
Throughout the novel Ellen’s clothes will continue to attract attention and will be the subject of gossip. Not only was she “simpler in manner than most of the ladies”, many people were also “disappointed that her appearance was not more ‘stylish’” (Wharton 39-40). One of these people is Janey Archer, Newland’s little sister. She continuously comments on Ellen’s outfits throughout the narrative. As if she is the spokesperson of New York society, articulating what the rest is thinking.
When gossiping with her mother about Ellen she wonders out loud if she wears a round hat or a bonnet in the afternoon. She continues by dismissing the dark blue velvet hat that Ellen was wearing at the opera, by calling it “perfectly plain and flat – like a night-gown” (Wharton 25). It is clear from her remark that Janey isn’t charmed by Ellen’s choice of hat, and finds it too ‘plain’.
While it is clear that Ellen’s clothes disappoint New York society, society also disappoints Ellen. However, there are a few moments when she acts according to its rules. After the Beaufort’s annual ball Mrs. Archer invites Mister Sillerton Jackson over for dinner so she can learn about the latest gossip on Ellen. When she finds out that Ellen didn’t attend the ball, she remarks: “it was, at any rate, in better taste not to go to the ball” (Wharton 25). Here, Mrs. Archer is alluding to the inappropriate relationship between Mr. Beaufort en Ellen who were seen strolling around New York together just a few days before the ball. Newland, on a rebellious streak, jumps into the conversation, defending Ellen. In effect, he defends her to such an extent that he underlines her awareness of her appearance and the conventions of society. One must note here, that this is one of the few examples where we see Ellen living up to the conventions of society. Newland tried to defend her by saying: “I don’t think it was question of taste with her. May said she meant to go, and then decided that the dress in question wasn’t smart enough” (Wharton 25). It seems that Mrs. Archer en
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Newland are using the word taste in different ways. While Mrs. Archer seems to be talking about moral sensitivity, Newland is defending Ellen by using the word in terms of aesthetics. Newland, conveniently, ignores the question of morality that his mother touches up on. Instead, he steers the conversation in a different direction by using the word taste in a different way than she does. Newland defending Ellen does not surprise us, since we know that he is passionately in love with her. Interestingly however, this is one of the few times that we see Ellen actually conforming to society.
Ellen’s outsider status
Yet, it is clear that Ellen is, and always will be, an outsider. Like Mrs Archer said: “We must always bear in mind what an eccentric bring-up Medora Manson gave her. What can you expect of a girl that was allowed to wear black satin at her coming-out ball?” (Wharton 25). Like Ellen, Medora Manson is also an outsider in New York society. Because of her outsider-status she isn’t granted the authority to decide when to break with tradition, had she been an ‘insider’ than maybe she was given more room to follow her own rules. However, at the moment, Ellen is permitted to transgress the ritual of purity by ‘poor’ Medora Manson who, by virtue of her status as an outsider, lacks the authority to grant permission for this transgression (Jessee 45). Hence, Ellen wearing black at her coming-out ball is an act of rebellion that goes straight against ritual and tradition. In contrast with the white of purity and innocence that the girls normally wear who are presented to society, Ellen wears seductive and lustful black. As a result we know that from a very young age she has been non-conformist, has made her own fashions and doesn’t care, or doesn’t care enough, of what other people think of her. By choosing the colour black at her coming out ball she shows society that she is an individual, as a result however, she becomes the permanent outsider.
Nevertheless, it is not clear if her choice of dress is the cause – or simply a side-effect of her being an outsider. Even though New York society is very opinionated about the way one should dress, Ellen normally doesn’t conform to the norm. When discussing with Newland the neighbourhood she lives in, she showcases the same non-conformist attitude as she does with choosing what she wears:
‘What does it matter where one lives? I’m told this street is respectable.’ ‘It’s not fashionable.’
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‘Fashionable! Do you all think so much of that? Why not make one’s own fashions? But I suppose I’ve lived too independently; at any rate, I want to do what you all do – I want to feel cared for and safe’ (Wharton 67).
It seems that Ellen uses the word fashionable to describe what is socially expected. When she asks why not make one’s own fashions, it seems that with ‘fashions’ she is alluding to one’s own rules. While the word fashion can be used to reference to material things, it seems it is used here with a social function. While Ellen tells Newland that she wants to do what everyone else does, “whenever she identifies herself with Americans, she pronounces ‘we’ with ‘a faint emphasis that gave it an ironic sound’. It is impossible for her to turn into a ‘complete American’” (Lee 574). Even though Ellen exclaims that she wants to be just like the rest, she remains an outsider because of the choices she makes, her wish to “make one’s own fashions”. May’s way of dressing however, is always in line of what society expects of her, it is always rather predictable. It is:
always appropriate and acceptable by Old New York society, carries none of the sexually charged language that Ellen’s does. Instead, May’s clothes are decorous and usually white, evoking images of innocence, purity, and blankness (Jessee 46).
