New York City – a place that embodies a booming, cultural atmosphere of diversity within a confined space. A city that combines the birth of new life, of new diversity, and also harbours overtones of death. A city that is one space, but is fragmented into multiple boroughs. It is these contrasts that exist within one space, out of which the literary works of New York City are born.
The contrasting nature of the city births works which exist in a liminal space, also posited between two contrasts.
For example, Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye shows us a liminal space between childhood and maturity, as protagonist – Holden Caulfield – experiences a growing sense of responsibility that contests with his desire to remain a child forever, simply being “the catcher in the rye and all,” not conforming to the world of work that the city also embodies.
In Plath’s The Bell Jar, we see a similar clash between the personal and the professional. This can be seen through the ways in which magazine editor and protagonist Esther experiences emotional and mental turmoil that haunts her professional life. The novel, narrated from Esther’s first-person perspective, does not fulfil traditional narratives surrounding the fulfilling life of working in the city. Instead, this contrasts with Esther’s belief that she was “supposed to be having the time of my life,” but instead, she has “nothing to look forward to.”
This is also a theme in Moshfegh’s My Year of Rest and Relaxation, in which the professionalism of the protagonist is overshadowed by her desire to sleep, which posits her in the liminal space between the contrasting elements of life and death. This is especially prevalent when we adopt the view of New York City as a place that has life breathed into it due to the world of work, turning it into a place that “never sleeps.” The fact that Moshfegh’s protagonist always sleeps allows her to defy the norms of the place which she calls home – as if she is not really there at all. Again, this creates a contrast between life and death, putting the protagonist in the liminal space between.
In Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, further contrasts are evident. Particularly, these can be seen through the ways in which the past bleeds into the present, contrasting with realist notions of time. This is particularly evident through the ways in which Jay Gatsby returns to Daisy Faye’s life, proving that “of course you can” repeat the past. Gatsby’s return to Daisy could mirror another key contrast within New York City, comprising of the ways that dreams about life in the city contrast with the reality of the world of work. Gatsby’s dreams – of marrying Daisy – do not come to fruition because he cannot compete with Tom Buchanon’s old money capital. This conflict highlights the opposition between working and dreaming as a key characteristic of Fitzgerald’s novel, reflecting the city on which it is based.
To conclude, the literary landscape of New York City stems from the contrasts that the place embodies. This helps to produce a set of works that exist in a liminal space and are born of contrasts. This, in turn, helps to create a diverse body of works that stem from the city, evidencing it as a highly prolific place that has produced some of the best works within the literary sphere.
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