The author intended the story to be repugnant

Maxwell Perkins defends The Great Gatsby

The first edition of The Great Gatsby (Image: Wikimedia)

It took many years for The Great Gatsby to achieve the widespread acclaim it enjoys today, and when F. Scott Fitzgerald died in 1940, fifteen years after its publication, he considered the novel a failure. One person who consistently found himself defending its significance—from the very beginning—was Fitzgerald’s editor, Maxwell Perkins, a man deeply committed to the author’s vision. Perkins spent countless hours engaging with critics who dismissed the novel, and in 1928 he responded to a disappointed reader with the following letter.

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Aug. 28, 1928

Dear [name redacted]:

We have read with interest your letter in criticism of “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and we thank you for it. Probably if you had read the book through, you would not have felt any the less repugnance to it, but you would no doubt have grasped its underlying motive, which is by no means opposed to your own point of view.

The author was prompted to write this book by surveying the tragic situation of many people because of the utter confusion of ideals into which they have fallen, with the result that they cannot distinguish the good from the bad. The author did not look upon these people with anger or contempt so much as with pity. He saw that good was in them, but that it was altogether distorted. He therefore pictured, in the Great Gatsby, a man who showed extraordinary nobility and many fine qualities, and yet who was following an evil course without being aware of it, and indeed was altogether a worshipper of wholly false gods. He showed him in the midst of a society such as certainly exists, of a people who were all worshipping false gods. He wished to present such a society to the American public so that they would realize what a grotesque situation existed, that a man could be a deliberate law-breaker, who thought that the accumulation of vast wealth by any means at all was an admirable thing, and yet could have many fine qualities of character. The author intended the story to be repugnant and he intended to present it so forcefully and realistically that it would impress itself upon people. He wanted to show that this was a horrible, grotesque, and tragic fact of life today. He could not possibly present these people effectively if he refused to face their abhorrent characteristics. One of these was profanity—the total disregard for, or ignorance of, any sense of reverence for a Power outside the physical world. If the author had not presented these abhorrent characteristics, he would not have drawn a true picture of these people, and by drawing a true picture of them he has done something to make them different, for he has made the public aware of them, and its opinion generally prevails in the end.

There are, of course, many people who would say that such people as those in the book should not be written about, because of their repulsive characteristics. Such people maintain that it would be better not to inform the public about evil or unpleasantness. Certainly this position has a strong case. There is, however, the other opinion: vice is attractive when gilded by the imagination, as it is when it is concealed and only vaguely known of; but in reality it is horrible and repulsive, and therefore it is well it should be presented as it is so that it may be so recognized. Then people would hate it, and avoid it, but otherwise they may well be drawn to it on account of its false charm.

Very truly yours,
Maxwell Perkins

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Letter excerpted from The Letters Of Maxwell E. Perkins, first published by Scribner’s in 1950.

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