An Esoteric Reading of The Great Gatsby: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Allegory of the Gurdjieff Work

Abstract

A close reading of The Great Gatsby (1925) shows that not only is Gatsby an emblematic novel, but it is also closer to Carl Van Vechten’s model for this genre, The Blind Bow-Boy (1923), than to other instances of the emblematic novel. The differences between the coded works of the ancient alchemists and the modernist, Van Vechten-Oragean novelists is that while the modernist texts never offer a transparent surface, they do contain a key. The novel is an assemblage of materials that must be decompiled to appreciate the complexity of what has been brought together. The characters are at certain points identified with specific Tarot cards. The Great Gatsby is a roman à clef. The Great Gatsby was written by laying out Tarot cards and alchemical emblems in the design that P. D. Ouspensky shows in The Symbolism of the Tarot (1976). The novel traces the traditional stages of the alchemical process using colors: black (nigredo), white (albedo), yellow (citrinitas), and red (rubedo), representing various stages of purification and transformation.