Christian theology has given us the idea of the Individual Soul - in relation to a concerned God - and, from that, we have leveraged Rugged Individualism: which is nothing more than the plain recognition that “I” am nothing like anyone else, and am unique in Human History: with no duplicate in the past, or the future.

All the same, it has struck me that people do fall into recognizable social categories—and those categories can be useful when you’re considering character dynamics. As usual, if you get too analytical about this, your friends will stop speaking to you, and your dog will think you’re a stranger. So...not something to be taken too seriously—but fun to apply to the work of other writers. In this case, I’m going to apply my General Categories to “The Great Gatsby”, still possibly the greatest novel written in English.

The Categories roughly follow the alphabet:

A — SuperAlpha, Hard Alpha, Soft Alpha. Everyone wants to be Alpha. That’s the state we all think about when we think about living a satisfying life.

D — Desperately Desiring. What do they Desire? They want to be Alpha. Most fiction is written about the ambitions of these people to get to a higher Category.

E — Expendable. The people whose dreams will never come true, because they’ve stopped having them. They contradict the Christian position of unique value in every human soul—but there are still millions of Expendable People. If you’re in a hotel, one of them made your bed this morning. One of them made the iPad you’re reading this on. They’re everywhere.

F — Forgotten. The men who built the pyramids...the soldiers of Genghis Khan...the servants of the Byzantine Emperors. Who were they? We don’t know...and we will never know.

So: when we look at “Gatsby”, here are the categories that suggest themselves:

Super Alpha — This Category describes someone with far-reaching power (Adolf Hitler, Simon Bolivar, Henry VIII, Ramses II). This is a “society” book and doesn’t include anyone like that.

Hard Alpha — Tom Buchanan. You write a lot of Hard Alpha if you’re writing for men because this is the kind of male character a lot of men are drawn to: decisiveness, possessive, unapologetic, unwilling to admit to positive emotions, but willing to embrace violence and deceit. Hard Alpha is scorched earth...“my way or the highway”...“no regrets”...“hands against the wall and spread’em!” Lots of cops are Hard Alpha, if you hadn’t noticed.

Soft Alpha — Nick, Daisy, Jordan. These are people with full spectrums of emotion, and yet are served by others. They are satisfied, in themselves, and ready to admit that “this is just the way life is”—so their emotions are more muted. They are generally happy with the way things are because they’re resting at the top of the heap.

Desiring — Jay Gatsby. The whole book is driven by his desire to be at the top: Desperately Desiring (like Scott Fitzgerald himself). He invents a personality...becomes a criminal...even changes the way he talks...trying to become the “something else” that will put him at the same level as Daisy. But it’s all for nothing. And we know, even at the beginning of the story, that it will be for nothing, because Hard Alpha generally wins. That's the heartache at the center of the book.

Expendable — Myrtle and George Wilson. All of Gatsby’s many servants (never named). The people Jordan plays golf with, the Buchanan servants, Nick's landlord, the jazz bands, the partygoers, everybody else. George Wilson has an important role, but everyone else just is seen, and then gone.

This post obviously went on a lot longer than I thought it would. But I hope you find it useful.

Later....

Thanks for the response. I would consider those things to be transient roles within category.

An undocumented worker in a Midwestern slaughterhouse, for example, would typically be a son, father, husband, friend, etc.

As would a hedge fund manager making a billion dollars a year.

The difference is status. The first is Expendable: his purpose to serve, and to disappear. The second is Alpha: he tells people what to do, and they do it...he buys politicians...maybe he hires a small private army. He's Hard Alpha, and lives in a different world than the rest of us.

In fiction, power relationships are part of the subtext of every narrative — who is guiding, who is being guided, who wants, what they want, and how they get it.