http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/TwelDanc.shtml
The above is a link to the text of “The Twelve Dancing Princesses,” in case you don’t know the fairy tale in its entirety. What follows will include the entire text, but it will be broken up by my thoughts and comparisons to The Great Gatsby.
From Wikipedia: “[‘The Twelve Dancing Princesses’ (or ‘The Worn-Out Dancing Shoes’ or ‘The Shoes that were Danced to Pieces’) is a German fairy tale originally published by the Brothers Grimm in 1812…]”
I think this is a brand new thought, though I could be wrong, of course, given all of the prolific research out there on Gatsby. My apologies if an association has been published before.
What I will suggest is that “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” was the specific fairy tale that Fitzgerald used to show that the American Dream is, in fact, itself a modern day American fairy tale (as in– insubstantial, not real). It is common knowledge that the beautiful, poetic language Fitzgerald uses serves many purposes (it creates a musical rhythm; it elevates the novel to an epic poem of sorts, etc.). It has even been said countless times that the language Fitzgerald uses is consciously that of the fairy tale genre as a whole. But I’d like to suggest that he alluded specifically to “The Twelve Dancing Princesses” because it lent a sort of universal emotional credence to his themes and gave him a basis for the structure of the unfolding of the mystery who was Gatsby–the soldier in the fairy tale who was in love with the eldest princess, our Daisy Fay (meaning ‘fairy’) Buchanan. And in the American version of this ‘grim’ (pun intended) fairy tale, the soldier does not get the girl, but is sentenced to death by Tom Buchanan, the king (“It’s good to be the king”– especially when your subjects should do as you say and not as you do) who wants to know where his daughter (wife) is going off to all the time (actually, his mistress, too), just as all the others who attempt to pursue the (American) Dream have been before (if not literally, at least spiritually or metaphorically).
I’d also like to suggest that since Gatsby is the Cracked Fairy Tale version of the German original, Fitzgerald shows this through making Gatsby the Christ figure of the novel (sacrificed for the sins of those who “sneer(ed) most bitterly at Gatsby on the courage of Gatsby’s liquor”(Ch. 8)—all of us, in other words), which works well, given that the biblically significant number of 12 (princesses/disciples) and 3 (the number of days before a suitor is killed if he doesn’t succeed/the number of days before Christ was resurrected) are present in the fairy tale. If Gatsby isn’t exactly resurrected in the novel, his memory sure is, as Nick is “borne back ceaselessly to the past”— to that summer of 1922. There’s a lot of academic material out there on Gatsby as Christ—the “son of God” (Ch.6) who “shouldered his mattress” rather like a cross (Ch.8) and went about his Father’s business” (Ch. 6), his Father being the God of Capitalism, wealth, greed, money, embodied in the blind and unfeeling advertisement of T.J. Eckleburg; so I’ll continue along with my original purpose.
I’ll go through the fairy tale and show you the parallels to Gatsby. This would be the worst rhetorical move ever for an academic paper, but since this is a blog, it works. Words in parentheses are my interjections—some assertions could be seen as suppositious, but others will be textually supported as at least plausible by the novel). Oh— and before we begin, remember all the rumors about Gatsby linking him to Germany (he’s a German spy, a cousin to Kaiser Wilhelm)? I wonder if it’s significant that this fairytale is of German origin? Could this fairy tale be “the elusive rhythm, (the) fragment of lost words, that (Nick) had heard somewhere a long time ago?” (Ch.6?)
Here goes:
The Twelve Dancing Princesses
There was a king (Tom—who lived in one of the “white palaces of fashionable East Egg” (Ch. 1)which “glittered upon the water”) who had twelve beautiful daughters. They slept in twelve beds all in one room and when they went to bed, the doors were shut and locked up [It should be recalled that Tom is appalled by Jordan’s family “let (ting) her run around the country this way (Ch.1) and that he keeps tabs on Daisy, too, which is evidenced in numerous ways, like asking Nick during the party they attended at Gatsby’s if he’s seen Daisy in Ch. 6 and stating in the same chapter that “women run around too much these days to suit (him)…”]. However, every morning their shoes were found to be quite worn through as if they had been danced in all night. Nobody could find out how it happened, or where the princesses had been.
