Suburb In The Great Gatsby

“I began to like New York,” Nick Carraway explains, “the racy, adventurous feel of it at night, and the satisfaction that the constant flicker of men and women and machines gives to the restless eye” (The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald). It is that “flicker” that has attracted “restless” men and women eager to be free of the scrutiny of the country and move to the city. Reinforcing Fitzgerald’s suggestions, Iris Marion Young, in City Life and Difference wrote that the metropolis fosters “an attraction to the other, the pleasure and excitement of being drawn out of one's secure routine to encounter the novel, strange, and surprising” (266 Young). Unlike a life lived in the country, in the urban area, due to the culture and structure, there
The suburb, Brookbridge, is described as a “change to the almost pastoral sweetness of the good Boston suburb from the loud, longitudinal New York” (James 2-3). Brookbridge is an idyllic suburb--yet the daughters are trapped by their mother, Mrs. Rimmle. Much focus is placed on how other people view the family, therefore, life is lived structured and prudent-- “these ladies were so much of the place and the place so much of themselves….very ancient and very earnest, I think theirs must have been the house in all the world which ‘culture’ came first to the air of morning calls” (James 3).With this much emphasis on conformity from Mrs. Rimmle to be “ancient and earnest”, daughters developed an inner rebellion. Europe, to them, was a release from the values which had been so adamantly enforced in their lives; they wanted to stray from the values their mother exemplified, “blandness and firmness” (James 3) and “pastoral sweetness… [and] good” (James 2). Although Mrs. Rimmle attempted to regulate her daughters’ lives, there ached a desire within the girls to break free. However, Becky was unable to do this, mainly for the subconscious fear of the consequences of nonconformity, feeling as if they had a “duty--which was to stay at home” (James 4). Even though Mrs. Rimmle seems to insist the girls go, yet somehow something always intervenes,
Due to the pressure to fit a certain standard forced on her, Jane becomes captivated by the idea of a Europe of which she had heard stories about from her mother. When presented with the opportunity to go, Jane leaves, but refuses to return to Brookbridge, enamored by Florence. When in Europe, the Rimmles noted her change; Europe made her “strange and free and obstreperous” (James 13), and “she had ‘tasted blood’” (James 13). For the first time in her life, Jane had acted on her instinct and desires and experienced rebellion, danger, and freedom. She leaves behind her family and her idyllic, suburban town for Florence, a place of romance, excitement, and anonymity. In Florence, her actions do not matter as her mother is not there to be a constant reminder of the role she must demonstrate--she is free to act on her own her desires--“ ‘Europe’...at last brought her out” (James 15). (try to expand) Back in Brookbridge, her mother “never speaks of it...she’ll disinherit her” (James 15). This behavior is condemned by Mrs. Rimmle--her perspective closed to any values that diverge from her