was now in constant demand by all present” “The bottle of whiskey – a second one – Bachelor’s Thesis

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“The bottle of whiskey – a second one –

was now in constant demand by all present”

Alcohol Consumption as Cultural Capital and Part of

Habitus in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

Bachelor’s Thesis

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Abstract

This essay investigates the status of alcohol consumption in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The

Great Gatsby (1925). The analysis focuses on character study reading of Jay Gatsby, and Tom and Daisy Buchanan in conjunction with Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of habitus, by placing habitus in the specific historical context of the novel. The analysis focuses on the social structures of the alcohol-consuming upper-class Americans, and the reproduction of

internalized practices during Prohibition. Drinking alcohol is seen as a valued, cultural capital among the elite society and used as a tool in a competition of power. The Buchanans, as true members of their class, are constantly intoxicated. For Gatsby, a sober man and an imposter of the elite society, drinking has no cultural value. I argue that, from the cultural aspect, Gatsby’s fall is a consequence of his soberness among the drunkenness of the hierarchy.

Key words

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald, alcohol consumption, habitus, Pierre Bourdieu,

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Introduction

The strict social management of alcohol abuse in the United States during the 1920s, banned the right to sell, to manufacture, and to transport alcohol (Allen). Consequently, the

Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution imposed National Prohibition and changed the liquor market significantly. Smuggling and selling alcohol became financially beneficial. Among certain societies drinking became much more desirable after it was outlawed (Drowne 165). As a result of the ‘dry’ movement, many American novelists, like Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, created stories that portray the consumption of alcohol. For the authors of the decade, the prevalence of liquor became an appealing symbol of the 1920s, “it expressed autonomy, social dissent, and identification with an artistic subculture” (Celluci & Larsen 69). Thus, Prohibition stamped “its indelible cultural mark on some of the greatest works of American literature” (Drowne 167). The works of the twenties captured the consequences of the Eighteenth Amendment and the cultural values of the time period (Celluci & Larsen 70).

F. Scott Fitzgerald named the twenties ‘the Jazz Age’. In his memoir of the decade, Fitzgerald wrote that this time “was an age of miracles, it was an age of art, it was an age of excess, and it was an age of satire” (“Echoes of the Jazz Age” 1). He stated that the

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with its wild parties, dancing, and new freedoms for women – the elite society centres around alcohol consumption. There is a great deal of drinking that considerably “shapes the destinies of all major characters” (Cellucci & Larsen 70).

Arguably, in The Great Gatsby, the consumption of alcohol is a part of habitus, a concept created by French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. In Bourdieu’s view, habitus is the structure that shapes our identity and forms how we understand the world, it is “a product of history, [that] produces individual and collective practices” (“Structure, Habitus, Practice” 54). In “Jay Gatsby, Failed Intellectual: F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Trope for Social Stratification” (2017), Dianne E. Bechtel argues that Bourdieu’s theory “describes the social structures and relevant practices of economic status in literature and everyday life [that] are products of inculcated sociopolitical structures and substructures” (117). Bechtel’s analysis attributes Gatsby’s ultimate fall to recognized structures and substructures of the elite society. Fitzgerald’s character cannot free himself of his true social standing as his tragic flaw is rooted in cultural incompetence. His life is systematized around the social spaces and

practices of the upper-class. According to Bechtel, the characters of the novel are defined by the distinction of the social classes and habitus, which dictates their outcomes (120).

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primary idea of this essay is to demonstrate the importance of drinking among the elite society of The Great Gatsby. This thesis argues that the consumption of alcohol is seen as a valued, cultural capital for the drinking members of the upper-class, specifically Tom and Daisy. Gatsby’s triumph is partly unattainable due to his sobriety among the drunkenness of the hierarchy.

I will place habitus in the specific historical context of the novel, I will first describe the cultural perspective and explain what Prohibition was, and what impact it had on the values and practices of the 1920s upper-class. Furthermore, Bourdieu’s theory will be defined by the actual contexts and historic surroundings. Lastly, I will perform a character study reading of Jay Gatsby and the Buchanans and examine their drinking habits.

