It is possible to read the texts of Fitzgerald's Trimalchio: An Early Version of The Great Gatsby (2000) and Tales of Jazz Age (1922), and All the Sad Young Men (1926) in the context of the "loss of identity".
Trimalchio: An Early Version of The Great Gatsby
Trimalchio was published in 2000 as an early version of The Great Gatsby. This work has been developed into The Great Gatsby as a finished work after addition, deletion, and revision repeatedly. Therefore, Trimalchio is the early version before revision.
The Great Gatsby involves the issue of identity, but Trimalchio does more. The character of Gatsby is far more ambiguous in Trimalchio. By the time the work was completed as The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald had made revisions repeatedly. However, there are some parts that Fitzgerald did not change determinately, despite being advised by the editor Maxwell Perkins to change them over and over again. Therefore, it is possible to think that those parts must be highlighting the most important points for him.
By tracing back the contents of revision, we will see what Fitzgerald tried to achieve through The Great Gatsby.
By the way, I'd like to suggest what might be a hint for reading The Great Gatsby. When I was in a graduate school in Japan, I once read Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman. The protagonist's profession is "salesman". Despite being shown even in the title that he is a salesman, what he was selling has never revealed until the end. Since he is a salesman, it would have been natural to refer to what he is selling, but it was never revealed, and why? To answer this question, in my opinion, I think that what he was selling is himself. If so, by not revealing the specific product of which he was selling, you might be able to get closer to the symbolic meaning.
Now, let's go back to The Great Gatsby. In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby's business has never been revealed beyond the realm of rumors. Let alone rumors, there is nothing written about Gatsby's business in Trimalchio. Despite being repeatedly advised to give readers information about his job, Fitzgerald never revealed it while he only listened to the advice to some extent.
By leaving Gatsby's profession a mystery, the absence of information emphasizes that his fate and the factor that created him can encompass universal nature.
Tales of Jazz Age
This is a collection of works depicting young people’s lifestyles and values of the time. The Jazz age is the best of times, but simultaneously a barren era for many young Americans suffering from stressful situations.
Fitzgerald portrayed joy and sorrow, light and shadow, and dreams and reality. Particularly, the story entitled, “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz” is very useful for studying The Great Gatsby. An American fantasy is dramatized in this work. A boy, John is invited to the house of a rich boy, Percy whose father owns a diamond bigger than the Ritz–Carlton Hotel. His house is a castle that embodies a huge wealth. On the other hand, in a place different from the rich residential area, there lived 12 villagers who symbolize living dead in American society. The dream for diamonds is replaced by rhinestones by a twist of fate, which symbolizing the dazzling daydream in the Jazz Age.
All the Sad Young Men
This book is useful for observing Fitzgerald’s quest for youth. Staying young was an important element for him. The book was published in the year at which Fitzgerald turned to thirty at the age which he feared as a loss of youth. The issue of losing youth is an unavoidable path for everyone; youth is an element for neither being kept forever nor being regained.
The stories in this book dramatize young people’s mental struggle for the fear of losing youthful time. We can observe that “Winter Dreams” and “Absolution” are closely related to The Great Gatsby. The former is exactly a compressed version of the novel. The latter can remind us of the image of Gatsby’s childhood which was eliminated in the novel.
