Introduction:
F Scott Fitzgerald is perhaps one of the finest authors from the so called Jazz Age which was dotted and permeated by excellent writers throughout. His short story ‘The Diamond as Big as the Ritz’ is a typical enunciation from this era but which also looks back at the nostalgia of the Civil War where there is also a reference to the leader of the so-called Ku Klux Klan, Nathan Bedford Forrest. The author uses a lot of emotive language and also inserts a number of metaphors into the novel which paint Braddock as an arrogant and deeply proud man without much emotion in this regard. The story also takes on a surreal turn at several junctures as Percy’s family particularly the father Braddock Washington goes to extraordinary lengths to protect their diamond secret where even George Unger is endangered. The technique of portraying Braddock as an all powerful person is an intrinsic part of the novel
The character of Braddock
Braddock is an intriguing personality who comes from quite a poor background but he mixes effortlessly with other from higher and more privileged backgrounds. He is a bright lad with a lot going for him especially in his schooling. Obviously his background is from Mississippi and the Deep South and that makes him something of a cliché amongst his more well-schooled and well-heeled Boston private school set. In a way, Scott Fitzgerald reminds us of the differences that existed between Charles Ryder and Sebastian Flyte in Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited where the story also centres around two young men who come from vastly different backgrounds. Coming from Mississippi, Braddock is obviously immersed in the historic version that the South unjustly lost the Civil War and that they still have a case for bemoaning lost triumphs in any case. The trip to Percy’s family estate in Montana is also rather comparable to the time when Charles and Sebastian repaired to the ancestral home of the Marchmain family in Yorkshire, the magnificent house called Brideshead which is acutely similar to Percy’s father’s summer house. However George Unger is initially impressed by everything but when he falls in love with Percy’s sister, things take a turn for the worse as Percy’s father, Braddock begins going to astonishing lengths to protect his diamond from outsiders and others who may take advantage of his great wealth. The problem would be that the diamond has to remain rare as if it is found out and several others partake of it, it will become cheap and lose its value thus ending up worthless. Unger is thus caught in the psychological battle which turns out to be quite disastrous in the end.
John’s servility to great wealth is apparent in this quote from the book when he waxes lyrical as he encounters the Washington car for the first time:
"Gosh! What a car!" This ejaculation was provoked by its interior. John saw that the upholstery consisted of a thousand minute and exquisite tapestries of silk, woven with jewels and embroideries, and set upon a background of cloth of gold. The two armchair seats in which the boys luxuriated were covered with stuff that resembled duvetyn, but seemed woven in numberless colors of the ends of ostrich feathers”. (Fitzgerald; The Diamond as Big as the Ritz).
Fitzgerald uses emotive language which is not always colloquially understood although it is also pretty much to the point. The word ‘Gosh’ is perhaps out of place but is also quite direct.
Here one can also observe Fitzgerald’s interesting description of the car itself which fairly glows with beauty and which is immediately extremely attractive on all counts also demonstrating that vast wealth does get you something if you can approach it and work for it. It also demonstrates Braddock’s brash servility to riches and all that which also shows that he views other people as inferior.
Percy Washington as an offshoot of Braddock:
Braddock is similar to Percy in many respects. However he is also essentially a victim of his own emotions, where he has to demonstrate being jolly all the time and that is obviously not always the case unfortunately for him. This compares differently to his father Braddock who is also brash in the extreme and who demonstrates great wealth and riches without any sort of qualms. Fitzgerald imbues him with the techniques of bragging and boasting which one may appear to notice immediately but there is also a subtle indifference about how he goes about things. Percy’s relationship with his father is a case in point as it seems that the paternalistic figure is the boss in every sense of the word and the description of the summer residence on the five square miles in the Montana Rockies which have never been surveyed is instructive indeed as it demonstrates the absolute power of the Washington family particularly the strength of Braddock. In a sense Percy is an offshoot of Braddock although he is not as ruthless as one would imagine the son of such a dictator would be.
One can sense the absolute power which the Washington family wielded and their residence was truly a case in point and is a testament to Braddock’s power. Percy then takes John to dinner where the latter appears to be in a complete daze and cannot even recognize the personages who populate the table. However the big story is the diamond which is actually a mountain and out of which there is no escape. As things start to turn sour John falls in love with Percy’s sister who warns him that he will also eventually be killed as the secret of the diamond is too costly and large to protect.
One can observe the character of Braddock Washington when he shows John Around the slave’s quarters.
"The slaves' quarters are there." His walking-stick indicated a cloister of marble on their left that ran in graceful Gothic along the side of the mountain. "In my youth I was distracted for a while from the business of life by a period of absurd idealism. During that time they lived in luxury. For instance, I equipped every one of their rooms with a tile bath."
