Loneliness and the use of Illusion

[By Luann (Suhr) Akaydin]

The theme of loneliness is addressed throughout The Great Gatsby from the very start. The characters of Nick, Daisy, and Gatsby don’t have any faith in the people around them because they don’t know if they are staying there or not. They feel they can be “[decomposing] apathetically… all afternoon” (29) in a room full of people with no one to realize it. They are each, even in the company of others, utterly and truly alone. The quote, “People disappeared, reappeared, made plans to go somewhere, and then lost each other, searched for each other, found each other a few feet away” (37) seems to describe how the characters all feel temporary to each other. There are many instances where the book hints at loneliness or depression through illusion. The book does this by choosing to use the word “gray” so many times as well as through its characters. The characters of Nick, Daisy, and Gatsby find and “[lose people]” only to realize “[they are right next to them]”. No one has any permanence in their relationships.

Loneliness and sadness in general is found in the subtext of Nick’s description of so many things in the world with the color gray and we see his illusion of a lonely world. A lot of the things that are mentioned are described as being gray, for instance, “upholstery” (27), an “old man” (27), “little villages in France” (47), “cars” (23), “land” (23), “eyes” (58), and “names” (61). It is as if the narrator, Nick, is seeing the world in shades of gray. The effect of so much gray is stacked to the point of indicating a melancholy tone within the text. “Gray” (which appears 10 times within the text), “ash” (which appears twice), “ashes” (which appears 6 times), and “cement” (which appears once with the text) are all shades of gray or symbolic of a shade of gray. From the color choice being “gray” or gray-like so frequently the reader starts to see gray and the shades of gray as depressing. Even inanimate objects seem to have a sadness about them. Nick is deluding himself into believing everything is gray even though they may not actually be gray. Nick sees the world through lonely eyes.

Nick is a very lonely person since he doesn’t feel like he’s connecting with anybody. Nick states his view on life to the reader when he says, “Life is much more successfully looked at from a single window after all” (14). The reader is just introduced to Nick and already sees that he has a skewed view of the world. He has deluded himself and does not want to see the whole picture, only a part of it. He doesn’t seem to think details and outside factors are important. By saying, “from a… window” this implies that he considers himself an outsider, just a spectator, and not part of anything. Nick is so lonely that he even feels the loneliness in others. This loneliness is even told directly to the reader by Nick himself when he says, “I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and felt it in others” (56). He might be projecting his loneliness onto others so he can feel that he is not the only one feeling this way or he may genuinely sense sadness in others.

Nick doesn’t have anyone who he loves in reality and sees in his dreams or even imagines in his waking state. Nick says, “I had no girl whose disembodied face floated along the dark cornices and blinding signs, and so I drew up the girl beside me, tightening my arms” (80). He doesn’t have that connection to anyone so he tries to pretend by putting up a façade of a relationship with Jordan in his mind temporarily by bringing her closer to him physically. He needs this closeness, this intimacy, or the illusion of it. This is also seen later on in the text when Nick compares himself to Gatsby and Tom. He is jealous of the fact that they each have someone and he is trying to trick himself into believing he also does by getting closer to Jordan. While at Gatsby’s party Nick is extremely uncomfortable with being alone: “[He slinks] off [to] the only place in the garden where a single man [can] linger without looking purposeless and alone” (42). He wants to hide, even if it is out in the open. Nick is a person who feels so utterly alone that anyone will do, even if he doesn’t actually want to be with that person. This is seen in the text when he is referring to Jordan Baker. While at the party, Nick informs the reader that, “Welcome or not, I [find] it necessary to attach myself to someone” (42). This tells the reader that he will settle. He has given up and he has been defeated.

Nick imagines having relationships with women because these imaginary relationships of his can never be ruined. Nick even resorts to imagining meeting girls and having them like him as he “liked to… pick out… women… and imagine that [he] was going to enter into their lives” (56). He is lonely but not confident enough to approach any of the women. He likes this farce because it keeps him safe from being hurt and he doesn’t have to put his pride at risk. The women disappear because they are only illusions of his mind. Nick feels people in his life are temporary, coming into his life and then disappearing so he is destined to be lonely once again.