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Historical Context and Theory

In order to place habitus in a specific historical context of the novel, it is necessary to describe the conditions of the society at the time. In the following section, I will describe the cultural perspective in order to understand the social circumstances within which the concerned characters operate in. I will illustrate how great impact Prohibition had on the elite society, which consequently resulted in the creation of house parties and a revolution in manners and morals of the upper-class. A brief overview of the era will help to identify what motivated people to behave as they did but also reveal information and perspectives that could alter the findings.

Historical Context

… there was more drinking than ever before. One’s host now brought out a bottle upon the slightest pretext. The tendency to display liquor was a manifestation of the same instinct that led a man to deck his wife with jewels. To have liquor was a boast, almost a badge of respectability. (Fitzgerald, The Beautiful and Damned 617)

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after 1920” (129). That is because the Eighteenth Amendment did not outlaw the possession or drinking of alcoholic beverages (Burnham 55). Since house parties were permissible under the law, the wealthy compensated the Volstead Act by opening their homes (Drowne 129). These Cocktail Parties and their recurrence had a major role during Prohibition. The 1920s was the time when the afternoon tea gave way to the cocktail party. According to Christopher Ames, this era saw the development of the modern party as an important social occasion among the upper-class (343). In “Parties” (2013), Ames states that those parties were full of festive excess and became so frequently attended that they “represented everyday activity rather than a specially designated festive time set apart from the everyday” (346). Drowne argues that nothing has captured parties’ splendid excessiveness as well as Jay Gatsby’s West Egg Mansion, with “a level of socializing that upper-middle-class partygoers expected from the rich and the well connected during Prohibition, even if their wealth and connections arose from trafficking in illegal liquor” (130). These social gatherings became a concatenation of jazz music, wild dancing, unsuitable flirting, and above all, frenetic drinking; “the taking of a drink became an adventure, and when time dulled the zest of the adventure, the habit of the beverage itself had taken its place as an incentive” (Barr qtd. in Drowne 134). However, it is important to mention that although the formalized events of the upper-class were organized around drinking alcohol, at the same time, there were those who believed that consuming alcohol was an indicator of misconduct and you would probably never encounter them drinking alcoholic beverages.

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was then considered acceptable behaviour, wore short hair and dresses, and most importantly gained the right to vote. This new freedom, less supervised and less formal modes of social gathering resulted in more liberated sexual behaviour, but also the scandalous drinking and cigarette smoking by women. Some people believed that consuming alcohol, especially by females, was an indicator of immorality. Nevertheless, women enjoyed greater freedom than ever before and “willingly risked social opprobrium by continuing to indulge in cocktail drinking” (Drowne 134).

J. C. Burnham writes in “New Perspectives on the Prohibition “Experiment” of the 1920’s” (1968) that the interplay between Prohibition and social role and status was significantly more crucial than initially assumed. When obtaining liquor became risky, alcohol became a luxury item, a symbol of affluence and status (63). The utilization of drinking as influential consumption among the elite society was accompanied by a revolution in manners and morals, where drunken behaviour was no longer distasteful. As alcohol consumption began to signify status, some started to drink more than ever before (Drowne 165). Moreover, Prohibition caused social worlds to collide as the upper-class had to mobilize with lower classes to obtain liquor. Due to the large profits involved in bootlegging, criminal elements organized and exploited the illegal alcohol industry (62). Many gangsters and bootleggers accumulated so much money and power during Prohibition that “the next logical step appeared to be breaking the only barricade left: entrance into the highest echelon of elite society” (Drowne 56). The immense profits available in liquor smuggling led men of varying socioeconomic classes to buy their way into the elite society. In The Great Gatsby,

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drinking upper-class, the acquaintanceship of gangsters and bootleggers became something to brag about, rather than withhold.

Excess contributed to the already existing materialism. The preoccupation with

possessions created a fully mature consumer society. In “Rethinking Politics: Consumers and the Public Good during the “Jazz Age”” (2007), Lawrence B. Glickman writes that the American society, not just economically but culturally as well, centred on general mass consumption. Drinking regularly, but also drinking large amounts of liquor became a habit of the upper-class. Americans started to enjoy “the private pleasures afforded by the new

affluence” (16) of the decade. The American marketplace was forever transformed by the Jazz Age: “consumer culture was a defining element of public life in the 1920’s” (Gidlow qtd. in Maxwell 312). Fitzgerald stated that “even when you were broke you didn’t worry about money, because it was in such profusion around you” (“Echoes of the Jazz Age” 8). During the twenties, people began to attach more importance to material belongings and cultural goods.

