The Great Gatsby - Proof that Gatsby is Trimalchio Showing 1-6 of 6 (2024)

It is nothing more than sheer, plain, fact that F. Scott Fitzgerald originally entitled 'The Great Gatsby' (his novel) instead under the title, 'Trimalchio in West Egg'. He only altered it --at the last minute--under the advice from his publisher, Maxwell Perkins.

Source (only one of many sources): Vanderbilt, Arthur T. (1999). 'The Making of a Bestseller: From Author to Reader'. McFarland. p. 96. ISBN 0786406631. "A week later, in his next letter, he was floundering: 'I have not decided to stick to the title I put on the book, Trimalchio in West Egg. The only other titles that seem to fit it are Trimalchio and On the Road to West Egg. I had two others, Gold-hatted Gatsby and The High-bouncing Lover, but they seemed too slight.'"

Wondering why Scott Fitzgerald was so stuck on a title which references this name? No mystery. Naturally enough, it is because the character of 'Gatsby' was heavily modeled on the character of 'Trimalchio'. 'Trimalchio' is the

inspiration for Gatsby.

Who is 'Trimalchio' then?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimalchio

'Trimalchio' is a character in a famous, & very innovative Roman novel called "The Satyricon" which the Princeton-educated Scott Fitzgerald certainly knew of very well, and admired.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satyricon

"The Satyricon" was written by one Petronius Arbiter--
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Petronius
in the late 1st Century AD--during the rein of the licentious Emperor Nero.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nero

Petronius was one of Nero's courtly advisors and also a notorious libertine and pleasure-seeker.

Petronius and Nero were both known for throwing giant, sprawling feasts and orgies; as was the fictional character 'Trimalchio'.

So it's time to ask, what kind of character was 'Trimalchio'? Was he unsavory? Was he admirable? Why did Fitzgerald model his foremost literary figure, Jay Gatsby, so closely upon an invention from as long ago as the 1st century AD?

Well. First of all, as far as 'literary reference to Roman themes' by Scott, is not difficult for us to surmise the reason why. Fitzgerald (raised in wealth himself) knew as well as anyone that modern American culture is --despite the passing of 2,000 yrs--very close-in-nature to that of Rome. Throughout his adult career, Scott Fitzgerald was always keen on writing novels which had something new to say about all this. Indeed, such was the theme of the novel immediately prior to 'Gatsby': "The Beautiful and Damned".

"I want to write something new - something extraordinary and beautiful and simple and intricately patterned." (an early comment Fitzgerald made to Maxwell Perkins about his work-in-progress, June 1923).

Back to Trimalchio's personality: "Trimalchio is an arrogant former slave, who has become quite wealthy by tactics that most would find distasteful."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimalchio

But conspicuously absent in the novel by Petronius Arbiter (where this character of 'Trimalchio' was born), are

or

in his lurid mixture of attributes. Trimalchio is not presented as someone who "robs innocent citizens".

In fact, "he plays a part only in the section titled "Cena Trimalchionis" ('The Banquet of Trimalchio', often translated as 'Dinner With Trimalchio')."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimalchio

In other words, in Petronius' pioneering early novel, Trimalchio is simply an upstart, who has insinuated himself into the elite of Roman society, via the hosting of lavish parties.

"The term "Trimalchio" has become shorthand for the worst excesses of the 'nouveau riche'."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimalchio

This is to say then, that he is

with 'party-throwing' (which is mostly what Jay Gatsby does throughout Scott Fitzgerald's novel which--after all--is set in the party-obsessed Jazz-Age of America in the 1920s).

Therefore, we arrive at a reasonable conclusion:

'Trimalchio'--the template for Jay Gatsby which Scott Fitzgerald clearly mimicked faithfully--is no 'crook'. Fitzgerald's novel does not insinuate this (about Jay Gatsby) because it is not insinuated in the source novel by Petronius. To say otherwise is a mis-reading.

Baldly put: whatever is in Petronius' 'Trimalchio' ...is also in Jay Gatsby. Scott Fitzgerald adds only what he has to in order to modernize the character to the 1920s. Nothing else. (Naturally enough; for as an author, you wouldn't lavish effort on a literary homage like this, and then make major alterations--it would not be part of the craftsmanship attendant upon the task. If Fitzgerald is any kind of novelist at all, he would not deform that which forms the basis for his parallel).

But all this background so far--is simply the grounds for a caution which bears more frequent repeating on this Gatsby discussion page.

Some misguided readers of 'The Great Gatsby', insist that Jay Gatsby's career in stock manipulation (which Fitzgerald only hints at very glancingly) 'makes him a criminal'. They suggest that this aspect --crime and punishment--is what was entirely in Fitzgerald's mind when delineating his character. But the authorship doesn't support this fantasy.

Of course, in either novel ('Satyricon' and 'Gatsby'), supporting characters all talk about both fictional rogues behind their backs. Tongues waggle; and revelers sneer behind cupped palms at these "bounders" in either era.

