{"id":54783,"date":"2017-08-10T01:36:36","date_gmt":"2017-08-10T01:36:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=54783"},"modified":"2017-08-10T01:36:36","modified_gmt":"2017-08-10T01:36:36","slug":"the-great-gatsby-race-and-passing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=54783","title":{"rendered":"The Great Gatsby, Race, and Passing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Great Gatsby<\/strong>, Race, and Passing<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

English 356: The “Great” American Novel: 1900-1965<\/a> (Prof. VZ<\/a>)
\nCollege of Charleston, Charleston, South Carolina
\n2015-02-03<\/p>\n

Christine McSwain<\/strong><\/p>\n

Like most people in the class, I\u2019ve read The Great Gatsby<\/em><\/a> several times, both for class and on my own. \u00a0Gatsby is one of those novels that doesn\u2019t get old to me, and I think that\u2019s due in part to the different ways each part of the novel can be interpreted, and how I notice something new each time I read it. \u00a0Not long after the Baz Luhrman adaptation<\/a> of the novel came out, I saw a theory floating around that Jay Gatsby could be read as a black man passing as a white man<\/a>, and I thought that theory was pretty interesting and did some more research on it. \u00a0I think reading the novel with that interpretation in mind brings a whole new narrative out.<\/p>\n

The article\u00a0I\u2019m referencing<\/a> was published in 2000, thirteen years before the newest adaptation starring Leonardo DiCaprio<\/a> as Jay Gatsby was released. \u00a0Professor Carlyle V. Thompson<\/a> argues that Gatsby was indeed black, specifically that \u201c\u2018Fitzgerald characterizes Jay Gatsby as a pale black individual passing as white.’\u201d \u00a0There are clues throughout the novel that allude to Gatsby\u2019s race, including his name change from Gatz to Gatsby, much like freed slaves changed their names to\u00a0give themselves a new beginning. \u00a0There are also mentions that Gatsby\u2019s family is dead, which\u00a0according to Thompson references that \u201c\u2018those light-skinned black individuals who pass for white become symbolically dead to their families’\u201d, suggesting that perhaps Jay Gatsby had done the same…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Not long after the Baz Luhrman adaptation of the novel came out, I saw a theory floating around that Jay Gatsby could be read as a black man passing as a white man, and I thought that theory was pretty interesting and did some more research on it. \u00a0I think reading the novel with that interpretation in mind brings a whole new narrative out.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1196,8,6462,20],"tags":[27436,27435,2588],"class_list":["post-54783","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-literary-criticism","category-media-archive","category-passing-2","category-usa","tag-christine-mcswain","tag-english-356-the-great-american-novel-1900-1965","tag-f-scott-fitzgerald"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54783","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54783"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54783\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54784,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54783\/revisions\/54784"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54783"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54783"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54783"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}