To sum up, the Eighteenth Amendment was initially meant to keep the Americans sober, yet it transformed drinking into a culturally valued practice for certain members of the elite society. House parties became a significant social happening that contributed to drinking becoming an everyday gratification – a habit that previously was occasional. Arguably, the expanding materialism further contributed to more prevalent drinking. Not only did

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Theoretical Framework

Pierre Bourdieu (1930-2002) has, among other things, contributed to the sociological field with the analysis ofwhether social structures or human agency determine an individual’s behaviour by identifying the interaction between these two: a theory he calls habitus. In cultural theory, habitus is connected with the concept of structuralism, and it can be used to understand larger influencing factors and external structures of a society. Bourdieu’s approach can be utilized as a tool for analysing the reproduction of practices in The Great Gatsby, which consequently helps to examine the status of alcohol consumption. For the sake of this thesis, Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus will be placed in the specific historical context of the events of the twenties described in the historical context.

Structures and Habitus

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Moreover, the recognized structures regulate our habits, ambitions, morals, and dispositions but also define the meaning of our actions (Sulkunen 105).

In Journal for the Study of Food and Society (1999), Elaine Power explains habitus as “a way of describing the embodiment of social structures and history in individuals” (48). She explains that habitus is based upon a set of practices internal to the individual. The

internalized practices reflect external social structures and shape how the individual perceives the world and acts in it (48). A person “is predisposed to act in accordance with the social structures that have shaped her, because, in effect, she carries those social structures with her” (48-49). People individually reproduce various practices by socially obtained structures. Accordingly, members of the upper-class that continued to drink alcohol during Prohibition did it in consonance with the recognized structures of the drinking group. According to Bourdieu’s theory of practice, people are not aware of the factors affecting their behaviour, nor of the implicit logic behind that behaviour (“Social Space and Symbolic Power” 16). The Cocktail Party society probably consumed liquor without giving it an afterthought, the habit of frenetic drinking became a reproduced practice.

Pekka Sulkunen states in “Society Made Visible – on the Cultural Sociology of Pierre Bourdieu” (1982), that “the various practices of living among a certain class or group are harmonized and homologized in accordance with its specific living conditions” (108). The common habitus is produced by ‘harmonization’ and ‘homologization’, a system that

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style of dressing, aesthetic codes, and behaviour. The habitus of a group defines symbolic structure “within which it conducts its practices” and “within which the members of the group understand their own and each other’s practices” (108). Within each class, there exists a cultural code that attributes value to cultural practices, and the common habitus is formed in the practical choice of utilizing these values (108). During the 1920s, the upper-class gave away their afternoon tea to drinking cocktails simply because there was a conviction that they should. There was a cultural structure that defined the various cultural practices as valuable, e.g. going to speakeasies and illegal clubs during Prohibition. This practice, how it was generated, and how it is reproduced, is part of cultural capital. Cultural capital is the accumulation of behaviours, values, and practices that establishes an agent’s cultural

competence and status, and it is based on long-established dispositions and habits acquired in the socialization process. Accordingly, cultural capital is what makes someone part of that culture, but also what separates its members from other groups. It functions as the

accumulation of cultural knowledge.

Alcohol Consumption as Cultural Capital

In Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (1984), Bourdieu asserts that there is nothing more adequate to express social differences than,

… the world of luxury goods, and, more particularly, cultural goods, this is because the relationship of distinction is objectively inscribed within it, and is reactivated,

intentionally or not, in each act of consumption, through the instruments of economic and cultural appropriation which it requires. (226)

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capital, is based on the acquisition and consumption of cultural goods. Although he never directly mentions alcohol consumption, his theory hints on how to use his concepts to understand people’s choices and behaviour. In “The Practise and Practice of Bourdieu: The Application of Social Theory to Youth Alcohol Research” (2011), researchers Belinda

Lunnay, Paul Ward, and Joseph Borlagdan have applied Bourdieu’s theory to young females’ alcohol consumption. Their study argues that the concerned social group occupies a position within a social structure “where there exists an inherent societal acceptance of drinking as a valued social activity, that is, a source of symbolic capital” (431). Symbolic capital is structurally generated through the lineage of cultural capital, that is what is valued by the social group at a given time, and it serves as a value that one holds within a

culture. According to their findings, people tend to use alcohol as symbolic capital to maintain their position in social hierarchies. “Symbolic capital is translatable to anything recognised by social agents as having value in a social context,” (431) consequently, in the novel, access to alcohol could be perceived as symbolic capital among the elite society. Thus, when alcohol consumption became a part of the cultural capital of the drinking members of the upper-class, access to alcohol became structurally valuable and desirable as symbolic capital.

