Perhaps the most memorable allusion is in Chapter One.
When Nick Carraway meets Tom Buchanan, Tom emerges as supercilious and arrogant. When
Nick innocuously remarks, "You make me feel uncivilized, Daisy," his words are taken up
in "an unexpected way" by Tom, who breaks out
violently,
"Civilization's going to pieces,...I've gotten to
be a terrible pessimist about things. Have you read The Rise of the Coloured
Empires by this man
Goddard?"
The Rise
of the Coloured Empires was written by Lothrop Goddard; it postulates the
collapse of the white empire and colonialism, because of the rise in population of the
black people. Ironically, Tom misinterprets Goddard's book because Goddard did not
advocate a white race bid for world domination as Tom wants to believe. Instead Goddard
questions the white man's right to invade other countries and impose its will upon other
peoples.
Then, in Chapter Five as Nick brings Daisy to
Gatsby's house, Daisy and Gatsby try to act nonchalant. Gatsby looks with "vacant eyes
through a copy of Clay's Economics. Henry Clay, of course, was a
prominent congressman from Kentucky who sought to bring tarriff laws against the
British.
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