Not only her clothes, however, evoke these images of purity. The bouquet of lilies-of-the-valley that she wears have been flowers that, according to medieval monks, “symbolized the chastity of the Virgin Mary” (Cain 97). While May’s lilies-of-the-valley are used to symbolize her innocence and virginity, Newland repeatedly sends Ellen yellow roses. which symbolize friendship and joy. After all, he could not send her red roses because it is clear that they symbolize love, so he chooses the safest option. Other than her lilies-of-the-valley May is usually dressed in her white satin and lace dress that represents both her traditional and practical side, since she plans to have a gown she can wear for two years. May through the clothing and the bouquet that she wears symbolizes to Newland a virginal purity. This is an example of Wharton’s extensive use of symbolism throughout the novel. In Symbolism – A Comprehensive Dictionary the color white is explained to symbolize: purity, light, the virgin Mary and simplicity. Ellen, in contrast, represents a dark and exotic sexuality through her black and red clothes. When Newland visits Ellen at her home he finds her outfit pleasing and provocative, quite possibly this wouldn’t have been the case would she have been wearing conventional clothes:
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It was usual for ladies who received in the evening to wear what were called ‘simple dinner dresses’; a close-fitting armour of whale-boned silk, slightly open in the neck, with lace ruffles filling in the crack, and tight sleeves with a flounce uncovering just enough wrist to show an Etruscan gold bracelet or a velvet band. But Madame Olenska, heedless of tradition, was attired in a long robe of red velvet bordered about the chin, and down the front with glossy black fur (Wharton 67).
To Newland, the fact that she is wearing fur in a heated room is “perverse and provocative”, he finds however the combination of fur and naked arms “undeniably pleasing”. More important is that Archer makes it a habit to obsess about objects that belong to Ellen. They seem to be an extension of herself; if he cannot have her he must possess the things that belong to her, represent her. This seems especially the case in moments of intense emotion and passion. This is why, when they are together and Ellen confesses no one else truly understands her like he does, on a sudden impulse, he kneels down and kisses her satin shoe that shows from underneath her dress. After having confessed to her that that he would have married her if it had been possible for either of them. His passion and love for Ellen are so great, yet he cannot act upon it. So the closest that he can get to making love to her, is kiss an extension of her. As McDowell explains in Edith Wharton (1976) in the novel Newland kisses her shoe with “a degree of romantic extravagance uncharacteristic of him. Later, he kisses a pink umbrella, mistakenly assuming it to be hers” (McDowell 101). He fetishizes things that belong to her. Kissing Ellen’s shoe is according to Jessee, “more intimate than kissing her lips. It is a provocative act of awareness of the meaning and importance of dress as it represents the subject – as it stands in for the woman herself” (46). In fact, when Ellen touches Newland’s knee with her plumed fan “it thrilled him like a caress” (Wharton 85). He literally as the feeling when being touched by her fan that it is Ellen’s hand that is caressing him.
Fetishism
In the novel, you can feel the sexual tension, yet sex is never directly talked about. May and Archer have three kids, but their the conception is never made explicit. May goes from representing a pure, virginal Diana-like figure to becoming a mother of three without ever being sexualized in the book. Ellen however, is ‘an erotic creature, even though she sublimates her love for Newland into a self-sacrificial renunciation (‘I can’t love you unless I give you up’) (Lee 579). Even though her sexual history is unknown to us, she oozes sexual experience. This is enforced by the risqué clothes she wears. The black satin gown during
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her coming-out ball, the fur she wears in combination with her naked skin, the soft red velvet dress she wears…
Newland’s physical contacts with her express a painful, stifled desire, almost fetishistic in its intensity. He kneels down and kisses her satin shoe, he unbuttons her glove and kisses her palm, he is fixated on her thin hands with their three rings (Lee 579).
While one of the functions in Wharton’s use of objects is the merging together of the person and object, there are also other functions. It creates an extra tension, since the person the object belongs to is unavailable. Moreover, it emphasises the difficulty of expressing love openly. In Newland’s case, there is a sharp contrast between what he wants, that being to make love to Ellen, and what he can do about it. By zooming in on the objects the erotic tension in the text is increased and the feeling of inaccessibility strengthened. Hereby, it seems, the physical desire is displaced by the materiality of clothes.
The same way Newland is portrayed having a fetishistic obsession with Ellen’s clothes, he is also obsessed with her hands. Wharton pays a lot of attention to the description of Ellen’s hands, mentioning them getting gloved, ungloved, buttoned and unbuttoned. Before Ellen leaves to go and live in Paris with Medora, May throws a farewell dinner for her. According to Newland she looked this evening: “excessively pale, and her pallor made her dark hair seem denser and heavier than ever. Perhaps that, or the fact that she had wound several rows of amber beads about her neck, reminded him suddenly of little Ellen Mingott he had danced with at the children’s parties, when Medora Manson had first brought her to New York” (Wharton 210). Here, the amber beads that Ellen is wearing are used to evoke a scene from the past, when they as children used to dance together. The beads are used as a vehicle, almost like a time-machine to go back to a time where they both were free and there were no social restrictions. Newland continues:
The amber beads were trying to her complexion, or her dress was perhaps unbecoming: her face looked lustreless and almost ugly, and he never loved it as he did at that minute (Wharton 210).
Interestingly, Newland places the reason of Ellen’s face looking lustreless and almost ugly outside of her. Instead of thinking that she hadn’t had much sleep or reasoning that she dreaded the journey to Paris or dreaded the fact she was leaving him behind, he blames the
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beads and the dress she is wearing for her colourless, dull appearance. After his observation, May asks him to take Ellen in since dinner’s been announced.
Madame Olenska put her hand on his arm, and he noticed that the hand was ungloved, and remembered how he had kept his eyes fixed on it the evening that he had sat with her in the little Twenty-third Street drawing-room. All the beauty that had forsaken her face seemed to have taken refuge in the long pale fingers and faintly dimpled knuckles on his sleeve, and he said to himself: ‘If it were only to see her hand again I should have to follow her’. (Wharton 210-211).