So the king made it known to all the land that if any person could discover the secret and find out where it was that the princesses danced in the night, he would have the one he liked best to take as his wife, and would be king after his death [Tom says, “I’d like to know who he is and what he does…and I think I’ll make a point of finding out” (Ch. 6). And “I’ve made a small investigation of this fellow” (Ch. 7). And also Nick suggests that Tom and Daisy are part of a “rather distinguished secret society” (Ch. 1), somewhat like these princesses, who are bonded together through their nobility, their sense of entitlement, their leisure, and their obliviousness to the consequences of their actions upon others (to me, this fairy tale could foreshadow Myrtle’s, George Wilson’s, and Gatsby’s deaths. Remember, the girls are just dancing, but their secret gets a lot of people killed]. But whoever tried and did not succeed, after three days and nights, they would be put to death (Gatsby, anyone? He ‘tried and did not succeed,’ and was ‘put to death.’).
A king’s son soon came. He was well entertained, and in the evening was taken to the chamber next to the one where the princesses lay in their twelve beds. There he was to sit and watch where they went to dance; and, in order that nothing could happen without him hearing it, the door of his chamber was left open. But the king’s son soon fell asleep; and when he awoke in the morning he found that the princesses had all been dancing, for the soles of their shoes were full of holes (Dan Cody, Gatsby’s predecessor/mentor? He drank Ella Kaye’s Kool-aid, and then wasn’t heard from again) .
The same thing happened the second and third night and so the king ordered his head to be cut off (or breast, in Myrtle’s case).
After him came several others; but they all had the same luck, and all lost their lives in the same way (To me, this is the inherent warning of Gatsby—that there isn’t going to be anyone who “succeeds” really—that the fairy tale really is just that. Nick seems to be making this point pretty obviously in the end, even though there is “something gorgeous” about the romantic, quixotic desire to never give up on the Dream—even he romanticizes Gatsby’s character and Gatsby’s desire).
Now it happened that an old soldier [Gatsby fought in World War I—in fact, he recognized Nick from the “Third Division” (Ch.3)], who had been wounded in battle and could fight no longer, passed through the country where this king reigned, and as he was travelling through a wood, he met an old woman, who asked him where he was going.
‘I hardly know where I am going, or what I had better do,’ said the soldier (“He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God” (Ch.5); ‘but I think I would like to find out where it is that the princesses dance, and then in time I might be a king.’ (I am reminded of Gatsby’s obsession with becoming wealthy as a child—the flashback in Chapter 6, as well as all we know about his yearning and desiring of Daisy and her lifestyle, which is present in all of the novel, really. )
‘Well,’ said the old woman, ‘that is not a very hard task: only take care not to drink any of the wine which one of the princesses will bring to you in the evening; and as soon as she leaves you pretend to be fast asleep.’ (Remember how Dan Cody is the one who taught Gatsby that drinking is a bad idea? Remember he’s the only one at his parties that doesn’t drink? Maybe Dan Cody represents this old, experienced person giving him the key to possible success.)
Then she gave him a cloak, and said, ‘As soon as you put that on you will become invisible, and you will then be able to follow the princesses wherever they go.’ When the soldier heard all this good advice, he was determined to try his luck, so he went to the king, and said he was willing to undertake the task (Remember the “invisible cloak of (Gatsby’s) uniform”—mentioned in Ch. 8?).
He was as well received as the others had been, and the king ordered fine royal robes to be given him; and when the evening came he was led to the outer chamber.
Just as he was going to lie down, the eldest of the princesses brought him a cup of wine (Jordan Baker doesn’t drink because of her “training” (Ch. 1); Daisy doesn’t drink, Jordan says in Ch.4 because “it’s a great advantage not to drink… you can time any little irregularity of your own so that everybody else is so blind that they don’t see or care.” This is significant to the fairy tale because the princesses would have been caught out the very first time, had they not given the sleeping draught to all the men before their moonlight trysts); but the soldier threw it all away secretly, taking care not to drink a drop. Then he laid himself down on his bed, and in a little while began to snore very loudly as if he was fast asleep.
