Prosperity in the 1920s

While I was reading “Will the real Nick Carraway please come out?” (which I found funny since it sounded exactly like Eminem’s “Slim Shady”) I found quite interesting how the writer included details that I didn’t even notice could be evidence of Nick being homosexual, and other characters being in that community.  For example, the two girls that “looked alike, talked alike, and dressed alike” were lesbians.  When I first read that passage, I didn’t even think that that was the case.  Nick’s way of characterizing and describing certain males in the novel is what makes it ambiguous.  At the in Tom and Myrtle’s apartment, when Nick and McKee meet, it’s clear he may be gay. They were in bed together, so it’s possible something sexual had occurred.  He referred to McKee as “a pale, feminine man” and “shrill, languid, handsome, and horrible”.  He characterizes McKee in a feminine sense, and his wife in a more masculine sense, which he does with females throughout the novel.  He characterizes men he meets more feminine in order to feel more manly to himself, while he characterizes women more masculine because that’s the only way he can force himself to like them (Jordan).

The “Roaring Twenties” was a time of prosperity and rejecting traditional moral standards of that time.  During the age of prohibition, gay culture flourished.  Masquerade balls, more known as “drag balls” had brought in more than 7,000 different people—gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and straight.  There was progressively a more visible presence of men that weren’t conforming to genders and were engaged in sexual relations with other men.  Social reformers would call “male sex perverts,” which featured female impersonators in theaters/nightclubs.  In the 1920s, gay men had established a presence in Harlem, and the first lesbian enclaves had appeared there.  Unfortunately, this wasn't long-lasting.