Previously, Newland’s desire was displaced from Ellen to objects that belonged to Ellen. Now, however, her beauty has been displaced from her face to her hands. As with the beads that transported Newland to a scene in the past, Ellen’s (gloved) hands have the same function. For, at the beginning of the novel, when Ellen arrived in the van der Luyden’s drawing room:
She came rather late, one hand still ungloved, and fastening a bracelet about her wrist; yet she entered without any appearance of haste or embarrassment the drawing room in which New York’s most chosen company was somewhat awfully assembled (Wharton 39).
Her ungloved hand and the fastening of the bracelet show her tardiness, she arrived at the van der Luyden’s although she wasn’t fully dressed. One the other hand it also shows that Ellen doesn’t care, while other’s wouldn’t leave the house until they were fully ready, every detail of their outfit in place, Ellen rushes into the drawing-room fastening a bracelet and with only one glove on.
One day, Newland is sent to pick up Ellen in Jersey City. He hasn’t seen her for months because she had been in Washington, she had returned to live in the little house she and Medora used to stay before. Newland picked Ellen up, and while they were sitting in the carriage and catching-up they were holding hands.
Her hand remained in his, and as the carriage lurched across the gang-plank onto the ferry he bent over, unbuttoned her tight brown glove, and kissed her palm as if he had kissed a relic (Wharton 180).
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Here, the sexual tension is palpable as Newland unbuttons her glove. The act of unbuttoning, to give way to naked skin is very sensual. It’s almost like he unbuttons her dress, however since this is impossible, he unbuttons her glove. Her hand in this fragment is again, objectified. A relic within the context of religion normally signifies a piece of physical remains of a saint that can be worshipped. They can consist of pieces of hair or bone for example, or it can be a piece of cloth the saint has worn. Either way, they are pieces of lifeless material attributed with special powers. Flügel argues that clothing functions as a simultaneous cover and exposure of the body, like neurosis uses symbols to both hide and reveal what cannot be said. Barthes explains Flügels theory in The Fashion System (2006). Clothing functions:
… as a kind of neurosis; since it simultaneously both hides and advertises the body in exactly the same way that neurosis hides and reveals what a person does not want to say by exhibiting symptoms and symbols (96).
Newland is using clothing neurotically. It seems that Ellen’s hands, gloved and ungloved symbolize to Newland the dressing and undressing of Ellen’s body. Newland’s desire functions metonymically. According to Lakoff and Johnson in Metaphors We Live By (1980) a metonymy “has primarily a referential function, that is, it allows us to use one entity to stand for another” (35). It is as if Newland has projected the desire for Ellen’s body onto her hands.
Class distinction
Clothing, in the novel, is also used to underline class distinction. In Ellen’s case however, it is used to represent sameness. After Countess Olenska receives a bouquet of flowers, which we are made to believe are from Mr. Beaufort, one of her admirers she orders Natasia, her maid, to bring them to a house down the road where the lady of the house is ill. On hearing that the boy is out she exclaimed:
‘Then, my dear one, run yourself; here put my cloak over you and fly!’
‘She flung her velvet opera-cloak over the maid’s shoulders and turned back into the drawing-room, shutting the door sharply. (Wharton 105)
It wasn’t usual in New York society to hand your maid your own clothes to wear, nor was it usual to call your maid ‘my dear one’.
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Ellen’s breaking with convention thrills Newland: “through all his deeper feelings, tasted of pleasurable excitement of being in a world where action followed an emotion with such Olympic speed’” (Wharton 105). It is obvious that the maid isn’t supposed to wear her lady’s clothes since she belongs to a far lower class. Class representation through clothes appears a couple of times in the novel. Another example is given when Newland is waiting on fifth avenue for Ellen to arrive. He saw two young men approaching:
There was a familiar air about their overcoats and the way their smart silk mufflers were folded over their white ties; and he wondered how youths of their quality happened to be dining out so early (Wharton 194).
Because of the cut of their clothes, Archer immediately thinks there is a certain (high) quality about them, thus apparently placing them into one of the high classes of society. He puts them neatly in the social circle that is represented by their way of dressing. When Archer meets up with Ted Newland we learn from Newlands musings hat he doesn’t think outside of the box. We learn that Archer “dressed in the evening because he thought it cleaner and more comfortable to do so” and that he “never stopped to consider that cleanliness and comfort are two of the costliest items in a modest budget” (Wharton 79). This tells the reader a lot about Newland, far more importantly than to know that he values being clean and dresses in the evening is the notion, is the notion that he has no idea that this comfort is costly and can’t be afforded by others. This also means that if Newland were to consider people less clean than himself, he would think they would be making a statement. Since he wouldn’t be able to change is perspective and see that the might not have enough money to go about dressing as he himself would. He finds Winsett ‘Bohemian’ while he thinks of himself as part of the ‘fashionable people who changed their clothes without talking about it’ and how they ‘seem so much simpler and less self-conscious than the others (Wharton 79) with the others meaning the Bohemian crowd. While fashion in the novel is used to classify people through their clothing in a distinct class of society, on top of that there also is a sub-divide. Within the upper-class of New York society fashion is used to divide society in two distinct groups.
New York, as far back as the mind of man could travel, had been divided into the two great fundamental groups of the Mingotts and the Mansons and all their clan, who cared about eating and clothing and money, and the
Archer-Newland-van-der-- 15 Archer-Newland-van-der--
Luyden tribe, who were devoted to travel, horticulture and the best fiction, and looked down on the grosser forms of pleasure (Wharton 21).
While the Mingotts cared about clothes and money, the material things in life, the Archer-Newland-van-der-Luyden group cared about activities that belonged to high culture as for example literature, instead of material goods. This makes Newlands behaviour all the more surprising. He can also be seen as an outside to his own clan, an atypical person in his materially expressed love for Ellen. Fashion, is grouped here as a way to represent materialism and to explain the divide between two groups in upper-class New York Society. Fashion, overall, has been used to distinguish social classes, and furthermore, to then again divide such an social class.
