Top Literary Characters and Their Harvard Caricatures

Character: Jay Gatsby—“The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald

Caricature: Finals Club Guy



An ostentatious social climber with a penchant for extravagant parties, Jay Gatsby would fit right in at any of Harvard’s social organizations for fine young gentlemen. Of course, if Jay Gatsby were at Harvard, his “parties” would consist of chugging half a fifth of vodka and hooking up with Daisy’s blockmate on a pool table at the Spee. Which is to say there are about a thousand Jay Gatsbys at Harvard.



Character: Ignatius J. Reilly—“A Confederacy of Dunces” by John Kennedy Toole

Caricature: Harvard Salient Guy



It might be tough to picture the obese, gassy Reilly playing croquet or palling around with Harvard C. Mansfield ’53, but his hilarious anti-modern screeds are stilted and acrimonious enough to fill the Salient’s pages—and maybe even earn him an op-ed column in The Crimson.



Character: Roger Mexico—“Gravity’s Rainbow” by Thomas Pynchon

Caricature: Public Piss Guy



Roger Mexico begins the novel romantic (“They are in love. Fuck the war.”) and intellectually sophisticated (the Rockets fall according to a Poisson distribution, people! A Poisson distribution!), but he ends it broken-hearted, broken down, and maniacally pissing on a boardroom table. So next time you see Public Piss Guy letting the John Harvard statue have it, just remember: there’s an idealistic and intelligent freshman hidden somewhere in that drunken mess. (I think—he might also just have to pee.)



—Patrick R. Chesnut is an outgoing Arts Chair. He hasn’t wet the boardroom in over a year.