By Jordan Slaughter
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, food imagery is used to convey an overarching theme of gluttony among upper class characters. As the novel progresses however, the description of food is used to convey a foreboding tone. The passage in which the latter theme is particularly evident is at the end of chapter seven when Daisy and Tom are sitting at their kitchen table with cold fried chicken and ale. The sharp contrast between the cold chicken and the novel’s earlier, more lavish depictions of food, as well as the shift in Nick’s narration, is a conscious departure by Fitzgerald from the novel’s norm, in order to emphasize the change that is happening within Daisy and Tom’s lives.
“Daisy and Tom were sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table, with a plate of cold fried chicken between them…He was talking intently across the table at her…Once in a while she looked up at him and nodded in agreement.” (p. 145) Although the conflict between Daisy and Tom is complex at the heart of this chapter, Fitzgerald still chooses to mention the couple’s kitchen, food, and ale before addressing their relationship problems. Throughout the novel, food plays an integral role in the lives of the characters. It often set the mood, a social obligation, and lavish Gatsby’s parties. We see from a description of Daisy and Tom’s dinner party that “They knew that dinner would be over…different than west egg were an evening was hurried…in a continuous disappointed anticipation or else in sheer nervous dread of the moment itself” (12). Fitzgerald also uses food to depict the sky, towns, places, and the appearance of characters. In one of the earliest descriptions of Daisy and Tom’s house we receive, Fitzgerald writes, (“A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains…twisting them up towards the frosted wedding cake of the ceiling…rippled over the wine-coloured rug.” (8-9) The lush food imagery (wedding cake and wine) denotes a lavish lifestyle, filled with parties and decadence and romance. However, The scene of Daisy and Tom shows a new development in the use of food that isn’t found anywhere else in the novel. In this passage, Fitzgerald mentions that the food is “cold” and uses it as a symbol of conflict and foreshadowing, instead of using food as a positive, indulgent, or warming attribute. There is an obvious tension between Daisy and Tom throughout this short passage. The terse mood is most easily detected when Fitzgerald explains that the couple is sitting opposite from one another at the kitchen table, and when he mentions Tom’s earnest tone. The tension is created with the cold chicken because it symbolizes that it was once warm and has been untouched since it was brought to the table. Normally the characters, especially those who are members of the upper class like Daisy and Tom, are depicted as incredibly indulgent, and would not willingly allow their meal to get cold. We see an example of this sort of indulgence early on in the novel, when Nick is observing Gatsby and thinks “… he tanked up a good deal on luncheon.” (20) However in the scene with Daisy and Tom in the kitchen, Fitzgerald breaks the character’s normal patterns of behavior in order to depict the tension and foreshadow some of the disaster that will occur shortly after this event in the novel.
Although it seems that Daisy and Tom have reconciled some of their differences, the food descriptions that Fitzgerald utilizes illustrate that there is not only remaining tension between the couple, but also among their relationships with other characters in the novel. Instead of indulging in the warm fried chicken like they normally would, Daisy and Tom ignore the food and attempt to quell their disagreements. Because this description of the chicken is so unusual compared to the food in the rest of the novel, it stands as a foreboding symbol of Daisy’s relationships with Gatsby and Tom, and of Gatsby’s own personal fate. The resistance of abundance and desire resembles the cold chicken, and much in the same way that Daisy leaves Gatsby. This abundance is easily within her reach, yet she chooses to ignore the seductive in favor of the familiar. She chooses Tom, her cold fried chicken, over the lavishness of Gatsby.
In addition to the unusual role of food in this passage, Nick’s use of tone changes from its other uses throughout the novel. It is the only instance in which Nick acts merely as a “fly on the wall.” He does not interject his own opinions about Daisy and Tom’s relationship, instead he simply describes the scene at Tom and Daisy’s kitchen table in short, concise sentences. Nick’s short statements about the appearance of Tom and Daisy’s kitchen and his lack of judgment and opinion in his descriptions illustrates the beginning of his removal from the upper class society. This change in narrative style also alludes to the foreboding tone of this passage, and to the strange relationships between Daisy, Tom, Gatsby, and Nick.
Nick’s atypical lack of opinion in his description of Tom and Daisy’s interaction at the kitchen table also reveals the narrator’s own personal confusion about the relationships among his fellow characters. Nick for the first time is unsure of what is going on, because the scene is not playing out in the way that he thought it would. At the end of this passage, Nick states that Tom put his hand over Daisy’s, and that Daisy occasionally nodded her head when Tom was talking to her. This interaction shows the ambiguity surrounding all of the characters’ emotions towards one another. It is clear that Nick is unsure about the fate of Daisy and Tom’s relationship with his lack of opinion in his statement. Daisy’s reaction to Tom also shows that she too is unsure of her emotions towards her husband and her relationships with other characters in the novel.
The combination both of Fitzgerald’s use of unique food descriptions and his intentional change in Nick’s narrative tone allude to Gatsby’s death in the final chapters of the novel, in addition to the deterioration of each character’s relationship to one another. These breaks in the typical narrative form of the novel aid Fitzgerald in his description of the fate of each character, and in conveying his attitude about the fate of the upper class as a whole.
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