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The Mortician's Brush: Fitzgerald, Gatsby, and the Beautiful Corpse
Alan Bilton 
F. Scott Fitzgerald: 100 Years after Gatsby, Pages: 47 - 65
Swansea University Author:
Alan Bilton
Abstract
The chapter explores ideas of beautiful and abject bodies in F. Scott's Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby', exploring the role of cosmetics, costume and class in terms of the construction of identity in the novel, especially in regard to notions of 'playing a role'. Whilst...
| Published in: | F. Scott Fitzgerald: 100 Years after Gatsby |
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| ISBN: | 9791030011876 |
| Published: |
Bordeaux
Presses Universitaires de Bordeaux
2025
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| URI: | https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa70711 |
| Abstract: |
The chapter explores ideas of beautiful and abject bodies in F. Scott's Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby', exploring the role of cosmetics, costume and class in terms of the construction of identity in the novel, especially in regard to notions of 'playing a role'. Whilst Daisy's upper-class body is portrayed as ethereal and weightless, the working class body of Myrtle is described in terms of weight and pretense, a 'pained lady' indicative of concerns regarding class and mass culture (especially film) at the time. The chapter examines the terrifying ugliness of Myrtle's corpse in relation to the stress on beauty elsewhere, an abject horror that punctures the lyric surface of Fitzgerald's celebrated prose. |
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| Keywords: |
Fitzgerald, Gatsby, Hollywood, makeup, costume, hair, cosmetics, morticians |
| College: |
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences |
| Start Page: |
47 |
| End Page: |
65 |