"Gold-Hatted Gatsby"

            Preceding the publication of The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald debated a number of different titles for his novel. One of these was the tentative title “Gold-Hatted Gatsby.” This alludes to the epigraph from Thomas Park D’Invilliers which is printed on the title page of the book, which begins with “then wear the golden hat, if that will move her” (Fitzgerald 1). Though the title of the novel did not end up being “Gold-Hatted Gatsby,” it is still clear through the diction and the actions of the characters in The Great Gatsby that the epigraph plays a large role in describing the beliefs and motives of Jay Gatsby in relation to Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby wears a “golden hat” by building up ridiculous wealth, he “bounces high” for Daisy by going beyond the expectations of society with the intent to impress her, and he devotes his life to making Daisy desire to “have” him as much as he desires to “have” her. As his father says of Gatsby on the day of his son’s funeral, “he always had some resolves” (Fitzgerald 182). Gatsby always has a detailed plan of action for accomplishing his goals; even as a child, he creates schedules by which he plans to achieve his desires (an example of this is demonstrated in the old “Hopalong Cassidy” book which Mr. Gatz shows to Nick). In the same vein, he also has a detailed plan to win Daisy—he plans to “wear the golden hat”, “bounce high for her”, and make her believe that she “must have” (Fitzgerald 1) him.

            The first line of the epigraph reads, “Then wear the golden hat, if that will move her” (Fitzgerald 1). In The Great Gatsby, Mr. Gatsby puts on a metaphorical golden hat of wealth in order to impress Daisy. The original separation of Gatsby and Daisy occurs because of money. When he is near Daisy, Gatsby is aware of “the youth and mystery that wealth imprisons and preserves, of the freshness of many clothes and of Daisy, gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor” (Fitzgerald 157). She is from a rich family; even Daisy’s voice is “full of money—that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals’ song of it...High in a white palace, the king’s daughter, the golden girl…” (Fitzgerald 127). She has wealth, but he is poor and has none, and because of this they are prevented from being together. Assuming that he can win Daisy back again by amassing a large amount of money, Gatsby turns recklessly to the quickest way he can think of to get rich—the participation in illicit activities and the marketing of illegal items. He moves into an enormous house and it takes him “just three years to earn the money that bought it” (Fitzgerald 95). While hosting exaggerated parties and living on the highest level of luxury, flying in his personal hydroplane and driving snazzy cars, Gatsby makes sure that the totality of his extravagance is situated on display just across the water from Daisy’s home, in the hopes that she will see it and be moved. He believes that a quick acceleration to the top rung of the economic ladder will finally establish Gatsby as Daisy’s equal; by parading a façade of wealth before the world, Gatsby wears a “golden hat” in hopes it will entice Daisy to return to him.

            The second line of the epigraph reads, “If you can bounce high, bounce for her too” (Fitzgerald 1). Gatsby “bounces high” when he goes above and beyond the norm in order to impress Daisy. Nick, the narrator of The Great Gatsby, says of Gatsby that “he had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart” (Fitzgerald 101). Gatsby lets his longing for Daisy consume his life and fuel his efforts; for almost five years he labors solely in pursuit of her. The common trend in society dictated that “…young men didn’t…drift coolly out of nowhere and buy a palace on Long Island Sound” (Fitzgerald 54), but Gatsby does. He “bounces” as high as he can, above and beyond the typical expectations, in his attempts to prove his worth superior to that of Tom Buchanan, Daisy’s husband. Like a man actually “bouncing”, Gatsby is literally “never quite still; there was always a tapping foot somewhere or the impatient opening and closing of a hand” (Fitzgerald 68). His fixation on bringing Daisy back to him gives Gatsby a restless vibe, a tick which betrays his constant preoccupation with doing more and more for his image and for his girl. As long as his goal remains out of reach, “tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther” (Fitzgerald 189), and, sparing no effort, never give up until he has Daisy’s love once again. Jay Gatsby builds up a shining reputation of excessive fortune through years of fixed concentration on proving himself to Daisy; Gatsby decides to “bounce high” for her through overachievement and by surpassing the anticipations of society.

            The final two lines of the epigraph read, “Till she cry ‘Lover, gold-hatted, high-bouncing lover, / I must have you’” (Fitzgerald 1)! Everything Gatsby does is done in the name of making Daisy want him in return. Nick believes that “…something, some idea of himself perhaps…had gone into loving Daisy” (Fitzgerald 117). The one thing Gatsby wants most in the world is for Daisy to be his again—it is his obsession—and he wants it so much that he completely immerses and loses himself in it; his ultimate goal is for Daisy to reciprocate his feelings. Gatsby judges himself and his material possessions by the amount of approval Daisy bestows upon him; in fact, “I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes” (Fitzgerald 96-97). Gatsby lets his desire for Daisy take control of his life, and “if that was true he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream” (Fitzgerald 169). The sum of Gatsby’s exertions is directed towards influencing Daisy to need him again in his life; he is consumed by the desire to hear her say, “I must have you” (Fitzgerald 1)!

            Throughout the book, Gatsby’s actions and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s diction illustrate how the Thomas Park D’Invilliers epigraph describes Jay Gatsby’s way of thinking about Daisy Buchanan, and how it describes Gatsby’s obsession with Daisy herself. Through subtle clues in his language and plot mechanisms, the author communicates with the reader Gatsby’s personal interpretation of the “golden hat”, his own way in which he strives to “bounce for her”, and his desire for Daisy to cry to him, “I must have you!” In his quest for love and Daisy, Gatsby carries out the formula of the epigraphical prologue to the novel which bears his name.

Works Cited

Fitzgerald, F S. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1995. Print.