But even if Petronius' 'Trimalchio' ever did do something under-handed to come by his gold--the primary flaw in the eyes of the Roman upper-classes is still that he "comes from low-circ*mstances". That is where his 'lowly' reputation springs from. (Certainly the corrupt Romans are not about to censure this free-spending, liberal party-host for some obscure misdeed. Neither are corrupt Americans shocked at Jay Gatsby's career in stocks).

Let's continue to make this point patently, perfectly clear:

Trimalchio's unsavoriness (and thus, Jay's, too) is a rankness tied to the concept of the 'nouveau riche'.. The 'newly rich'. Literally, Trimalchio comes from 'new' money, rather than 'old family money'. He has 'fresh millions'; rather than being born from a moneyed family. In Roman times, the aristocrats held the money. Titles and wealth went together. But Trimalchio is not royalty in any way; not even remotely related to anyone in the equestrian order; (aka: land-owning noblemen).

[The snobbery towards anyone born 'mean' which forms in the minds of the truly wealthy even today, is similar to this "royalist" elitism; where everything depends upon hereditary lines.]

Pressing on:

In the novel by Petronius, Trimalchio is not a criminal but simply a former Roman slave, who has been given his freedom. He is a 'freedman'. But in the eyes of the Roman nobles (the elites who attend his parties)-he is still a slave, both by birth and by upbringing.

'Trimalchio' is newly-wealthy. He has 'finagled' himself some fortune. Nevertheless he is still of extremely mean, low, common, and humble origins. He is someone that the old-money Romans are not flattered to associate with. It is the same then as now: rich Romans do not enjoy rubbing-elbows with their former servants; and Americans also sneer deeply at our lower-class citizens. This is a strong theme which unites Rome and America.

Remember: in the novel by Scott Fitzgerald, Jay Gatsby also comes from a poor circ*mstance. The hard-scrabble Gatz family is from the Mid-West, an American wasteland. Un-cosmopolitan. A labourer's environs. No one "knows him"; he has "no connections". He is someone with no heritage, no prestige, no class, he is nothing but a working-man; a discharged soldier. Impoverished; really a slave to poverty as many Americans are.

So Gatsby's

is what is permanent about him. Even if --during the course of the novel--he suddenly obtains enormous wealth (as Trimalchio succeeded in doing) he will not have gotten his wealth passed down from his family. That is the only thing which 'counts' with the other characters around him, such as Daisy and Tom.

In the same way as Trimalchio; even if Jay Gatsby has committed an under-handed deed at any point, it is not this which marks him. His reputation is never that of a 'criminal'.

It's as plain as the day. To the Buchanans, it is irrelevant as to how Gatsby makes his money--he will have made it 'fast' --in some way or other--and it is this, which truly rich Americans always sneer at. This is why the phrase

has the 'distasteful' connotation that it has. But their nose-wrinkling clearly has nothing to do with suggestions of theft, robbery, swindling, or malfeasance on Jay's part. This is a gross mis-assumption.

Jay Gatsby has a lot of literary company. In English and American dramatic fiction, there are scores of

characters: Dickens, Proust, Thackeray, and Trollope all feature them at length in their works. But in nary any of these are there accompanying hints of criminality piled on. Crime tales are structurally crude, with simplistic moral judgments. By-and-large the great western authors primarily wrote about class and manners.

Conclusion: 'The Great Gatsby' is not a novel of criminality. It is not in the model for the type of character Gatsby is. We can say this confidently because we know the earlier character which he was drawn from. If anything in Petronius' novel or Fitzgerald's novel is "under indictment"--it is society itself; not these two characters.

Now while I'm at it: just a very minor addendum to tack on...

http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/12/24...

This New York Times article describes the critical reception to the release of 'The Great Gatsby' (1925). Of course, initially, the book flopped.

But the following quote (which Fitzgerald voiced as the first reviews came trickling in) bemoans that "of all the reviews, even the most enthusiastic, not one had the slightest idea what the book was about." can too-often be incorrectly used as a basis to infer that Fitzgerald did have 'criminality' on his mind when writing the novel.

Flatly, baldly, impossible. Why? Because these are the

reviews. Fitzgerald is not speaking of any misapprehension in later reviewer's minds that the novel was romantic; because that reputation had not been built yet. This was still 1925.

Therefore: 'close reading of the novel' with any such goals in mind (to "prove" this-or-that theory) is mistaken; because close-reading does not tie-back-in-at-all with any frustration of Fitzgerald's. Nothing in his remark can lend itself to hunting through his text; because his remark came long prior to Gatsby's eventual glowing reputation.

Nor, can one even claim that 'close reading' is an honest tool to use in such a case. For, Fitzgerald's complaint about his confused 1925 reviewers --if used to kick-off a bout of close reading--is in itself, 'not present in his text'.