When the twelve princesses heard this they laughed heartily; and the eldest said, ‘This fellow too might have done a wiser thing than lose his life in this way!’(Daisy is the eldest of her crowd, it is said, and Jordan Baker is the youngest(Ch.4).) Then they rose and opened their drawers and boxes, and took out all their fine clothes, and dressed themselves at the mirror, and skipped about as if they were eager to begin dancing.
But the youngest said, ‘I don’t know why it is, but while you are so happy I feel very uneasy; I am sure some mischance will befall us.’
‘You simpleton,’ said the eldest, ‘you are always afraid; have you forgotten how many kings’ sons have already watched in vain? And as for this soldier, even if I had not given him his sleeping draught, he would have slept soundly enough.’
When they were all ready, they went and looked at the soldier; but he snored on, and did not stir hand or foot: so they thought they were quite safe.
Then the eldest went up to her own bed and clapped her hands, and the bed sank into the floor and a trap-door flew open. The soldier saw them going down through the trap-door ( the Queensboro bridge? In Ch.4, Nick says that New York City “seen from the Queensboro Bridge is always … (seen)… in its first wild promise of all the mystery and beauty in the world… anything can happen now that we’ve slid over this bridge…anything at all.”) one after another, the eldest leading the way; and thinking he had no time to lose, he jumped up, put on the cloak which the old woman had given him, and followed them.
However, in the middle of the stairs he trod on the gown of the youngest princess, and she cried out to her sisters, ‘All is not right; someone took hold of my gown.’ (In Chapter 3, a girl named Lucille, a random guest at one of Gatsby’s wild parties, talks about how she “tore (her) gown on a chair” and Gatsby was careful to “stay invisible, so to speak, so he bought her a new dress).
‘You silly creature!’ said the eldest, ‘it is nothing but a nail in the wall.’
Down they all went, and at the bottom they found themselves in a most delightful grove of trees; and the leaves were all of silver, and glittered and sparkled beautifully (Isn’t this language reminiscent of Gatsby? Glittering? Sparkling? Silver? Much of the language that is used in the novel—and most especially—surrounding Gatsby and his parties—reminds one of language used in this fairytale—“enchanted” (Ch. 5),“bewitched to a dark gold,” (Ch. 3), the “silver pepper of the stars,” (Ch.1), “slippers shuffled the shining dust” (Ch. 8), “glistening,” (Ch. 3) “angry diamond (Ch.3)… well, you get the point) The soldier wished to take away some token of the place; so he broke off a little branch, and there came a loud noise from the tree. Then the youngest daughter said again, ‘I am sure all is not right — did not you hear that noise? That never happened before.’
But the eldest said, ‘It is only our princes, who are shouting for joy at our approach.’
They came to another grove of trees, where all the leaves were of gold; and afterwards to a third, where the leaves were all glittering diamonds. And the soldier broke a branch from each; and every time there was a loud noise, which made the youngest sister tremble with fear. But the eldest still said it was only the princes, who were crying for joy.
They went on till they came to a great lake; and at the side of the lake there lay twelve little boats with twelve handsome princes in them, who seemed to be waiting there for the princesses (Boats. This one is too easy).
One of the princesses went into each boat, and the soldier stepped into the same boat as the youngest. As they were rowing over the lake, the prince who was in the boat with the youngest princess and the soldier said, ‘I do not know why it is, but though I am rowing with all my might we do not get on so fast as usual, and I am quite tired: the boat seems very heavy today.’ (Boats against the current? … trying to move forward to the promised Heaven of the “glittering palaces,” the security of wealth, the leisure time redolent of eternity?)
‘It is only the heat of the weather,’ said the princess, ‘I am very warm, too.’ (“Hot! Hot! Hot! Too hot for you?… Chapter 7 is all about the heat… and not just the heat of the weather.)