Clothing as an armour
In the novel, fashion also has the function of an armour. When Newland and May are planning their trip to London her husband sees for the first time the anxiety that dressing causes for May, since she wants to fit in with the crowd and not stand out from it like Ellen does. Archer doesn’t understand her anxiety and replies upon the question what she should wear with: “’Wear dearest? I thought a trunkful of things had come from Paris last week’” (Wharton 122). He seems to miss the point that the problem isn’t that May doesn’t have enough clothes, the problem is the doesn’t know which dress to pick for this social setting where she doesn’t know anyone and she will feel “so shy among a lot of people” she has never met, she doesn’t want to “be ridiculous” (Wharton 122). Meaning she doesn’t want to look ridiculous, not fitting in with the fashionable London crowd. While Archer is trying to be a good husband and tries to comfort her, it is clear that he doesn’t truly understand her when he says: “’But don’t Englishwomen dress just like everybody else in the evening?’” (Wharton 122). He is reprimanded by May, “’How can you ask such silly questions!’” For he should know that Englishwomen go to the theatre wearing old ball dresses and no hats. They dress far differently than anyone else. Even though it is obvious that Newland can’t quite understand May’s anxiety he does try to help her, however with no success. For when he has a flash of inspiration and suggests that May could wear her wedding dress she replies “‘oh dearest! If only I had it here! But it’s gone to Paris to be made over for the next winter, and Worth hasn’t send it back’” (Wharton 122).
When Newland sees May in her sky-blue cloak he remarks that she has made herself far too beautiful she replies snappily: “‘I don’t want them to think we dress like savages’” (Wharton 125). This is the first time that Archer finally understand that May sees clothing
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as an armour, “their defence against the unknown and their defiance of it” (Wharton 125). “And he understood for the first time the earnestness with which May, who was now incapable of tying ribbon in her hair to charm, had gone through the solemn rite of selecting and ordering her extensive wardrobe” (Wharton 125). Up until now, Newland had always considered May to be shallow, in his mind he conserved the idea of her as the virginal goddess like woman, without much depth or deep thoughts. This is the first time he sees May like she is, meticulously planning what she is going to wear as to fit into society, carefully arranging every outfit, every detail as to manipulate her way into every social circle. Newland always thinks of May “as good but superficial, created by her class and culture to be polished and refined, without depth or mystery. In the course of the novel, though, - May emerges as a woman of depth and complexity who must endure the limits of Newland’s lack of knowledge of himself and of her” (Cain 95).
Symbolism of May’s wedding dress
May’s wedding dress has a special role in the novel, as it marks an important shift in the narrative. On the evening that Mr and Mrs van der Luyden have invited Sillerton Jackson, Mrs Archer and Newland and May to go to the opera to see Faust. Newland “who had not noticed what she wore, recognised the blue-white satin and old lace of her wedding dress” (Wharton 202). May was following the custom of old New York society, that is to wear the costly wedding dress up to two years after the wedding. When getting ready to go to the opera, May tells Ellen about the last time she had seen Ellen. They had “’a really good talk’, she went on, smiling with what seemed to Archer an unnatural vividness” (Wharton 199). In hindsight we know that this is the talk where May tells Ellen that she is pregnant, even though she wasn’t sure at the time. We see May here at her smartest and most manipulative, telling what she assumes to be is her husband’s mistress she is pregnant to drive her away from him. And she succeeds, after hearing the news Ellen leaves for Washington. It should come as no surprise then, that while May is fighting for her marriage, the day after she told Ellen about her (presumed) pregnancy, she wears her re-made wedding dress to the opera, to remind Newland of their wedding day and the vows he made to her. After Newland and May arrive home, her skirt is caught in the step of the carriage and she tears her wedding dress. The ripped wedding dress is used her as a metaphor for her crumbling marriage. After they went inside the house Newland tries to finally tell May of his love for Ellen. She, however, interrupts him before he does irreversible damage. For, as long as it isn’t said out loud, May can choose to ignore the affair that he is having. While trying to drive Ellen away
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from her husband with her tricks. And she had succeeded, for when he tries to speak to her about it she replies:
‘Oh, why should we talk about Ellen tonight?’ she asked, with a slight pout of impatience. ‘Because I ought to have spoken before.’ Her face remained calm. ‘Is it really worthwhile, dear? I know I’ve been unfair to her at times – perhaps we all have. You’ve understood her, no doubt, better than we did: you’ve always been kind to her. But what does it matter now it’s all over?’ (Wharton 204)
For a second Newland believes May is well aware of what is going on, what he was about to tell her, wondering whether it could be “possible that the sense of unreality in which he felt himself imprisoned had communicated itself to his wife?” (Wharton 204). Then May explains to him that Ellen is going back to Europe since the agreement has been made that is making her independent from her husband. Newland, by now, still doesn’t fully grasp how his wife is manipulating his affair with Ellen, and that her talk with the Countess is the reason for Ellen’s leave to Europe. As May announces her victory over Ellen by claiming she believes Ellen “understands everything”, she turns to reveal her muddy, torn wedding gown to Newland. A direct metaphor for the marriage, May’s dress is no longer a perfect appearance but now has problems on its surface. While Ellen’s dress disrupts the conventional rituals of Old New York as a transgression against duty, May’s gown denotes her position in the narrative: she is always decorous, but a “conniving” threat lurks beneath the surface of decorum (Jessee 46). The muddy and torn wedding-dress besides symbolizing the rupture in their marriage, marks the shift in the story.
