Robert Redford as Jay Gatsby in the 1974 version of the Great Gatsby
All the while I was reading Baudelaire's section on The Dandy and all the while Vince talked about Dandies in class, I couldn't get The Great Gatsby out of my head. I think Jay Gatsby is a perfect example of the Dandy because he makes great efforts to integrate himself into a crowd without actually being a PART of the crowd. Throughout the novel, Gatsby throws lavish parties to which he invites hundreds of strangers. All of the party guests have heard of Gatsby and know who Gatsby is, but none of them have ever seen him or could point him out in a crowd. At one such party, Nick Carraway, Gatsby's narrator, stumbles upon Gatsby: "[M]y eyes fell on Gatsby, standing alone on the marble steps and looking from one group to another with approving eyes. His tanned skin was drawn attractively tight on his face and his short hair looked as though it were trimmed every day. I could see nothing sinister about him. I wondered if the fact that he was not drinking helped to set him off from his guests, for it seemed to me that he grew more correct as the fraternal hilarity increased"* (Fitzgerald 50). Gatsby seems like a 1920s version of George Clooney-- quiet and withdrawn yet somewhat... intriguing in a way that is irresistible.
Baudelaire says, "Whether these men [Dandies] are nicknamed exquisites, incroyables, beaux, lions or dandies, they all spring from the same womb; they all partake of the same characteristic quality of opposition and revolt; they are all representatives of what is finest in human pride, of that compelling need, alas only too dandies obtain that haughty exclusiveness, provocative in its very coldness" (687 of our textbook).
Dandies have an elegant quality about them that seems effortless and perfect.Style, for the Dandy, is a way of life-- it is a function. However, it is my suspicion that the Dandy's effortless beauty is not effortless at all. Being a Dandy is in fact a hard feat to accomplish, and I think it exemplifies a sadness in the character-- particularly in Jay Gatsby: "He smiled understandingly-- much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced-- or seemed to face-- the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey. Precisely at that point it vanished-- and I was looking at an elegant young roughneck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd. Some time before he introduced himself I'd got a strong impression that he was picking his words with care" (Fitzgerald 48).
Gatsby's life in a nutshell.
I think Gatsby is a Dandy to a fault. He has spent who knows how much money on who knows how many parties in hopes that his long lost love, Daisy, will drop by... he makes sure that he is withdrawn enough from his own parties to be able to scout her out on the off chance that she will actually make an appearance. His perfection is heartbreaking, his eloquence is carefully thought out, his hair is perfectly arranged. Gatsby is so perfect, the Dandy is so perfect, that I don't think he will be able to comfortably function in real life. I think being a Dandy would create hollow relationships and would mean putting yourself so high on your own private pedestal that you are essentially untouchable and unable to associate with anyone in a meaningful way.
*Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1925. Print.
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