By Justine Trinh
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is a required reading text in almost every American high school. I myself had to read it in my junior year (along with other canonical American texts such as The Scarlet Letter, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and The Grapes of Wrath), and I remember being captivated with the glitz and glamor of Fitzgerald’s 1920s. However, as much as I was enthralled with the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg and the green light at the end of the dock, at the end of day, I could not relate with the characters. As a Vietnamese American, I knew deep down that I was excluded from this world where no characters looked like me. Fitzgerald’s novel stems from his personal experience from his own failed relationship with Ginevra King, an American socialite whose father forbade Fitzgerald from marrying her. As Andrew Turnbull, one of Fitzgerald’s biographer, states, Fitzgerald was “a poor boy in a rich town; a poor boy in a rich boy’s school; a poor boy in a rich man’s club at Princeton” who was unable to marry the love his life, a story similar to that of Gatsby and Daisy. However, both Fitzgerald and Gatsby have the privilege of existing in these rich places and the ability to amass wealth to enter these spaces, unlike someone who looks like me.
In her Gatsby retelling, The Chosen and the Beautiful, Nghi Vo recenters the narrative around Jordan Baker, a side character and Nick’s main love interest in the original novel. In Vo’s version, Jordan is a queer Vietnamese adoptee who is treated as exotic by those around her despite belonging to the upper crust of society. The major plot points remain the same as the original with the same characters such as Nick, who is still Daisy’s visiting cousin Gatsby, who is still trying to win Daisy away from her rich, white supremacist husband, Tom; and Tom, who is having an affair with Myrtle. Yet the focal point is not on Nick’s, Gatsby’s, or Tom’s lives, which are steeped with white heterosexual male problems. What makes The Chosen and The Beautiful different is that Vo brings Jordan’s character out of the fringes to expand on themes of belonging, otherness, and privilege that Fitzgerald, too, explored. By having Jordan be a person of color, these themes become more apparent within our modern world. For example, in the original text, Gatsby is implied to be from a family of recent German immigrants, which excludes him from the desired Old Stock Americans that Tom, Daisy, and Nick descend from. This form of otherness gets lost since, from the time of publication to now, the German people have gained the label/status of white that was once denied to them in the United States. Nowadays, more emphasis is placed solely on Gatsby’s nouveau riche status that otherizes him, and he is able to pass as white. However, Jordan is unable to racially pass because she is Asian, and that is more apparent and blatant to modern readers.
While The Great Gatsby is male-centered, The Chosen and The Beautiful highlights female interactions and social expectations. The Great Gatsby’s narrative follows Nick as he enters these male spaces and conversations with female characters relegated to the background. The book is dominated by male issues that infringe on Daisy’s agency, for she is either only seen as selfish as the symbolism of her namesake flower (white petals with a yellow core) implies, or a prize that Tom and Gatsby fight over to prove their socioeconomic success. Neither of these formulations considers the gendered expectations placed upon Daisy. However, Vo pivots the focus onto these societal norms and as a result, this shift places Nick’s concerns into the background. The focal point is not on Nick, who is concerned about Gatsby’s feelings for him, but rather Daisy and Jordan and what is expected of them, such as the expectation Daisy will marry Tom despite barely knowing him. Daisy struggles to come to terms with this as she gets drunk before the wedding. Additionally, she has a secret abortion to maintain her perfect socialite image in order to marry Tom, which she must do if she wishes to keep the same financial and societal security that she is accustomed to. These choices show Daisy’s awareness of her lack of agency, and she is trapped within this male dominated world that expects her to be a wife and a mother when in reality, she “never wanted her [daughter].”
Jordan, on the other hand, has different expectations placed on her based on her gender and race, which she is aware of. She states, “I was clever enough to know that it was my exotic looks and faintly tragic history that made me such an attractive curiosity.” Therefore, it comes as no surprise when she is barred from a traditional Southern debut with Daisy and the other girls her age and is prevented from marrying. However, this allows her to transgress in ways Daisy is unable to. When Daisy needs a secret abortion, Jordan is the one obtaining the illicit substances under the table. And while it is looked down upon by society, Jordan is allowed to sneak out to have illicit affairs with both men and women. When the prestigious Judge Baker (her adopted father) catches her sneaking out, he says, “I forgive you. I don’t blame you.” The fact he does not blame her implies that it is something that is beyond her control, and because she cannot marry, there is not as much of a reputation to ruin. Although she is allowed of these freedoms, she is still barred from heteronormative moments in life, but she expected to help perpetuate it as she is the one helping Daisy get ready for her marriage or being the intermediary between Tom and Daisy.
Vo also infuses magic within the world of The Great Gatsby, and at first, I had some mixed feelings about it. While magic is available to the upper echelons of society (they can access it by either selling their souls to the devil or through a drug-like drink called demoniac), Jordan’s magic is different. She is able to cut paper and transform her cuttings into real things, such as a lion or a Daisy doppelganger. I was initially hesitant about the idea because this fantastical ability stems from her Asian-ness. Later, other Asian characters are introduced who have the same magical skills and use them to entertain white/Western society. Thus, the magic exoticizes them even more and marks them as different. But as I thought about it more, I realized that Jordan’s magic connects her to a culture that she was removed from. Jordan was forcibly taken from her homeland as a baby by Eliza Baker; this act is lauded as a rescue by the Bakers. When Jordan encounters Khai, who has the same paper magic as her, she is able to connect with him and learn more about her Vietnamese/Asian identity that she had been suppressing the whole time. When reflecting about her accidental trips to Chinatown, she mentions she “felt less special” which led to her initial dislike. However when Khai invites her, she realizes Chinatown didn’t have the “great gold idols and opium beds scattered throughout,” and she shows a willingness to learn. She states. “I know that I don’t know anything. Maybe you can teach me….” Khai and the others tell her the creation myth of “Lạc Long Quân and Âu Cơ,” which was not readily available to Jordan due to her natal severance.
In recent years, there has been some discussion about removing The Great Gatsby from the high school curriculum. The Great Gatsby was published almost a hundred years ago, and during that time, things have changed. For one, the American Dream Gatsby is aspiring towards is about attaining wealth to have a comfortable lifestyle like that of Tom and Daisy’s, while our modern understanding of the American Dream is rooted in success and the idea of “making it.” But perhaps, let’s not throw the baby out with the bathwater just yet. Instead, let’s introduce other narratives in conjunction with the old to speak to one another. The Chosen and The Beautiful is a fascinating read that is in conversation with its source material but modernizes and elevates it, and its insights are only deepened through familiarity with the original.
The Chosen and the Beautiful is available from Blue Cypress Books, Bookshop, City Lights Books, Elliott Bay Book Company, Laguna Beach Books, Prairie Lights Books, and Vroman’s Bookstore.
Justine Trinh is an English literature Ph.D. student at Washington State University. She graduated from the University of California, Irvine with B.A.s in Asian American studies and classical civilizations and a B.S. in mathematics. She then went on to earn her M.A. in Asian American studies, making her the first student to graduate from UCI Asian American Studies’ 4+1 B.A./M.A. program. Her research interests include Asian American literature, critical refugee studies, family and trauma, and forced departure and disownment.