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“naturally” go together (Brierley‐Jones, et al. 1056). As an example, during Prohibition, those members of the elite society that shared the same structures, and cultural practices, and attended the Cocktail Parties also valued the same cultural capital, that is alcohol consumption.

In accordance with Bourdieu’s view, consumption is an act of communication which “presupposes that the consumer master a set of codes pertinent to their social group and … contributes to the creation of distinction between different groups” (Järvinen, et al. 386). In order to promote their own significance in various aspects of life, and to reinforce and

symbolize their status, agents can actively use consumption and other leisure activities. Thus, consumption always accompanies the exercise of power. Properties and wealth that are consumed, – “expressions of the habitus perceived through the categories of the habitus – symbolize the differential capacity to appropriate, that is, capital and social power, and they function as symbolic capital” (Bourdieu, “The Objectivity of the Subjective” 140). After the Eighteenth Amendment became constitutional, to have liquor was affluential, profitable, and, as Fitzgerald wrote, “almost a badge of respectability” (The Beautiful and Damned 617). For the upper-class Americans, having access to alcohol became a valued symbolic capital, generated through the cultural capital of alcohol consumption. Drinking could establish one’s cultural competence and social status. This consumption represented status and became embedded into the elite society as an established structure. As Ames states, attending wild house parties with illegal booze became an important social occasion during Prohibition (343), but also a symbolically valued, cultural practice.

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understanding of drinking habits among the upper-class. Inherent within the heart of culture is the need to uphold the existing order through “sometimes deliberate, but more often habitual or tacit, strategizing” (155). Within different arenas of social life, actors unwillingly

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Analysis

In the following section, three characters of The Great Gatsby will be examined. The Buchanans will be treated as one entity as they will be examined from the aspect of their class. With that said, there are alternative approaches to their drinking that could separate them from each other. However, in this essay, I will disregard other reasoning. Moreover, it is important to mention that there are other possible reasons for Gatsby’s fall, that are

premeditatedly left out of the analysis. The concerned acharacters will be analysed to explore what alcohol consumption means to their habitus. For the sake of the novel’s narration, Nick, the storytelling character, will also be a part of the analysis but solely as a contrast to those concerned.

Jay Gatsby – The Bootlegger That Chooses to Stay Sober

The mysterious Jay Gatsby is many things – a millionaire and bootlegger, the owner of the great West Egg Mansion and the host of the lavish, elite society parties. Everything that Gatsby does and everything that motivates him is about winning Daisy Buchanan back. His love for her is so great that he settles down across the bay of the Buchanan Mansion. Every week hundreds of “interesting people … who do interesting things,” (Fitzgerald, The Great

Gatsby 109) carelessly exploit his hospitality, downing his illegal alcohol at his house parties.

Jay Gatsby was not always ‘Great’. In the beginning of his life Gatsby was “a penniless young man” (178). He became a self-made millionaire that earned his fortune through ‘new money’ by exploiting the illegal alcohol industry. He is a solid example of how wealthy Prohibition could make you if you took advantage of it. Because the elite society of The Great

Gatsby did not become sober due to the Eighteenth Amendment. If people want to get drunk,

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the habitus of the upper-class, that it becomes an unconscious structure and, according to Bourdieu, affects the perception and appreciation of their experiences (“Structure, Habitus, Practice” 54). The common habitus regulates the habits and morals, but also governs the practices of the elite society. As an established, culturally valued practice, alcohol

consumption defines the meaning of drinking people’s actions. In The Great Gatsby, every time people go to the West Egg Mansion and get roaring drunk from Gatsby’s bootlegged liquor, meet at illegal speakeasies, or in some other way evade the provisions of Prohibition, they choose to follow their own principles regulated by their habitus. The society that show up at Gatsby’s, to swing away to Jazz orchestra, or to consume “floating rounds of permeate cocktails,” (Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby 48) have many things in common. The thirsty partygoers do not attend West Egg Mansion festivities for the sake of its host. “People were not invited – they went there,” (49) they do not go there for Jay Gatsby, they go there to drink. These events are neither occasional, nor spontaneous, but a generated, recognized structure:

