{"id":57128,"date":"2018-12-17T05:03:04","date_gmt":"2018-12-17T05:03:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/?p=57128"},"modified":"2019-01-04T20:47:23","modified_gmt":"2019-01-04T20:47:23","slug":"passing-for-white-in-the-great-gatsby-a-spectroscopic-analysis-of-jordan-baker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=57128","title":{"rendered":"Passing for White in THE GREAT GATSBY: A Spectroscopic Analysis of Jordan Baker"},"content":{"rendered":"

Passing for White in <\/em>THE GREAT GATSBY: A Spectroscopic Analysis of Jordan Baker<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The Explicator<\/a>
\nVolume 76, 2018 – Issue 3<\/a>
\nPublished online: 2018-11-27
\nDOI: 10.1080\/00144940.2018.1489769<\/a><\/p>\n

Tom Phillips<\/strong>
\nNew York, New York<\/em><\/p>\n

\u201cJordan\u2019s fingers, powdered white over their tan, rested for a moment in mine.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Early in F. Scott Fitzgerald\u2019s<\/a> The Great Gatsby<\/em><\/a>, narrator Nick Carraway offers the view that personality is \u201can unbroken series of successful gestures\u201d (6), an extended performance. Nick\u2019s paramour, the racy golfer Jordan Baker, would certainly agree. She is glamorous and opaque, her \u201cpleasant contemptuous expression\u201d (23) so polished it deflects interpretation and critical analysis. However, a close reading focused on Fitzgerald\u2019s descriptions of Baker indicates she can be seen as central to the novel\u2019s concern with identity. Amid the sexual and racial upheavals of the 1920s, she may be Gatsby’s<\/em> most successful imposter\u2014a light-skinned, mixed-race person \u201cpassing for white<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

Such suspicions were directed at Gatsby himself by Carlyle V. Thompson<\/a> in a 2000 essay, \u201cWas Gatsby Black?\u201d\u2014an argument quickly dismissed for insufficient textual evidence (Manus). In Jordan\u2019s case evidence runs throughout the text, obscured by her proximity to Gatsby and Daisy, and Fitzgerald\u2019s deceptive style, in which significant detail can \u201cpass\u201d as merely decorative.<\/p>\n

Twentieth-century critics typically wrote Baker off as an enigma; Lionel Trilling found her \u201cvaguely guilty, vaguely homosexual\u201d (243). In this century, Maggie Froehlich has taken a closer look. Building on Edward Wasiolek\u2019s<\/a> case that Nick is a careful homosexual, she concludes that Jordan is one too\u2014that the bond between them is a dissent from sexual norms (Froehlich 83ff; Wasiolek 14-22). This is a reasonable reading; the \u201chard demands of her Jaunty body\u201d (63) may well go beyond her cool affair with Nick. However, an accumulation of detail marks her also as a person of color, presenting herself as white. In Nella Larsen\u2019s<\/a> 1929 novel Passing<\/em><\/a>, a lead character describes it as a \u201cfrightfully easy thing to do … If one\u2019s the type, all that\u2019s needed is a little nerve\u201d (15). The \u201ctype\u201d in this context clearly refers to complexion.<\/p>\n

In at least eight passages, Fitzgerald touches on Baker\u2019s complexion; no one else\u2019s skin is mentioned, save one reference to Gatsby as \u201csuntanned\u201d (54). In a novel of \u201cspectroscopic gayety\u201d (49) she occupies an arc of color from yellow…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Passing for White in THE GREAT GATSBY: A Spectroscopic Analysis of Jordan Baker The Explicator Volume 76, 2018 – Issue 3 Published online: 2018-11-27 DOI: 10.1080\/00144940.2018.1489769 Tom Phillips New York, New York \u201cJordan\u2019s fingers, powdered white over their tan, rested for a moment in mine.\u201d Early in F. Scott Fitzgerald\u2019s The Great Gatsby, narrator Nick […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,1196,6462,20],"tags":[2588,29151,29152],"class_list":["post-57128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-literary-criticism","category-passing-2","category-usa","tag-f-scott-fitzgerald","tag-the-explicator","tag-tom-phillips"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57128","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=57128"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57220,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57128\/revisions\/57220"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=57128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=57128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=57128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}