Fitzgerald’s Rumor-Driven Character Introduction in “The Great Gatsby”

    “There’s something funny about a fellow that’ll do a thing like that,” said the other girl eagerly. “He doesn’t want any trouble with anybody.”

    “Who doesn’t?” I inquired.

    “Gatsby. Somebody told me—”

    The two girls and Jordan leaned together confidentially.

    “Somebody told me they thought he killed a man once.”

    A thrill passed over all of us. The three Mr. Mumbles bent forward and listened eagerly.

    “I don’t think it’s so much that,” argued Lucille skeptically; “it’s more that he was a German spy during the war.”

    One of the men nodded in confirmation.

    “I heard that from a man who knew all about him, grew up with him in Germany,” he assured us positively.

    “Oh, no,” said the first girl, “it couldn’t be that, because he was in the American army during the war.” As our credulity switched back to her she leaned forward with enthusiasm. “You look at him sometimes when he thinks nobody’s looking at him. I’ll bet he killed a man.”

    She narrowed her eyes and shivered. Lucille shivered. We all turned and looked around for Gatsby. It was testimony to the romantic speculation he inspired that there were whispers about him from those who found little that it was necessary to whisper about in this world.”

    — The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

    Technique

    In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald creates suspense through indirect characterization of Jay Gatsby.

    The above passage shows how Fitzgerald turns to gossip and hearsay to indirectly introduce Gatsby. The passage starts with a vague pronoun (“he”) instead of directly stating his name, which causes the limited first-person narrator to ask whom the pronoun refers to. Then three others join the conversation and the subsequent statements are clearly hearsay, as indicated by these prefaces:

    • “Somebody told me— … “
    • “Somebody told me they thought … “
    • “I heard … “
    • “I’ll bet … “
    • “whispers” and “whisper”

    Mixed in with the hearsay are the thoughts of each conversationalist, who share whether or not they believe in the rumor.

    By relying on hearsay, Fitzgerald builds Gatsby’s backstory and character and suspends certainty about who he really is, setting up the entire story and keeping the reader curious.

    Use

    • Create suspense by hinting at key details and using misdirection to keep the plot possibilities open. Hinting is one of the secrets to great storytelling as Stéphane Mallarmé once said:

      “To name an object is to take away three-fourths of the pleasure given by a poem. This pleasure consists in guessing little by little: to suggest it, that is the ideal.”