“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

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.