On weekends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city … And on Mondays eight servants, including an extra gardener, toiled all day with mops and scrubbing brushes and hammers and garden shears, repairing the ravages of the night before. (47)

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in advance, but the majority of the alcohol was illegally obtained. And the people are familiar with Gatsby’s occupation:

“He’s a bootlegger,” said the young ladies, moving somewhere between his cocktails and his flowers. “One time he killed a man who found out he was nephew to von Hindenburg and second cousin to the devil, reach me a rose, honey, and pour me a last drop into that crystal glass”. (73)

These rumours do not stop people from attending his parties. A killer or a gangster – it does not matter if he also is a provider of alcohol. Due to the status and addiction involved with alcohol consumption, Prohibition never stood a chance. People attending West Egg parties know that every drop in their crystal glasses is illegal. However, that is no issue as long as the alcohol is there, within hand’s reach. For the young ladies, it is quite inconsequential if the host has “a little business on the side,” (100) or if he is a criminal. Therefore, the frequency and the excess of Gatsby’s house parties reflects a status of socializing that partygoers expected from the owner, where “men and girls came and went like moths among the

whisperings and the champagne” (47). The Volstead Act brought these well-established, and cultured people together to enjoy the prohibited offerings from a man whom the public believed to be a criminal. The reproduced practice of internal to every individual, yet utilized by the society, reflects the external social structure of the Gatsby-universe. The habitus of the elite drinking society defines a symbolic order within which each and every member conducts their practices into a coherent whole, disregarding Prohibition and consumption of illegal beverages from trafficking. As Sulkunen suggests, the common habitus defines the symbolic structure which reassures the group to understand their own and each other’s practices (108). However, those who do not share the cultural structure do not participate, nor

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they start with the most obvious spot – the bar, which “was crowded, but Gatsby was not there” (54). Nick, as an abstainer does not share the cultural capital with the rest at this “unusual party” (58). The heavy drinking makes him distressed, he gives the impression that he solely joins the practice to tolerate everyone else at the party. He starts to enjoy himself after he “had taken two finger-bowls of champagne, and the scene had changed before my eyes into something significant, elemental, and profound” (57). Nick feels almost as if he stepped into a new environment, that is how great of an impact alcohol intoxication has on him.

The attitude of the drinking members of the elite society towards the consumption of alcohol indicates that drinking is a cultural practice. It is so important that it also becomes symbolically valued, and thus structurally generated through the lineage of cultural capital. Although Gatsby operates within the upper-class, he actually never casually consumes

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alcohol is no ordinary practice for Nick, it does not involve the same amount of value as it does for the other guests. As a matter of Gatsby, his consumption of alcohol is not based on addiction, nor on cultural practice and he has the control to deny a drink. This suggests that Gatsby does not share the ‘bourgeois taste’ of the upper-class, so drinking does not generate “meaningful practices and meaning-giving perceptions” (Bourdieu, “The Economy of Practices” 171). By means of Gatsby’s habitus, drinking alcohol has no cultural value. When Tom Buchanan, the wealthy, alcoholised husband of Daisy, arrives at Gatsby’s West Egg Mansion for the first time, Gatsby is sure to establish his status by serving alcohol: “I’ll have something to drink for you in just a minute” (Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby 122). The alcohol is solely displayed as a badge of respectability of Gatsby’s and symbolic capital, not consumed. According to Lunnay et al. people remain sober when drinking has no “value in a social context” (431). Their statement suggests that Gatsby is drinking when he can gain something by that practice. Unlike Tom, Gatsby does not actively use consumption of alcohol as cultural capital since his habitus does not inhabit what Järvinen et al. generally consider “a set of codes pertinent to the social group” (386) of the upper-class. He does not automatically reach for a drink as he does not share, what Sulkunen calls, their symbolic order (108). As an impostor, he lives by the belief that “it’s a great advantage not to drink among hard-drinking people” (Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby 93-94). He actively does not participate in that consumption. Gatsby chooses to stay sober.

