I'm Very Well Read

   

I found myself, on a Saturday night, standing atop a folding chair, playing “Ballad of a Thin Man” by Bob Dylan out of a phallic speaker. When I reached the lines, “You’ve been through all of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s books,” I remembered the blog post I’d been putting off due to my lack of inspiration. After thinking for a few minutes, the connection between this song and The Great Gatsby became extremely obvious, especially after having examined the novel through a queer lens. The fact that the plot of The Great Gatsby is centered around heterosexual romances conceals the underlying clues alluding to Nick’s homosexuality, but looking at the novel from this perspective reveals that the signs are clearly there. Nick displays his attraction to Gatsby consistently throughout the novel, from saying “there was something gorgeous about him” in the first chapter, to describing his smile as “radiant and understanding” in chapter eight (2, 154). Other suggestions of Nick’s homosexuality are seen in his description of Mr. McKee as “feminine” and their vague interaction in which Nick “was standing beside [McKee’s] bed and he was sitting up between the sheets, clad in his underwear” (30, 38).

“Ballad of a Thin Man” similarly contains innuendoes hinting gay activities. With lines such as “sword swallower,” “hands you a bone,” and “Here is your throat back, thanks for the loan,” the song definitely holds enough insinuations of homosexuality to be able to craft an argument from a queer lens. Its reference of Fitzgerald himself could be analyzed this way, considering Fitzgerald’s own ambiguity and rumors of his romantic relationship with Ernest Hemingway. Besides the gay aspect that has forever changed my perception of The Great Gatsby, Bob Dylan’s artistry in general is related to Fitzgerald’s work. Many aspects of the 1920s are paralleled in the 1950s, including the Modernist movement Fitzgerald took part in. The Beat Generation of the ‘50s was the new form of Modernism, and the works of Beatnik writers and poets, such as Jack Kerouac, influenced Dylan’s writing. Bob Dylan’s was born from the anti-materialism and social criticism of the Beat Generation, which mirrors the ideals of Modernism of the ’20s, and the major themes of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.