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Mr. Gatsby

650 views 8 replies 7 participants last post by  BlackFandango 
#1 ·
Oh gosh.. I get Si/Fe from him. INFJ?

"I didn't want you to think I was just some nobody"

-Lots of acquaintances
-Few friends
-Lots of money
-Perfects his etiquette/social norms
-Extremely private life
-Ambitious
-Unrealistic
-Stuck in the past
-Lies about how he started off
-Compromises his personality so a girl he loves will notice him
-Collects newspaper clippings of Daisy for years and saves them in a scrapbook
 
#2 ·
Maybe ISFJ ? Doesn't the fact that he is stuck to the past imply Si ?
 
#3 ·
From The Great Gatsby?

In the recent movie, I pegged him as an INTJ. He's got a specific vision and plan for his life, and all but falls apart when it crumbles -- doesn't seem like Ne inferior to me, more like Ni-dom. Fixated on controlling and arranging his future, and maneuvering other people in it. Long term planner. Smelled like Ni/Te to me.
 
#7 · (Edited)
I think he's a Fe user. From the narrator's perspective he always talks about what a truly amazing person Gatsby is and how he is "the warmest person, he has ever known" and how much better he was compared to the other people he had met in the world in part because of his benevolence and openness -- which seem like Fe qualities.

There's also a lot of talk about how everything he does is to appease his need to be in high class society, so he completely changes who he is and his past identity to create the Gatsby persona in an effort to climb the societal ranks and impress Daisy enough to wed and get her hand. What he doesn't understand is the Daisy is shallow, and while she may have feelings for Gatsby she isn't going to trade old money (traditional money) for what she and society perceives as tacky new money which could change hands at any moment (no security). His desperate need to ascend the class circle seems Fe-ish, not in a tangible Te user kind away -- his head is never really about the business side of things, either or creating something that can be seen and defined more easily. The closest we get to his side of the business is his phone calls with making hollow deals, but nothing truly standard or easily seen and materialized in the external.

The way in which Gatsby is ascribing value to something that can't be truly quantified seems more in the Fe/Ti realm. He tries to trade class and breeding with wealth and general extravagance to level the playing field between Daisy's husband and himself, because of his belief that he is not good enough as is, he is from lower class and is thus not worthy of Daisy and is barred from truly ascending and achieving his goals because of it. But the reasons why he is not good enough seem feeling orientated, he is wrestling with older Victorian values and how they define a man of status -- which again seems Fe-ish in a way. Your pedigree and breeding assign you value -- classism, not what you actually do, and he realizes and conforms to this kind of value building, and spends his entire life trying to emulate and project that image of what wealth and status look like, and hide the fact that he is a fraud for it. This seems Ni-Fe.

Te would be "I have all the requirements needed to measure up and fulfill the quota, I'm just as good because I have all the pre-requisites, let me pass. I'm just as suitable as the next candidate." That's what Te based Fi looks like. "I'm just as good as everyone else is, I qualify for this strata, based on the qualifications." But Gatsby is aware that because of his poor background he won't ever fit Daisy's (or the old world she comes from) requirements, despite the love they share.

I also have major doubts and have problems thinking a Fi user would completely deny, destroy and remake who they are at a pivitol level just to embrace someone else's idea of worthiness and gain favor in their community. That's extraverted Feeling. Te users could do this, but it would need to benefit them in some kind of cost/analysis that would be for the longer range good of their overall position. We see this a lot in Amanda/Clark (Revenge) and Don Drapper (Mad Men) -- who are NTJ's.

The way Gatsby does it kind of shows how he feels beholden to these values of feeling. He is ashamed of who he truly is, and denies it because he can't deal with that internal shame and failure. That reeks of societal and external value making and taking precedence over internal standards -- That mask making, obscuring who you truly are and changing everything about yourself and just denying everything you are goes against what Fi is. I would say an INTJ is more along the lines of Emily/Amanda Clarke from Revenge, she also creates a different personality for herself but she does is in a way that is suited more towards her need for vengeance and is more focused internally on her needs, her mission, her building towards her end goal, but most of all her feelings and needs take precedent over that of needing to fulfill requirements for others. She is not assigning or valuing things with other people in mind. She is evaluating things with an internal standard in how she sees things.

Gatsby's shame about his upbringing, and fearfulness about who he once was seems Fe like. Others will think poorly, I am not good enough, I must hide who I am for acceptance. External taking place over internal.

Gatsby talks about how much he hated that his family was poor, had no money and that they amounted to nothing, but when you come to the end of the novel, film or story we find out that he comes from a loving family and a father that doted on him, at least from what I remember of it. So a lot of the genuine qualities that Gatsby had comes initially from his humble upbringing and other people. He also adopts the sailor's name and his qualities because he believe they will get him ahead in life, "Old Sport!". This is the thing that causes the narrator to believe other people ruined Gatsby, and his belief that the world took someone who was genuinely good and then the outer circumstances destroyed him. This causes him to be disgusted with everyone in the world, and seclude himself in a mental hospital.

I would say definitely a Ni-dom, Daisy is the answer to all things, and everything he does is to bring him closer to her -- the parties are all for her, to draw her out to get her into his sphere again. When he finds out his neighbor is his cousin he freaks out and uses him to bring her to his house. All of what he does is for Daisy, Daisy is his future. All of his parties and focus on appearances seems like inferior Se too, all of the excess, all of the need to show up appearances and flash his new money is very Se-ish, right along with being willing to redecorate the narrators land because it's not good enough for Daisy. I would say Fe over Fi though, and I don't see many Te indicators. His reasoning for ascending threw the ranks seems Feeling based rather than Thinking based.

Ni, Fe and Se are enough for an INFJ typing, not much Ti, but I feel good enough for an INFJ typing.
 
#8 ·
I'm coming at this from a Keirsey perspective, so the functions will not come in to play.

As far as the book version goes, I think Idealist (NF) is most likely for Gatsby. He's at his happiest when developing empathic human relationships, and sees the world through the lens of a romantic imagination.

I would go with Teacher-Idealist (ENFJ) because of his sociability and expressiveness. But that's just my opinion.
 
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