Jews In The Great Gatsby

Judaism, born in the deserts of Israel, placed monotheistic religion on the map over three thousand years ago. As some of the oldest practitioners of faith, Jews represent a culturally and ethnically diverse people spanning across the world. Several works of literature feature Jews at the forefront as reflections of the people’s impeccable work ethic, humor, and religious devotion. Often times, writers skew the image of the Jewish people, however, by employing stereotypes such as greediness, the unmistakable “Jewish Nose,” or, to the extreme, the “perceptions of the Jew as a completely dehumanized diabolical being, sorcerer, poisoner, murderer of children, traitor, and more” (Arkel 196). Authors Arthur Miller, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and William

F. Scott Fitzgerald praises the work ethic of the Jew in The Great Gatsby. Through the character of Meyer Wolfsheim, the disreputable gambler and possible allusion to real life racketeer Arnold Rothstein, Fitzgerald presents a man similar to a god: profitable, but with the power to destroy. Several times throughout The Great Gatsby, examples of Wolfsheim’s influence appear as marvelous, almost fantastic. He masterfully manipulated the 1919 World Series, dresses in fine clothes - complete with molar cufflinks -- and not only started Gatsby in business but “made him. . .raised him up out of nothing” (Fitzgerald 171) and into fabulous wealth. Josephine Z. Kopf commented that the authors of the early nineteenth century, particularly Fitzgerald, recognized the lavish wealth among Jews and labeled them as “a representative of the modern bourgeoisie” (Kopf 94). Wolfsheim represents the cunning skill of New York City, a niche that many Jews inhabit quite

Death of a Salesman also employs unique dialogue for Willy Loman and his family:

At its best, its true and telling best, the diction is first-generation Brooklyn Jewish—the kind of English that not only is spoken with a muscular, guttural, sing-songy Brooklyn accent, but that also retains the poetic imagery, forceful expression, and ritualistic repetition of Yiddish while discard- ing German syntax, grammar, and of course words. . .to hear . . .all of this is like watching a car run off the road momentarily onto the shoulder. (Cardullo 300) The diction of the Loman family reveals what Cardullo called “Miller’s divided impulse between writing a Jewish family play and composing a universal drama about American life.” (300) The way Linda laments about how her son “is not a bird, to come and go with the springtime” (Miller 31) or how Willy describes him as having “such an undercurrent” (Miller 6) displays a lyrical quality to diction not far removed from the mother