Gatsby's Gaffe

[steepholm]

Okay, I'm still on The Great Gatsby with my first-year students, and this is a question that came up today that I couldn't answer. I'm throwing it over to my US friends, to contemplate over the turkey.

At one point, Nick asks Gatsby which part of "the Middle West" he comes from, to which Gatsby replies "San Francisco". "I see," replies Nick, though in what tone of voice I can't say.

According to the note in one edition this reply shows Gatsby up as a liar, because of course San Francisco isn't in the "Middle West". But, given that neither Gatsby nor Nick is Mr Dumb from Dumbland, this doesn't seem very satisfactory. After all, they are in fact both Mid-Westerners, so why would Gatsby make such a stupid and obvious mistake? It would be a bit like someone from Winchester asking which part of Hampshire I came from, and my replying "Edinburgh".

So then we wondered whether "Middle West" had a wider geographical application in 1924 - one that stretched as far as the West Coast. Alternatively, maybe Gatsby was trying to make a mistake, for complex psychological reasons of his own - but even then it seems too obvious. That the mid-Western Fitzgerald thought San Francisco was in the mid-West seems still less likely; that he goofed in giving Gatsby such a stupid line, unthinkable! The only other possibility we came up with was that there's another San Francisco, possibly in Minnesota.

Which is it, Pumpkin Eaters?

Comments

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

I hadn't thought of that! That's rather persuasive - although there's no particular reason for Gatsby to be sarcastic at that point. He seems willing enough to offer information about his past (albeit inaccurate) in other parts of that conversation, and the question isn't particularly intrusive.

[rozk.livejournal.com]

But of course Nick is a MidWesterner and connected to Tom and Daisy - to reveal too much is to create all sorts of hostages to fortune, simply because Nick might turn out to have his own connections to whatever place Gatsby came from.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

True. I suppose the question is then whether he arouses more suspicion by making an unnecessarily aggressively sarcastic response to an innocuous question, or by risking exposure by naming the next-door town. Since I can't decide it sitting here at leisure, I forgive Gatsby for not being able to decide on the spur of the moment.