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bootlegger – “nobody came,” (209) not even Daisy. His guests never arrived, people only drank him dry. Considering the structures of elite society, Gatsby’s fall is inevitable. Since the practice of drinking is not an internal, recognized structure of his, he does not see any cultural value in alcohol consumption. This distinction ultimately separates him from his guests, the drinking members of the upper-class but also Daisy. Gatsby uses his access to alcohol and takes advantage of Prohibition to reach his social position. However, as a formerly poor man, he is unable to grasp the materialistic, bourgeois taste of the elite society. In accordance with Bechtel’s view, Gatsby’s tragic flaw is indeed rooted in cultural incompetence. Bechtel argues that he cannot free himself of his true social standing due to the distinctions of the social classes as the “social order [is] apparent through the cultural capital of … taste” (119). I propose that this distinction is also a result of the cultural importance of alcohol consumption among certain members of the upper-class, and Gatsby’s rise is ultimately unachievable due to his soberness. Gatsby fails because he cannot find himself among the drunkenness of the upper-class society as his drinking is symbolic and strategic, lacking vital, cultural value.

The Buchanans – The Couple That Is Always Intoxicated

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As members of the alcohol-consuming upper-class, their drinking originates from the common habitus and the cultural value that comes with that practice.

In the second chapter, Tom invites Nick to meet his mistress Myrtle. Within minutes of their arrival at his New York apartment, Tom “brought out a bottle of whiskey from a locked bureau door” (34). Sulkunen states that habitus defines symbolic structure within which people manage their practices (108). Accordingly, the habitus of Tom and the likes defines the drinking of alcohol as a priority, and this structure is based upon the correlation of the living conditions of his class. It is therefore a given realityto consume alcohol. Upon the arrival of his guests Tom states “You McKees have something to drink … Get some more ice and mineral water, Myrtle, before everybody goes to sleep” (Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby 38). Myrtle aspires to be a part of the elite society, and by drinking heavily with the upper-class she establishes her cultural competence. Although she comes from a different upper-class, she is also Tom’s mistress who shares his meaning structures of cultural practices and values. This act of consumption works, in Bourdieu’s view “through the instruments of … cultural appropriation which it requires” (“The Economy of Practices” 226) to be acknowledged. Unlike Gatsby, Myrtle wants to drink as she recognizes this consumption as culturally

valuable. However, since she doesn’t have access to alcohol, the consumption cannot be used as symbolic capital.

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Sulkunen argues that practices are obtained in accordance with the living conditions of a class (108). According to Burnham, alcohol consumption is a symbol of affluence and status (63). As for members of the upper-class, it is also a valued cultural practice that establishes one’s status, and as Sulkunen argues, used as an instrument in a competition for power (105). Burnham also argues that during Prohibition drinking was utilized as influential consumption.

Accordingly, the Buchanans consume alcohol to reinforce their position within their class. Back in the apartment, Tom and his mistress start to fight. Myrtle starts to shout out

Daisy’s name to which, by “making a short deft movement, Tom Buchanan [breaks] her nose with his open hand” (45). He does it under the influence of alcohol, when it has such

dominance over him that he cannot control himself. Nevertheless, no one stops him from becoming that intoxicated, not even Tom himself. No one disproves the heavy drinking, it is only Nick, for whom alcohol consumption is not a recognized structure, that realizes that perhaps “the whiskey distorted things” (35).

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behaviour becomes habitual, so does her drinking habits. Years later, when she finally finds her way to West Egg, Gatsby is sure to serve her “a glass of some Chartreuse he took from a cupboard in the wall” (Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby 110) as an act of communication of his status and access to cultural goods. Daisy belongs to the society that Glickman declared to centre on mass consumption. It is not only alcohol itself, but also this particular rare brand that impresses her. As a true consumer Daisy cries out about missing out on Gatsby’s wealth and liquor. She looks around at the rich bootlegger’s possession and bent her head into “shirts of sheer linen and thick silk,” and the garmentsmake her sad, as she has “never seen such beautiful shirts” (Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby 112). There is nothing Daisy’s habitus craves more than all the luxury goods, and nothing that impresses her more than his access to symbolic capital.