On the other side of the lake stood a fine, illuminated castle [Gatsby was trying to attract Daisy by pretending to be one of these princes in this illuminated “castle,”(Ch.1) a fitting description matching exactly that of the novel, which was often …”lit from tower to cellar (Ch. 5)] from which came the merry music of horns and trumpets (“There was music from my neighbor’s house…a whole pitful of oboes and trombones and saxophones…” (Ch.3). There they all landed [“For a transitory, enchanted moment mam nust have held his breath in the presence of this continent… something commensurate to his capacity for wonder” (Ch.9)], and went into the castle, and each prince danced with his princess (But alas, the soldier is not a real prince (Ch.6)); and the soldier, who was still invisible, danced with them too (He must stay invisible in order to dance with the “sparkling hundreds”). When any of the princesses had a cup of wine set by her, he drank it all up, so that when she put the cup to her mouth it was empty. At this, too, the youngest sister was terribly frightened, but the eldest always silenced her.
They danced on till three o’clock in the morning [The song that people danced to at Gatsby’s party was called “Three O’ Clock in the Morning” (Ch. 5)], and then all their shoes were worn out, so that they were obliged to leave. The princes rowed them back again over the lake (but this time the soldier placed himself in the boat with the eldest princess); and on the opposite shore they took leave of each other, the princesses promising to come again the next night.
When they came to the stairs, the soldier ran on before the princesses, and laid himself down. And as the twelve, tired sisters slowly came up, they heard him snoring in his bed and they said, ‘Now all is quite safe’. Then they undressed themselves, put away their fine clothes, pulled off their shoes, and went to bed (In Chapter 8, Daisy’s care-free and privileged youth seems quite like the young princesses’ of the fairy tale… “a hundred pairs of golden and silver slippers shuffled the shining dust…(and) through this twilight universe…(Daisy) drows(ed) asleep at dawn with the beads and chiffon of an evening dress tangled among dying orchids on the floor beside her bed” ).
In the morning the soldier said nothing about what had happened, but determined to see more of this strange adventure, and went again on the second and third nights. Everything happened just as before: the princesses danced till their shoes were worn to pieces, and then returned home. On the third night the soldier carried away one of the golden cups (“He had committed himself to the following of a grail” (Ch.8) as a token of where he had been.
As soon as the time came when he was to declare the secret, he was taken before the king with the three branches and the golden cup (this reminds me of when Gatsby pulls out the photo of his Oxford days and the Medal of Honor from Montenegro in Chapter Four); and the twelve princesses stood listening behind the door to hear what he would say (just as Jordan Baker brazenly did in Ch.1 of the novel – “Sh!… Don’t talk. I want to hear what happens” she says to Nick so she can eavesdrop on Tom and Daisy’s fighting).
The king asked him. ‘Where do my twelve daughters dance at night?’
The soldier answered, ‘With twelve princes in a castle underground.’ (In the same way that Fitzgerald inverts the idea of manifest destiny in his novel from West to East instead of the historical, God-given morally imperative direction of East to West, Gatsby believes he has found the princess (singular) dancing in the sky (the “secret place above the trees” (Ch.6), which is why he is “regarding the silver pepper of the stars” when Nick first sees Gatsby in Ch. 1) He looks upward rather than downward; perhaps this is one of the causes for his demise. )And then he told the king all that had happened, and showed him the three branches and the golden cup which he had brought with him.
The king called for the princesses, and asked them whether what the soldier said was true and when they saw that they were discovered, and that it was of no use to deny what had happened, they confessed it all (But during the Hotel Scene in Chapter 7, Daisy doesn’t “confess” to the king. She tells Gatsby she loved him “too,” effectively shattering the possibility of a fairy tale ending for him, though he didn’t know it.)
So the king asked the soldier which of the princesses he would choose for his wife; and he answered, ‘I am not very young, so I will have the eldest.’(Daisy, the “pale magic of her face” (Ch. 8), “gleaming like silver” bewitching the soldier ) — and they were married that very day, and the soldier was chosen to be the king’s heir (But ‘rich girls don’t marry poor boys,’ as Mia Farrow’s Daisy cries in the 1974 version of the movie, echoing Ginevra King’s father’s words to a young and heartbroken Fitzgerald).
In conclusion, I really can’t think that all of this is coincidence; perhaps Fitzgerald borrowed the language and storyline of these dancing princesses with their worn-out shoes in order to show that the American Dream is every bit as dangerous, capricious, and “careless” as Daisy Fay, the eldest princess of the old fairy tale.
Currently reading: 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami.
thelowbrowintellectual 