Cultural-historical shift
Clothing also represents a different shift in the novel. Society had begun to change and the old New York society that hung together of tradition and values was transforming into a modern society. However, it was also met with resistance. At Mrs Archer’s thanksgiving-dinner, Miss Jackson raised the point of girls wearing brand new dresses to the opera.
’The extravagance in dress-’ Miss Jackson began. ‘Sillerton took me to the first night of the Opera, and I can only tell you that Jane Merry’s dress was the only one I recognized from last year; and even that had had the front panel changed. Yet I know she got it out from Worth only two years ago, because my seamstress always goes in to make over her Paris dresses before she wears them. (Wharton 162)
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It was considered vulgar to wear the newest dresses, the rule was to put newly bought dresses away, and then, after two years, one could wear them. Miss Jackson shared an anecdote that highlighted proper behavior:
Old Mrs Baxter Pennilow, who did everything handsomely, used to import twelve a year, two velvet, two satin, two silk, and the other six of poplin and the finest cashmere. It was a standing order, and as she was ill for two years before she died they found forty-eight Worth dresses that had never been taken out tissue paper. (Wharton 163)
According to Mrs Archer, Mr Beaufort is to blame for this extravagance in dress, for it was he: “who started the new fashion by making his wife clap her new clothes on her back as soon as they arrived” (Wharton 163). While Mr Beaufort may have been behind this new trend in dress, it was a sign of a far larger cultural-historical change that had begun to take place, a move away from old traditions and values. At the end of the novel, fifty years have passed and the world has changed, Newland has the chance to see Ellen again. He, however, let’s the opportunity pass. However, he does give his son a message from him to give to Ellen: “‘say I’m old-fashioned: that’s enough’” (Wharton 228).
What he realized at that moment is that the cultural stuff out of which he was fashioned, and which continues to inform his desires, beliefs, norms and tastes, belongs wholly to the past. He recognizes in other words, that he has been left behind by cultural-historical change, that he had become – to the core of his identity – an anachronism (Evron 39).
The new dresses that are worn to the opera symbolize in the novel the cultural-historical change that has started. Fifty years later, when the shift was already complete, Newland chose to continue to live in his old world of conservative values and traditions.
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Conclusion
In conclusion, fashion has a highly symbolic function in the novel. It represents through the example of Ellen the distinction between ‘the outsider’ and ‘the incrowd’. Furthermore, May’s white clothing evokes a message of ‘purity’ and ‘virginity’ while in contrast, Ellen’s black, velvet gowns and furs seduce with their message of sexual experience and lust. Wharton extensively uses symbols to represents character’s personalities.
Newland’s desire for Ellen, and thus for her body, seems to be transferred onto items of clothing that belong to her. He portrays the fetishistic desire for her gloved (and ungloved) hands. Newland’s desire has a metonymic function, the desire for her body is transferred on to her hands. At the end of the novel, May’s torn and muddy wedding dress comes to symbolize her fractured marriage, but also a change in the narrative, from now on May’s intelligent and manipulative character is fully exposed to the reader. Lastly, the girls that have been seen wearing their newest dresses to the opera symbolizes the breaking with tradition and signifies the start of cultural-historical shift that has begun to take place from the old New York society to the modern world.
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2 Close reading of Tender is the Night
Tender is the Night (1934) is one of Fitzgerald’s most famous novels. It should come as no surprise then that a multitude of scholars have taken up the task to analyze it. There are a couple of recurrent themes that have been studied, one is as Suzanne del Gizzo argues in Within and Without: F. Scott Fitzgerald and American Consumer Culture that with Tender is the Night Fitzgerald offers “one of the most sophisticated and compelling critiques of American capitalism” (del Gizzo). In The Roaring Twenties and the Effects of Consumerism in Fitzgerald’s novels Corina Grosu states that:
It seems that money is the only motivating factor in society. His characters find stability not necessarily in accumulating money but in spending it in order to create a new image in the society, that promises to bring happiness and fulfillment (Grosu 245).
She concludes: “Tender is the Night proves that the pursuit of money leads to misery and destruction” (Grosu 246). While I do recognize that with Tender is the Night Fitzgerald offers a critique of consumer society, with a focus on fashion and clothing, has far more functions in the novel than solely working towards the novel’s finale of misery and destruction. In this chapter I will analyze the concept of the military uniform, the meaning of Nicole’s and Rosemary’s spending behavior; and the use of fashion in a metaphoric way that is characteristic for Fitzgerald’s style throughout the novel. In addition I will pay attention to the idea of clothing as an armour.
Clothing in Tender is the Night has besides adding to a description of a character’s appearance, multiple functions that point in various directions. Clothing is also used in a way to shows characteristics of a person without bluntly stating them. Fitzgerald’s life is clearly reflected in his literary work. He shows he is a child of his generation and his work is a product of the spirit of the times. This is why it is important to know the context in which Tender is the Night has been written. Del Gizzo explains in the chapter With and Without: F. Scott Fitzgerald and American Consumer Culture (2010) how the author grew up during a shift from a culture of production to a culture of consumption:
Fitzgerald came of age as a man and writer toward the end of a significant transition in American capitalism- the shift from a culture of production, in which one is
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identified and valued by what one makes, to one of consumption, in which one is defined and assessed by what one consumes or buys (35).
The influence of the spirit of the time on Fitzgerald’s work can be even stronger since an important moral shift was taking place. Traditional values are losing ground and a significant change has set in the mindset of Americans:
The ascendency of consumer culture signaled a shift in foundational American values and traditional notions of the self. A consumer-based society entailed a departure from the Protestant work ethic, or the belief that hard work and thrift yield success and social respect, a notion that had traditionally underpinned belief in the American Dream and faith in meritocracy. This “ethic” was replaced by one that put a premium not on work, saving, and humility but on leisure, spending, and the demonstration of wealth (35).
