Romance vs. Novel: Narrative Effects
The Sun Also Rises and The Great Gatsby

 

This paper was written as an assignment for MODERN BRITISH NOVEL ENGL 431, Dr. Craig Barrow, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, 7 Oct. 1987.

© Bill Stifler, 1987

 

In his classic treatment in The Anatomy of Criticism, Northrop Frye attempts to clear away some of the cobwebs surrounding the classification of literature by dividing fictional prose into four major categories: the novel, the romance, the anatomy, and the confession (303-315). While elements of all four types can be found in literature [c.f., romance/anatomy--Moby Dick; confession/anatomy--Sartor Resartus; a combination of all four strands in Joyce's Ulysses and Finnegan's Wake (Frye 313-314)], the novel and the romance are the dominant patterns for American literature, particularly the romance.

In general, the novel tends to deal with situation, the romance with a linear narrative. What Frye appears to mean by this is that the novel focuses on scene while the romance emphasizes narration with the result that the narrator of the romance is much more prominent. Closely linked to this is the novel's tendency toward objectivity, contrasted with the romance's toward subjectivity. In the novel, the characters are real people living ordinary, everyday lives. In the romance, the characters are archetypal, larger than life, often heroes, struggling with an unstable or changing society. The novel deals with personality, the romance with individuality (Frye 304-307).

These two traditions of novel and romance create different effects in terms of narration as can be illustrated by an analysis of the structure and final effects of each as seen in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises, both written during roughly the same time period.

While both novels have a first person narrator, there is a difference in the way each functions. There is very little analysis of other characters by Jake Barnes in The Sun Also Rises. One of the longest sections of narrative background occurs in the first chapter where, in approximately three and a half pages, Jake introduces Robert Cohn, and even here the narration is largely in the form of summary rounded out by the scene in the Cafe de Versailles (Hemingway 3-7). Jake usually describes scenes: dialogue, gestures, setting.

For instance, when Brett is first introduced as a character she is merely named as being with a group of young men by the fragmented sentence, "With them was Brett." After a few lines of dialogue, this same fragment is repeated, slightly varied, "And with them was Brett," followed by Jake's response, "I was very angry" (Hemingway 20). Then, in the closing line of dialogue to the chapter, their relationship is further amplified by Brett's, "Oh darling, I've been so miserable" (Hemingway 24). Hemingway uses tone, suggestion, and understatement to reveal characters and motivation through Jake. The effect of this is to place Jake within the action of the novel.

Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby is much more self-conscious as a narrator, and much more prone to analysis. Instead of a narrator who participates in the story, a pair of eyes and ears to the dramatic action as it is filtered through his emotional perceptions, Carraway functions as a knowledgeable guide who takes the reader by the hand explaining characters' actions and motivations.

This tendency can be illustrated in the opening scene of The Great Gatsby when Nick goes to the Buchanan's. He uses descriptive phrases to reveal character as in the case of Tom Buchanan: "sturdy," "with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner," "two shining arrogant eyes," "effeminate swank of his riding clothes," "enormous power of his body," "cruel" (Fitzgerald 7) or Daisy: "an absurd, charming little laugh," "low, thrilling voice," "[h]er face was sad and lovely with bright things in it," "a singing compulsion" (Fitzgerald 9). By using descriptive tags to reveal character rather than dramatic action and dialogue, Fitzgerald creates a static portrayal of character: the reader knows how to take each character in advance instead of coming to know a character in a way similiar to real life where personality traits and motivations have to be intuited from dialogue and behavior. For Fitzgerald's characters function as types with a lot less room for growth and development, typical of the romance (Frye 304-305).

In addition, this distancing of Carraway from the other characters makes it difficult to determine exactly whose story is being told. In The Sun Also Rises, despite the fact that a large part of the story revolves around the relationship of Brett and Cohn, there is never any doubt that the story is Jake's. The restraint evident in the revelation of his feelings for Brett [c.f., the understatement and lack of direct reference to Brett's standing him up at the Hotel Crillon (Hemingway 41-42)], his drinking (c.f., Hemingway 146; 222-224), and his choice of details [c.f. "We passed Montoya on the stairs. He bowed and did not smile," after Jake has set up Brett and Romero (Hemingway 209)] constantly emphasize Jake's role in the action: what the consequences are for him. Carraway's role of explaining the dramatic action coupled with his role of unveiling the mystique surrounding Gatsby (Fitzgerald 2;21-22;98-102;148-152;173-175) creates in The Great Gatsby two somewhat parallel stories: Gatsby and Daisy and Nick and Jordan (Fitzgerald 58-60;80-81;155-156; especially 177-182).

Perhaps the major difference, however, in the effects of the romantic tradition on narration as compared to the novelistic concerns the way in which each story is resolved. The Sun Also Rises closes with Brett and Jake after the conclusion of her affair with Romero. The emphasis is on scene and dialogue, and deals with Jake's attempts to come to grips with his relationship to Brett. The focus is internal and personal.

In The Great Gatsby, the awareness is turned outward. The resolving scene is mythic rather than real, the language exalted. There is a sense that the entire action of the novel has been directed toward this final gesture, as Nick attempts to synthesize his experience into some total meaning that goes beyond the real events of the novel (Fitzgerald 181-182). This reach toward fulfillment or epiphany, Fitzgerald's "orgiastic future" (Fitzgerald 182) is the ultimate characteristic of the romantic tradition (Frye 186, 206).

 

Works Cited

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1953.

Frye, Northrop. Anatomy of Criticism: Four Essays. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UP, 1973.

Hemingway, Ernest. The Sun Also Rises. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1954.

 

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