How is Gatsby portrayed as an elusive character?
There are many ways in which Gatsby is portrayed as being elusive. One is when he is asked by Nick where about he is from. Gatsby continues to Nick explaining he is from the “mid-west”. However, when he is asked further about where in the mid-west he is from he says “San Francisco”. This adds to his mystery because San Francisco is on the far west coast, this implies and adds to the illusion of his elusiveness because it implies that no one knows where he is really from. I personally feel that this leads people to come up with crazy rumours about him being “cousins with great Kaiser-Wilhelm” or speculating further, this is because he doesn’t talk to many people and never lets out the truth.
Furthermore, Gatsby constantly receives phone calls. Phone calls are very elusive because you never know who is on the other end of the line. Usually every phone call is business and usually has to take the phone call alone. When Nick and Gatsby meet for the first time Gatsby receives a phone call and expects it to be nothing, he then asked Nick to leave due to the fact it is business. This adds to the mystery that is Gatsby not only due to the phone calls, but the way he takes them. He is secretive about them and doesn’t want anyone to know. I personally feel this sense of secrecy lets people again make up rumours about what line of work he is in and whether he has “killed a man” before. No one really knows that he is in the bootlegging business and no one finds out until after his death.
Finally, Gatsby never appears at his parties. This is due to the fact he only holds these parties in the hope that one day daisy will make an appearance at one of his parties. He always over watches but never mingles with his guests. This leads the guest to make up an image in their head of what Gatsby is really like. At one point in the book his guests area all around a table talking about what he is like and what line of work he is in, yet no one can come up with a reasonable explanation. This adds to the mystery because people can speculate as much as they want but they can never know what he does for a living and whether the rumours they’ve heard are true of not.
In conclusion I feel that Gatsby is portrayed as very elusive. He is a very new to this area of the States and in new in wealth. Everyone knows Tom Buchannan’s family therefore there is no reason to ever talk about him or speculate. However Gatsby never socialises with any one apart from business partners and sticks to himself, this therefore leads you to conjure up an image of what you think Gatsby is like adding to the mystery and elusiveness that is Jay Gatsby.