Although it seems Fitzgerald is inspired by the social change in America, the tale of Tender is the Night takes place far away from the United States. The story is set in the ‘Roaring Twenties’ in the high society of Europe. The starting point of the novel is at the French Riviera, where the glamorous and wealthy American upper-class spend their time at leisure, sunbathing and entertaining one another. It is here that Rosemary Hoyt, a young up-and-coming movie star meets the Divers. Dick Diver is a renowned psychiatrist, a handsome and enigmatic man who is the life of the party. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t take long for Rosemary to fall in love with him. Already after their first meeting Rosemary cried in her mother’s lap: ”’I love him, Mother, I’m desperately in love with him - I never knew I could feel that way about anybody’” (Fitzgerald, 19). Dicks’ wife Nicole has a family that is well-off and thus she is used to leading a more than comfortable life on an inherited income. While on the surface the Divers seem to represent “expensive simplicity” and “the exact furthermost evolution of a class”, apparently “in reality a qualitative change had already set in that was not at all apparent to Rosemary” (Fitzgerald 19).
A dark world lies behind the glittering surface of the Diver couple that Rosemary with her young and naïve eyes cannot grasp. Only after Nicole has had her first public mental breakdown, do the cracks in the Divers marriage begin to show. It is then as well that Dick’s world starts to crumble and the apparent destruction that had been shimmering on the surface sets in with full force. As a result of her father’s sexual abuse when she was a child, Nicole now suffers from schizophrenia. Even though she was considered to be a great
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beauty and was very wealthy, she knew that she wasn’t a great catch due to her illness. She asked Dick: “’If I hadn’t been sick would you – I mean, would I have been the sort of girl you might have – oh, slush, you know what I mean’” (Fitzgerald 131). Nicole’s sister, Baby Warren, came up with the plan to let her marry a psychiatrist, that way Nicole would always be taken care of. She asked Dick rhetorically: “what could be better in her condition than if she fell in love with some good doctor –“ A burst of hilarity surged up in Dick, the Warrens were going to buy Nicole a doctor … (Fitzgerald 130). As Grosu argues in The Roaring Twenties and the Effects of Consumerism in Fitzgerald’s Novels (2012):
Dick Diver, is turned into an object by the Warrens, who consider that the best solution for Nicole’s recovery is the marriage with her psychiatrist. Thus, Dick is turned into a commodity, bought by the Warrens to do his job-making Nicole feel better (Grosu 241).
Although the idea seemed hilarious to him at first, Dick eventually does marry Nicole. This however results in a poisonous relationship on multiple levels. For, not only did he appear to be “bought” by his wife’s family, he “suffers a kind of moral schizophrenia, for his precarious balance comes to depend on Nicole’s need for him” (Shain 40). Taking care of Nicole wears Dick out and this consequently keeps him from ”fulfilling his promise as a brilliant young psychiatrist; her possession of a fortune has accustomed her to a luxurious lifestyle, and its comforts and requirements further weaken Dick Diver’s resolve” (Baughman and Brucolli 47). When Nicole, finally fully recovered becomes to a great extent emotionally independent the story enfolds and Dick’s destruction sets in. While on the one hand Dick and Nicole’s relationship can be seen in economic terms, Dick has been bought to marry and take care of her, the price he pays, however, is high. The marriage costs him his independence. When Dick and Nicole first meet, Dick is dressed as a soldier. Dick in his uniform, symbolizing authority and the ability to protect Nicole, highly contrasts with the novel’s disastrous ending where he is not even able to protect himself from destruction.
The function of the uniform
The uniform in itself stresses uniformity and recognisability. It characterizes a specific group and relies on traditional values with the privileges and status that go along with it. People can be recognized as soldiers through the clothes that they are wearing. Within the army there are different ranks, and there is an insignia symbolizing each rank. This insignia
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is stitched on the sleeve of the uniform, so on first look the rank of the soldier can be recognized.
