What Does Marxism Mean In The Great Gatsby

Money Doesn’t Buy Happiness In The Great Gatsby, The Sun Also Rises and The Catcher in the Rye all have main characters that identify as one sexuality but can be seen as the other. They are also all trying to reach The American Dream in some way even if they don’t live in America. Some might already have the money aspect of the dream, but do they have the happiness that comes along with it? That can be debated for the majority of the characters in all three of the books. The Marxist aspects of the novels can play into the queer aspects of the novels because of the fact that all the main characters are well off money wise, but they all seem to be hiding their sexuality or not comfortable with it. Queer theory explores the questions,
Even Fitzgerald would probably think so considering he believed Hemingway was gay. Tyson says, “Fitzgerald was ‘not averse’ to implying that Hemingway was gay,” (Tyson, 353) which means Hemingway might have purposely written Jake as a queer coded character. Jake is a little more obvious than Gatsby and Nick though. Jake’s relationship with his best friend, Bill, for one is very homoerotic and doesn’t follow the homosocial norms. Bill and Jake have quite literally gone on dates and act like a married couple. They sometimes bicker, but usually they get along and are very close. They talk about their feelings with each other which is something that defies Jake’s view of masculinity because men are supposed to be emotionally closed off but he isn’t with Bill. They have even said that they loved each other and while there is nothing wrong with saying I love you to your friends, the time period they were in, it would be seen as homoerotic. Therefore, it insinuates that they had romantic feelings for each other. Bill tells Jake, “You’re a hell of a good guy, and I’m fonder of you than anybody on earth. I couldn’t tell you that in New York. It’d mean I’m a faggot,” (Hemingway, 61). So, that already shows that Bill has some rooted fear of being seen as gay, but he doesn’t really seem to care if Jake thinks that because he outright tells him he likes him. Jake and Bill both have
Since Jake can’t express his sexuality the way he wants to, he expresses it through his attraction to Brett. Brett is the closest he will be able to get to being with a man. Even though she identifies as a woman, she is a very genderfluid character. When she is first introduced, Jake describes her as, “damned good looking. She wore a slipover jersey sweater and a tweed skirt, and her hair was brushed back like a boy’s. She started all that,” (Hemingway, 12). She dresses somewhat like a man and wears her hair like a man and most of her friends are men, but she still has qualities of a woman. For one, she was wearing a skirt and boys would most likely never be caught wearing a skirt back then. She also seems to be sexually attracted to men and she’s not afraid to express her feelings. So, Jake makes himself fall in love with Brett so he can make it seem like he isn’t attracted to men. This is definitely unfair to Brett, but Brett can also be seen as a Queer character. Obviously, the fact that she’s genderfluid makes her Queer coded. But even though she is very sexually promiscuous, her romantic orientation can be debated. She seems to be somewhere on the aromantic spectrum. She seems to only really want to pursue sexual relationships with men and never seems to be really in love with them. The only time she ever mentioned being in love was with Pedro when she had just met him and it was infatuation, not love. She tells Jake, “I’m a goner. I’m