Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 2001. [Vol. 7.] Eger Journal of American Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 27)
Studies - Zoltán Simon: The Image of Technology in Selected American Novels of the 1920's
Buchanans, a means of expressing their social and financial status. Furthermore, claims O'Meara, in specific situations between Tom and Wilson, the car also becomes a currency, a medium of exchange. Wilson (incidentally a car mechanic leading a rather mechanical existence), for whom the coupé could become a "literal and figurative means of escape" (82) hopes to buy it from Tom Buchanan so that he and Myrtle can sell it with profit and go West. Daisy Buchanan, typically of affluent women in the 1920s, has her own car: a little white roadster. It is ironic, as Echevarria points out, that at the beginning of their aborted relationship, Gatsby "has no 'chariot' to facilitate his romantic pursuit" (73); Daisy, the dream girl, however, already drives her own automobile. The question of what the novel's characters drive situates them socially in a hierarchy similar to the one suggested by Lewis in Babbitt , but how they drive is an indication of personal, even moral values in the novel. The Great Gatsby abounds in examples of poor driving, traffic violations, accidents, and near-accidents. After Gatsby's first party a drunken guest drives his car into the ditch (45). Next, Jordan Baker (whose very name evokes automobile memories) nearly runs over a group of road workers, passing them so close that the "fender flicked a button on one man's coat" (48), thus deserving the unflattering epithet of a "rotten driver." In New York, Gatsby is pulled over for speeding, but he gets away using his "gonnections," by simply showing the officer a card from the police commissioner (54). These incidents culminate in the hit-and-run scene when Myrtle gets killed by Daisy, driving Gatsby's car on their way back from New York. It seems that Nick is perhaps the only character not in the category of careless drivers. Clearly, misuse or abuse of technology such as reckless driving may be seen as symbolic of the general wildness, carelessness, and irresponsibility of the Jazz Age (cf. Echevarria 76) and provides a way for Fitzgerald for making indirect moral statements about his characters. The Great Gatsby also makes use of other elements of the technological environment, such as trains, Gatsby's hydroplane, or gas stations, but these are more for the puipose of creating an authentic modern background than conscious exploitations of a technologically conceived metaphor, such as in the case of the automobile. One of the 57