When Dick meets Nicole for the first time, he is in uniform. Nicole undergoes treatment in the Dohmler’s clinic in Switzerland. She is outside taking a walk with a nurse when she and Dick meet. Dick was on his way to the clinic to visit Franz Gregorovious, a resident pathologist at the clinic and a personal friend of his. Later in the novel, Dick reflects on their first meeting with Franz. Dick tells him:
‘I only saw her one time, that’s a fact. When I came out to say goodbye to you just before I went over to France. It was the first time I had put on my uniform and I felt very bogus in – went around saluting private soldiers and all that … I caught up with a nurse and a young girl. I didn’t think the girl was a patient; I asked the nurse about the tram times and we walked along. The girl was the prettiest thing I ever saw.’ ‘She still is.’ ‘She’d never seen an American uniform, and we walked, and I didn’t think a thing about it.’ (Fitzgerald 101)
This quote indicates that the first time Nicole sees Dick, it isn’t in his role as a psychiatrist but as a soldier. This gets heavily stressed by the uniform he is wearing; the fact that he is in the military can signal to Nicole that he is brave, manly, authoritative and able to protect her and can take care of her. Within eight months of having met, Dick receives over fifty letters from Nicole. The first beginning with: “Mon Capitaine - I thought when I saw you in your uniform you were so handsome” (Fitzgerald 102). The uniform and Nicole’s attraction to Dick appear to go hand in hand. The military uniform makes another appearance in the novel, this time however it is not being worn, but is simply referenced to. In conversation with Rosemary, Tommy Barban, a friend of the Divers, explains to her that on the subject of war he doesn’t care what he fights for, as long as he is well treated. Then he goes on to say:
‘When I’m in a rut I come to see the Divers, because then I know that in a few weeks I’ll want to go to war.’ Rosemary stiffened. ‘You like the Divers.’ she reminded him. ‘Of course - especially her - but they make me want to go to war.’ She considered this, to no avail. The Divers made her want to stay near them for ever. ‘You’re half American,’ she said, as it that should solve the problem. ‘Also, I’m half French, and I was educated in England and since I was eighteen I have worn the uniforms of eight countries.’ (Fitzgerald 27)
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The military uniform is not only used here as a means to discredit the Divers, Tommy, by first saying that he doesn’t care what he fights for as long that he is well treated and subsequently continuing by saying that by seeing the Divers he wants to go to war he is implying that he gets badly treated by the Divers. Furthermore, saying “I have worn the uniforms of eight countries” is just another way of telling Rosemary that he has fought for eight different countries. However, the way Tommy puts it is far more eloquent. Here Fitzgerald uses the part for the whole; the uniform in this case represents the whole army. By stressing the uniform, moving it to the beginning of the sentence, the reader can feel the pride and the honour Tommy felt in in serving the army. By putting forward the uniform, Tommy’s utterance gets a different charge, then when he just would have stated that he has thought for eight different countries. Fitzgerald, by using this metonymy, lets the reader feel Tommy’s pride in serving the army, without having Tommy say the words pride or honour. While Tommy does not use the words pride and honour in his conversation with Rosemary, Fitzgerald by using this metonymy lets Tommy’s character show through this construction. Tender is the night is not Fitzgerald’s only novel where the military uniform makes an appearance. In The Great Gatsby (1925), Jay Gatsby uses it as a disguise from his humble background when he tries to woo the rich Daisy Fay. He uses “the invisible cloak of his [army] uniform”. Del Gizzo argues this is because: “the uniform erases any indication of social standing or personal wealth” (40) this way Gatsby, otherwise by the first look at him already with a clear disadvantage, can present himself as belonging to the same social group as Daisy. While in The Great Gatsby the uniform is used as a means to disguise a social background and the goal is to eventually get a woman, in Tender is the Night it is used as a representation of manliness and protection. It underlines the romanticized idea Nicole has of Dick as a soldier, for when he receives her very first letter she had written apologetically “that she had heard from America how girls wrote to soldiers whom they did not know” (Fitzgerald, 102). It immediately also justifies her behaviour, which could have been considered strange, as she is writing to a completely unfamiliar man.
In short, Fitzgerald uses the uniform as part of the characterization between Dick and Nicole. Through its symbolism the reader understands the attitude that Dick projects and the characteristics that initially attract Nicole when seeing him for the first time. In addition, Fitzgerald, by letting Tommy Barban’s say “he has worn the uniform of eight countries” not only shows the reader Tommy’s proud character, he lets the reader feel the pride through this sentence.
Like Tommy’s pride, Nicole’s eccentricity also gets subtly shown by Fitzgerald. In her case it is shown through her spending behaviour, consumerism being an important
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theme in the novel. In the fragment where Rosemary and her mother go shopping with Nicole, Rosemary:
… watched Nicole pressing upon her mother a yellow evening bag she had admired, saying ‘I think things ought to belong to the people that like them’ – and then sweeping into it all the yellow articles she could find, a pencil, a lipstick, a little notebook, ‘because they all go together.’ (Fitzgerald 30)
This spending behaviour can be an aspect of Nicole’s illness. While discussing Nicole’s disease with Baby Warren, Nicole’s sister, Dick tells her: “’She’s a schizoid – a permanent eccentric’” (Fitzgerald 129). Buying lots of yellow things doesn’t make one schizophrenic, it does show however her eccentric character, and this eccentricity is an aspect of her illness. While in this example consumerism, the buying of yellow products has been used by Fitzgerald to characterize Nicole, he has also used an aspect of consumerism, namely ownership to show the dynamics between Dick and Nicole in the early stages of their relationship.
Consumerism: power and social status
In the fragment where Dick and Nicole are in Zurich and meet for lunch, Dick notices a stranger staring at her, “he turned to the man with an urbane version of intimidation and broke the regard” (Fitzgerald 117). He dismisses the man’s gaze by explaining to Nicole: “’He was just looking at your clothes’.’” Then he continues by asking her: “’Why do you have so many different clothes?’ ’Sister says were very rich,’ she offered humbly. ‘Since grand-mother is dead.’” (Fitzgerald 117). This passage is rather ambiguous. While Dick says to Nicole that the man was only staring at her clothes, the question left to ask is why would Dick feel the need then to intimidate the man with his stare to such an extent that he broke the regard? An explanation could be that the man staring at Nicole wasn’t solely looking at her clothes, but he was rather admiring her beauty. Dick, by pointing out that the man was looking at her clothes, instead of her who was wearing the clothes, is creating a new reality. Here the fact that she is a person that can be admired and has a body underneath these clothes that too can be admired is hidden. Since Dick was in love with Nicole he probably considered her to be his, as an object that belonged to him. According to Grosu, Fitzgerald’s characters have the habit to view people in economic terms. She explains in her analysis of the effects of consumerism in Fitzgerald’s novels:
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The majority of Fitzgerald’s characters are obsessed with materialism and consumerism and because of that they have the tendency to value human beings in economic terms. Thus, they begin to treat people as objects, considering that everything and everyone can be bought and sold in a consumer culture society (Grosu 238).
