Borderline Personality Disorder In The Great Gatsby

Using a psychoanalytic perspective, Jay Gatsby in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald demonstrates symptoms of borderline personality disorder (BPD), a disorder typified by two categorizes of impairment: identity and self-direction. It is worth mentioning that, with Nick Carraway as the narrator of the novel, all citations of Jay Gatsby’s self are presented through Nick’s view. However, for the purpose of this essay, Nick’s words will be taken as a genuine report of Gatsby’s actual character.

In an article from the National Library of Medicine that characterizes BPD, “the self” of one with BPD is described as “impoverished, poorly developed, or there is an unstable self‐image” (Gold and Kyratsous). Gatsby embodies this symptom. Throughout

One example of Jay Gatsby’s disturbances in self-direction demonstrates itself in his jumping from job to job: “I was in the drug business and then I was in the oil business. But I’m not in either one now” (Fitzgerald 90). Understandably, it was common for many Americans to go where the money was during this time, but from a psychoanalytic perspective, this jumping from job to job demonstrates a lack of career planning, which can contribute to a diagnosis of BPD. Another facet of BPD’s disturbances in self-direction is instability in values or morals. After hitting Myrtle Wilson in the car with Daisy, Gatsby continues to hyper-focus on Daisy and not the fact that the two of them just murdered a woman: “He spoke as if Daisy’s reaction was the only thing that mattered” (143). Later, while still speaking to Nick, Gatsby says this while hiding in the bushes at Tom and Daisy’s house: “I’m just going to wait here and see if he tries to bother her . . . if he tries any brutality she’s going to turn the light out and on again” (144). Gatsby is so adamant to protect Daisy from “brutality”; he demonstrates his morality of being anti-violence. However, when this value is compared to his reaction to murdering someone with Daisy, the murder is not a big deal to him; therefore, Gatsby’s instability in moral integrity, a symptom of BPD, demonstrates