However, there is a gendered perspective to drinking that cannot be left uncommented. As described in the historical context, women gained new freedoms during the Jazz Age and were invited to drink socially. Daisy’s habitus is not only class oriented because it is also affected by her gender, and the reason for her consumption of alcohol is complex. Her drinking could also be caused by her problematic marital situation, depression, or the harsh realities of being a woman. When Daisy speaks about her daughter, she states: “I hope she’ll be a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.” (21) Daisy is thus aware that women are only valued by their appearance, not their intelligence.

Presumably, that is why she hopes for her daughter to be a fool, unaware of this cruel world and its society. Alcohol consumption could therefore have a substantial part in Daisy’s life due to various factors, other than her class.

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things from going incredibly wrong and requests the first thing that comes to her mind, “Make us a cold drink” (139) she cries. What follows is already established in their habitus. Tom interrupts whatsoever he formerly planned up to this point and leaves the room, only to come back after a short while, with “four gin rickeys that clinked full of ice” (140). Even Gatsby proceeds to drink like everyone else, “in long, greedy swallows” (141). However, his

consumption is based on maintaining his position in social hierarchies. When Gatsby is with the Buchanans, the drinking of alcohol is intentionally reproduced. A while later, when a further unpleasant scene is about to occur, Daisy calls yet again for the only practice that will disrupt Tom: “Shall we take anything to drink?” (144). Tom, unconsciously reproducing this practice, goes to get more whiskey in “a quart bottle in a towel” (144). Naturally, the liquor travels with them to the city, where the party should continue. When they arrive at a suite in the Plaza Hotel, Daisy keeps on drinking and states that a cold bath in a bathtub is the

ultimate “place to have a mint julep” (151). However, Tom proceeds to sabotage Gatsby as he knows his true identity as “some big bootlegger” (130). The bottle of whiskey is now placed on the table, waiting to be devoured. Daisy’s anxiety grows stronger as the bottle remains unopened and she asks to “order some ice for the mint julep” (152). As Tom demands more answers, Daisy orders her husband to become himself and asks to “open the whiskey Tom … and I’ll make you a mint julep. Then you won’t seem so stupid to yourself… Look at the mint!” (155). Daisy’s statement and reaction suggests that she is used to her husband being intoxicated, and his soberness is out of ordinary. Presumably, it is not only Tom’s anger that makes her uncomfortable, but his sobriety as well.

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bootlegger the first time I saw him, and I wasn't far wrong” (161). The consumption of whiskey, gin, bourbon, and liquor are all part of cultural capital within the structure of the Buchanans’ class. However, Gatsby does not recognize any valuation in this consumption as a cultural practice, nor does he utilize these values. In “The Power of Hegemonic Classes in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby” (2018), Hasnul Insani Djohar states that The Great

Gatsby can be considered as representative of how the aristocratic groups maintain their

“power in every aspect of American society in the 1920s economically, politically,

psychologycally [sic] and culturally” (299). Djohar argues that the upper-class achievev their domination through the consumer culture where its members “consume[d] materialism and pursue[d] the luxury and leisure time,” (299) to maintain their status. For both of the Buchanans, there is an inherent acceptance of drinking as a valued cultural activity where access to alcohol is a source of symbolic capital. The consumption of alcohol has become structurally generated as cultural capital, that is, what became valued by the upper-class Americans during Prohibition. Thereafter, this bourgeois taste is embedded into the recognized, internal structures of the common habitus of the elite society, which generates meaningful practices and meaning-giving perceptions. The Buchanans and every other drinking member of their class that acknowledge alcohol consumption as valued cultural capital, instinctively coordinate with each other. This common consumption serves as an act of communication, which Järvinen et al. consider contributing to the creation of distinction between the concerned social group and others (386), that is the drinking members of the elite society, and the sober ones.