In this quote Fitzgerald uses some similes such as the reference to the past and his language can often be brutal and without corners.
Techniques used by Scott Fitzgerald
Some of the techniques used by Scott Fitzgerald remind us of various authors and other novels in this regard. The science fiction element in the story is permeated by several other aspects including the surreal Civil War element where the Confederate General Nathan Bedford Forrest is mentioned. Here one has to observe a certain surreality to proceedings as Percy plays on John Unger’s Southern origins as he will obviously fall to such a bait with Braddock doing the same. The climax of the story where the diamond is unceremoniously blown up is also instructive in parts but one can also feel a certain sense of longing for the fabulous wealth which might have been but which has now gone up in smoke. The ending is very much instructive here:
"So I'm told," said John gloomily. "I don't know any longer. At any rate, let us love for a while, for a year or so, you and me. That's a form of divine drunkenness that we can all try. There are only diamonds in the whole world, diamonds and perhaps the shabby gift of disillusion. Well, I have that last and I will make the usual nothing of it." He shivered. "Turn up your coat collar, little girl, the night's full of chill and you'll get pneumonia. His was a great sin who first invented consciousness. Let us lose it for a few hours."
So wrapping himself in his blanket he fell off to sleep”. (Fitzgerald; The Diamond as Big as the Ritz)
Scott Fitzgerald’s technique is intriguing here as after all that jazz we have a calm and almost serene ending. The language is also emotive and full of serenity at this peaceful conclusion point.
Braddock is consistently surreal and brash and Scott Fitzgerald seems to focus on these aspects when he is discussing this character. Although there are phases when he can be kind and emphatic, most of the time he is rather full of himself and shows a certain arrogance which is quite typical of Southern men. Naturally we are made to feel that he is a complete master of all that surrounds him and even in the lone estate in Montana, he lords it over everyone with an arrogance that is barely believable.
Braddock’s insensitivity to his slaves and those who work for him is reflected uncannily and terribly in this quote:
"My slaves did not keep coal in their bathtubs. They had orders to bathe every day, and they did. If they hadn't I might have ordered a sulphuric acid shampoo. I discontinued the baths for quite another reason. Several of them caught cold and died. Water is not good for certain races--except as a beverage."
This sort of attitude reveals the prevailing trend with which blacks were treated on the imaginary Braddock premises and demonstrates Fitzgerald’s powerful use of emotive language. It is reflective of the racial prejudices of the time and one can observe that somebody like Braddock would have been at home in a posse of lynchers going to hunt a runaway black who had supposedly raped a white woman and then posing in one of those surreal photograph as the black man hangs from a tree all riddled with bullets.
For Braddock, the black man served little purpose except to provide him with work and when this was finished there was really no scope for hiom to live any longer. This reasoning seems to find some acquiescence on the side of John Unger who, coming from Mississippi was probably very well acquainted with the brutality against Negroes – Mississippi was the state which had by far the highest rate of lynchings in the nation at the time. Here we have the simile of the black man and the beast which is used by Fitzgerald also.
Another quote demonstrates the total inhumanity of Braddock who speaks about an escaped man as if he were some prey who took off.
"A ghastly error," said Braddock Washington angrily. "But of course there's a good chance that we may have got him. Perhaps he fell somewhere in the woods or stumbled over a cliff. And then there's always the probability that if he did get away his story wouldn't be believed”.
All of this shows Braddock’s total inhumanity in the view of his fellow men who do not seem to be men at all. One ponders over why Braddock was portrayed in that way by Scott Fitzgerald as it seems that he is attempting to create a most despicable character on purpose. Is it due to the fact that he abhorred the rich and wanted to portray them in the worse light possible? Or is it because he hankered for their life and was acting like someone who didn’t want to partake of the dregs of life? The story seems very surreal in itself and the character of Braddock is perhaps the most fantastically surreal of all. Fitzgerald uses imagery in an interesting way as he creates an atmosphere of total surreality.
Where does all this come in where ‘The Diamond as Big as the Ritz’ is concerned? John Unger is intrinsically caught in a web of horror and greed and it is only really through luck and love that he comes out of all of this. Where Braddock is concerned the brashness of this character is almost beyond belief. At least he retains his life in the end although everyone is more penniless than they had ever been before. Scott Fitzgerald ends the novel on a theme of hope however which is the only real positive aspect of the whole story. Braddock is also an important element in the story as his decision to explode the diamond is true to the finale of the story.
Bibliography:
Scott Fitzgerald F; The Diamond as Big as the Ritz, from Tales of the Jazz Age, 1922, Penguin, London, Print
