iâm sure iâm not the first to say something like this, but let me tell you about my poc-passing-as-white jay gatsby headcanon!!
for some background, in the 1920s there was an interesting shift regarding (white) skin tones. previously, tans were viewed as a sign that a person worked out in the fields, and therefore a trademark of the lower class. however, slowly after the industrial revolution, it increasingly became a representation of luxury, since the rich upper class would have the time to lounge about and sunbathe at their leisure.
i say all this to show that a poc gatsby would have the ostensible class and wealth for a tan, which would âexcuseâ a slightly browner skin tone in the public eye.
(the 20s was also the setting of passing by nella larsen, so thatâs neat.)
in my vision, heâs biracial (maybe his mother was black & his father was a german immigrant) with skin light enough to pass for white.
the fact that nick states that gatsby keeps his hair neatly groomed and cut might be to prevent it from curling up.
additionally, i think it could contrast tomâs white supremacy & his fear of poc social progress.
it would also create a deeper divide between gatsby and daisy, and once again the contrast between him and tom. in my mind, daisy wouldnât know about it until the point where tom reveals everything about gatsbyâs bootlegging etc. with jay revealing it to her in the car ride back (oops then she hits myrtle).
then, when she chooses tom and the life of comfort, wealth, status, etc that their marriage offers, she also rejects not only gatsbyâs new money but also his race.
itâs a lot more thematically significant for the american dream as wellâitâs still unattainable and essentially tainted by capitalism, and it also emphasizes that itâs restricted to the white upper class. social mobility only becomes available to gatsby when he disguises his racial identity.
similarly, it fits with gatsbyâs identity reconstructionâthe quintessential american is white, rich, and educated.
daisy and tom have that ticket into society because they have that inherent thing that he will never haveâpedigree, in both class and race. thatâs something that even nick has.
(in my mind, he tells nick all about it the night before he dies & nick understands as best he can and doesnât think less of him, because it further highlights the differences between his & gatsbyâs relationship v. gatsbyâs relationship with daisy; namely, the transparency -> acceptance give-and-take that he and daisy never had. because of having to hide himself from daisy in order to maintain her affection, he builds an expectation that he must be someone that he is not as well as developing a transactional definition of love (he gives, and people love him as long as he can continue to give) in order to be loved. therefore, nickâs immediate curiosity and fascination with who he truly is is foreign to him. not to get too into their dynamic lmao i just think itâs really interesting.)
finally, the very last part where nick is sitting and looking at the bay and thinking about the first immigrants and their dreams and how gatsby embodied the purity and naivety of those dreams is further exemplified by his racial âotherness.â
and thereâs,,, technically nothing in the book to explicitly refute this from what i remember!
(n.b.: it has been a hot second since iâve read tgg, so lmk if iâve got anything wrong!)