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predisposes them to think and act in patterned ways. Marcos Antonio Norris in “‘Her Voice is Full of Money’: Mechanical Reproduction and a Metaphysics of Substance in F. Scott

Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby” (2017) confirms Bourdieu’s theory of consumption. Norris states that the upper-class Buchanans are the embodiment of the “mechanical reproduction and the democratisation of consumer goods” (893). Their “social authority resides with the aristocracy,” consequently, Gatsby is condemned to an inevitable failure as the reason “of a purportedly false identity” (893). Arguably, the structure of consumerism is deeply rooted in the habitus of the 1920s upper-class. The consumption of alcohol is highly valued as cultural capital among the drinkers. Thus, based on the aspect of consumption and the cultural values of the elite society, Gatsby is not equal to the Buchanans and acts like a pretender to the upper class. Alcohol consumption is not part of Gatsby’s cultural capital.

Moreover, Tom and Daisy are the only entities throughout the story that never say no to alcohol. Not only has drinking a great status for the Buchanans, but it also controls the most tragic and substantial events. Back at the Plaza Hotel and the big argument, after drinking whiskey, the gin rickeys and “the cold ale,” (141) everyone is quite intoxicated. Tom

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Nevertheless, as Nick stated, Tom and Daisy “were careless people … – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together” (216). Arguably, it is the drinking of alcohol that keeps them together. As members of the same society, holding the same cultural practices dear, they find themselves in each other’s drunkenness, unconsciously reproducing “existing divisions, social hierarchies and class formations” (Houston 155). As the social hierarchy during Prohibition, they use drinking to reinforce their status, utilizing it as influential

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Conclusion

Examining The Great Gatsby through a social structural filter and placing habitus in the specific historical context of the novel, provides an alternative reading of Fitzgerald’s

characters. Alcohol consumption has a great status in the lives of Tom and Daisy Buchanans. The Buchanans are continuously intoxicated and unable to make clear-headed decisions. Gatsby’s triumph is partly unattainable due to his sobriety among the drunkenness of the hierarchy. He has no chance of victory within a drinking society where alcohol consumption is culturally valuable and dictates the habits, and morals.

The Eighteenth Amendment left as many traces in the Jazz Age society as it did in the fictional world of F. Scott Fitzgerald. Alcoholism is present on every page of The Great

Gatsby. Defining alcohol consumption as an unconscious structure in the upper-class has

provided evidence of its superior position in the novel and its hidden forms of domination. Bourdieu’s theory of habitus explains the centrality of drinking among the upper-class

American Prohibition society. Based on the cultural perspective and the historical context, the application of the theory reveals the internalized structures of the elite society, where the practice of drinking is consciously and unconsciously reproduced. All three of the analysed characters use access to alcohol as symbolic capital to maintain their power and uphold their social status. When Prohibition came, liquor became a luxury item, and a source of authority. To be drunk meant to be influential, to have connections, to be of higher rank. Thus, for the drinking part of the elite society, alcohol consumption became part of cultural capital.

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class as a tool in a competition of power and status. Materialism makes people want more of everything, and most importantly, more drinking. The Buchanans are stuck in a never-ending, constantly reproduced drunkenness, unable to free themselves from the repetitious practice. They are prisoners of the upper-class structures – alcohol consumption dominates their morals and habits, by daily contaminating their lives. For Tom and Daisy, drinking is a valued

cultural practice, deeply rooted into their habitus as cultural capital. In contrast, for Gatsby, a sober man and recent member of the higher class, drinking has no cultural value. He does not share the bourgeois, drunken taste, thus drinking is no meaningful practice of his, nor an internal structure. However, as for the classy Americans during the drying of the state, the consumption of alcohol has become structurally generated through the lineage of cultural capital. The Buchanans instinctively coordinate with each other in consonance with their internal structures, holding the same cultural practices dear. Jay Gatsby intends to remain sober, however, alcohol consumption’s superior position within the society makes it impossible to remain among the hierarchy. He will always be an imposter.

I propose Bourdieu’s habitus as an investigative tool for further research of Fitzgerald’s novels, but also other 1920s works. Utilizing the theory, both in Bechtel’s analysis and this thesis, have proven to be beneficial in investigating the social structures of The Great Gatsby. Considering consumerism of various material belongings as an integrated structure of habitus of the society at the time, could reveal additional findings. Moreover, I suggest looking further into other characters in The Great Gatsby that deserve more recognition in the literary analysis, for example Myrtle Wilson and Jordan Baker. As previously stated, Daisy’s

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was now in constant demand by all present” “The bottle of whiskey – a second one – Bachelor’s Thesis

“The bottle of whiskey – a second one –