Grosu’s explanation of Fitzgerald’s characters can also explain Dick’s behaviour. While treating Nicole as ‘his’ she could be ‘bought’ and he could lose her. The objectification of people and the sense of ownership over them is also illustrated in the passage where Rosemary goes to Monte Carlo to meet with Brady, a movie-director:
As he took her hand she saw him look her over from head to foot, a gesture she recognized and that made her feel at home, but gave her always a faint feeling of superiority to whoever made it. If her person was property she could exercise whatever advantage she had in its ownership. (Fitzgerald 21)
Rosemary, literally objectifies herself in this passage, seeing her body as property that she owns and seems to feel empowered by it. The objectification of people and the sense of ownership over them are not the only examples of consumerism in the novel. In the fragment where Rosemary tries to guess what it is about Nicole that makes her attractive she concludes:
Certainly she was the most attractive woman Rosemary had ever met – with her hardness, her devotions and loyalties, and a certain elusiveness, which Rosemary, thinking now through her mother’s middle-class mind, associated with her attitude about money. (Fitzgerald 47)
Rosemary concludes that an aspect of Nicole’s allure has to do with her attitude toward money. This attitude is shown in the next fragment, where Nicole buys everything that she sees. She even buys products that she cannot use herself, to later give away to friends:
Nicole bought from a great list that ran to two pages, and bought the things in the window besides. Everything she liked that she couldn’t possibly use herself, she bought as a present for a friend. She bought coloured beads, folding beach cushions,
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artificial flowers, honey, a guest bed, bags, scarfs, love-birds, miniatures for a doll’s house, and three yards of new cloth the colour of prawns. (Fitzgerald 47)
Suzanne del Gizzo explains how according to Thorstein Veblen in his novel The Theory of the Leisure Class (1899), a novel on the emptiness behind the consumption of the leisure class, the publicly and extravagantly spending of money serves two goals. The first being:
… the demonstration of purchasing power through the act of spending or shopping; second, the demonstration of wealth and social status through the display of objects once they are purchased (Del Gizzo 39).
Throughthis theory, Nicole is displaying power through the act of spending and purchasing, and is displaying her wealth and social status by displaying the products once they are bought. As previously mentioned, Rosemary tried to pin point what it was about Nicole that made her attractive. It seems now that Nicole’s illusiveness consisted out of the manifestation of power. Del Gizzo explains that while in contemporary society Veblen’s observation may seem self-evident, at the time however the disengagement of objects from their utilitarian need was completely new:
the emphasis on the use of objects as means to display wealth and status gave them a new significance in social life by disengaging them from their most basic, traditional purpose: to meet some particular, utilitarian need (39).
In the next fragment, the display of wealth and status becomes all the more apparent. Fitzgerald explains through a comparison that Nicole buys objects not because she needs them. He makes it clear that Nicole still has a purpose for purchasing this items. This purpose however is never articulated.
She bought all these things not a bit like a high-class courtesan buying underwear and jewels, which were after all professional equipment and insurance – but with an entirely different point of view. (Fitzgerald 47)
Nicole bought all these things not because they would serve a utilitarian need, on the contrary, Nicole bought them “with an entirely different point of view” (Fitzgerald 47). Fitzgerald however doesn’t make it explicit what point of view this exactly is. When using
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Veblen’s theory, the point of view would be that Nicole bought them to display her wealth and status since the objects that she bought are disengaged from their traditional purpose; they no longer serve a utilitarian need.
Style and metaphors
While consumerism and the purchasing of items in the novel can display wealth and status, it also shows character traits as seen in the example of Nicole buying solely yellow objects; in addition fashion in the novel is also used by Fitzgerald in a metaphoric way, hereby highlighting his poetic style.
When Dick comes to visit Nicole in the clinic, he somewhat brutally reminds her of the fact that she has been ill. He assures her that she can lead a “perfectly normal life” (Fitzgerald 122). Dick hereby highlights the contrast between Nicole’s former life, one marked by illness and hospitalization and another life she could lead, a “perfectly normal” one. He also tries to assure her that she should fall in love, maybe not immediately but somewhere within a year. Since Nicole is in love with Dick, him urging her to fall in love with someone else shatters her fantasy of the two of them being together. The question arises: “Was it an hour ago that she had waited by the entrance, wearing her hope like a corsage at her belt?” (Fitzgerald 122). Fitzgerald uses a metaphor; here in the form of a corsage on a belt, which besides catching the eye, has a decorative function. Thus, like a corsage Nicole’s hope is plain for everyone to see. By inventing this metaphor, Fitzgerald highlights certain aspects of Nicole’s ‘hope’ while hiding others. He hides for example the existence of Nicole’s inner life, the hope that she can feel but is not apparent to the outside world. He highlights however the fact that her hope is apparent to the outside world but also that it is an empty emotion. A belt has the function of holding up clothing, a corsage however is added only for its decorative function, to be admired by others. And it can also be easily removed. Meaning possibly that the only function Nicole’s hope has is that of being admired by others. Because it only exists through the eyes of others on her, it is actually empty, since it does not come from within. The only purpose it serves is that of being looked at. In short, it seems that Nicole just adds a layer of emotion to attract attention.
In the same fragment Fitzgerald continues: “Dresses stay crisp for him, buttons stay put, bloom narcissus - air stay still and sweet” (Fitzgerald 122). Here, it seems that Fitzgerald tries to describe the effect Dick’s charm has. For, not just Nicole tries her best to please Dick, by way of personification, the text suggests that dresses remain spotless and fresh, no buttons are falling off or hanging on a thread specially for Dick. As Lackoff and Johnson explain in Metaphors we live by: “personification is a general category that covers
