Was the Great Gatsby black?

Or was he Jewish?

In the New York Times, former film critic A.O. Scott concludes his article on the 100th anniversary of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby:

Which raises the question of who he has been all along. The theory that Gatsby was “a Black man in whiteface” (to cite the subtitle title of a 2017 book) has been in circulation for some time, linking academic scholarship and internet fan theorizing. Gatsby’s outsider status is suggestive, as is the fact that his nemesis, Tom Buchanan, is an outspoken racist, obsessed with miscegenation and in thrall to the racial pseudoscience of the day.

In a brilliant 2023 essay in The Atlantic, Alonzo Vereen describes teaching “Gatsby” to high school students in a way that highlights the indeterminate, “unraced” aspects of the character’s identity. “Gatsby’s American identity is so ambiguous,” Vereen writes, “that the students could layer on top of it any ethnic or racial identity they brought to the novel. When they did, the text was freshly lit.”

The light at the end of the dock is an entire constellation.

So, was Gatsby black?

Or was he Jewish?

Or was he gay?

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