Since Nick is not just a character, but also the narrator, we see his illusion of loneliness in the description of his surroundings, as well as, his being a pessimist and seeing things and people falling apart, before anything happens to indicate a negative outcome, which makes him believe that nobody sees him or that everyone has forgotten about him. He sees the place “where ashes take the forms of ashes and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air” (23). Things, even people, are temporary. The illusion of “men who… [crumble]” shows how people are temporary and not even there when they seem to be there. Even the way that Nick describes the billboard of a pair of eyes is like the eyes are watching his every move and judging him. He feels like he is “under Doctor Eckleberg’s persistent stare” (24), even though Doctor Eckleberg is not really there. This “persistent stare” makes him continue to be nervous and self-conscious. Nick feels that the doctor “sank down himself into eternal blindness or forgot [about the billboard]” (24). This view of how he thinks Doctor Eckleberg feels about the billboard is indicative of how Nick feels about himself. He feels like no one cares. Nick remembers feeling that when he was out West, “…where an evening was hurried from phase to phase towards its close, in a continually disappointed anticipation or else in sheer nervous dread of the moment itself” (12).  He rushed through the days and nights fearing the moments in his life. He never enjoyed life, he just feared it.

The character of Daisy also experiences loneliness and attempts to rush through her life to avoid dealing with her reality. This is seen most clearly when she describes the day her daughter was born, “I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling… I turned my head and wept” (17).  Why wouldn’t Daisy feel lonely? Though she is married, her husband cheats on her. He doesn’t hide this fact from anybody.  Daisy and everyone else clearly know about it. He had cheated on her since the beginning of the marriage and it even made it into the papers. At this point in the book, her husband didn’t even show up to the hospital on the day that their daughter was born. Daisy is married to a man that she doesn’t love and who doesn’t love her while she longs for something more. She is alone in her house, within her family, and is unable to confide this to anyone. She doesn’t feel like there is anyone there for her. When Nick says that he “followed Daisy around a chain of connecting verandas” (16) he is reinforcing the point of his and Daisy’s loneliness. By using the word “chain” it implies that the characters of Daisy and Nick are stuck, or feel like they are imprisoned where they are in their respective lives. This metaphorical chain is holding them back from escaping their reality, their loneliness.

Nick is even lonely for Gatsby as he knows how it feels to be alone which causes him to project all his loneliness onto Gatsby and feel empathy towards him, like they are one in the same. This is clearly seen when Nick first sees Gatsby “[stretching] his arms out toward the dark water… [the only thing to be seen in his gaze was] a single green light, minute and far away” (20-21). Later in the book we learn that this light represents Daisy as his long lost love. He pines for her and as portrayed in this quote he is reaching for something that is clearly not within the realm of his grasp.  During Gatsby’s party Nick notices that “girls were swooning… but no one swooned backward on Gatsby, and no French bob touched Gatsby’s shoulder, and no singing quartets were formed with Gatsby’s head for one link” (50). Rather than Nick recognizing that the girls were not “swooning” over him, he instead recognizes the lack of women around Gatsby. Nick perceives Gatsby to be lonely for the attention of women like he is. Nick even goes so far as to see the love and acceptance that he craves in the smile of Gatsby, a stranger to him at the time. Nick says of Gatsby’s smile, “It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it … it… concentrated on you… understood you… believed in you… and assured you” (48). Nick sees all that he wants others to see in Gatsby in the instance of the appearance of Gatsby’s smile. Gatsby, although a rich and prosperous business man, also experiences loneliness through Nick’s eyes.

Gatsby drifts from place to place moving without any real purpose. During a drive with Gatsby, Gatsby says to Nick, “I usually find myself among strangers because I drift here and there trying to forget the sad thing that happened to me” (67). Gatsby doesn’t have many friends and doesn’t really try to make any. He just tries to forget the somber things that have happened in his life. Gatsby’s life is aimed at forgetting the sadness and the loneliness that he has felt. This is similar to how Nick creates the illusion of his women to deal with his loneliness. At the end of Gatsby’s party, as everyone is leaving, Nick sees that, “a sudden emptiness seemed to flow now from the windows and the great doors, endowing with complete isolation the figure of the host, who stood on the porch, his hand up in a formal gesture of farewell” (55). The guests are leaving so the illusion of delectation, of joy, is no longer seen. There is so much sadness coming off of Gatsby that Nick senses it as if it had actually visibly manifested itself in the air around Gatsby’s house.

The characters of Nick, Daisy, and Gatsby each hint at loneliness from the words that they use, their reactions to life, and even the way that they carry themselves. Loneliness and the illusion of loneliness haunts each of the characters. As people are temporary to each of the characters mentioned they never get close to anyone and even in the presence of others continue to be alone. They have sectioned themselves off from the world and live in their own worlds. Their lives are all lies as all they have are illusions of relationships, while in reality no one really knows anybody else.

Works Cited

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner, 2004. Print.