Jay Gatsby
20th century (fictional)
F. Scott Fitzgerald's protagonist in The Great Gatsby, a self-invented man who pursues an idealised version of the past and is destroyed by illusion.
Connection to Taylor Swift
Fitzgerald's self-made dreamer, invoked for Taylor's portraits of glittering, doomed reinvention. Uncle Jerry and Angela hear The Great Gatsby behind the last great american dynasty, where a larger-than-life figure is narrated from the outside by onlookers who never fully know her, and behind happiness, which reaches for Daisy's beautiful fool. Gatsby stands for the gap between a dazzling surface and the loss underneath.
Notable Works
- The Great Gatsby (F. Scott Fitzgerald)
Appears in the Archive
Context within the Archive
The Great Gatsby
“Filled the pool with champagne and swam with the big names”
Uncle Jerry identifies echoes of The Great Gatsby in both the extravagance (champagne in swimming pools, outlandish outfits, crazy jewelry) and the narrative style, the story told through outsiders looking in, never truly knowing the central figure. Angela & Uncle Jerry note that Gatsby is told through the eyes of Nick Carraway who walks with Jay Gatsby but never truly knows him, paralleling how the townspeople narrate Rebekah's life without understanding it. Angela also notes Taylor has other songs with Gatsby allusions, including one from Reputation where she says 'we were swimming in a champagne sea.'