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The notion of disability as "a physical or mental condition that limits a person's movements, senses, or activities" (OED 280) can be traced through Edith Wharton's The Custom of The Country (1913) and F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby (1925). Both Wharton's and Fitzgerald's tales chronicle the unrelenting pursuit of wealth and success and, subsequently, their debilitating effects, such as physical weakness, obsessive-compulsive behaviors, and the finality of death. It is both the presence and absence of wealth, the equally relentless obsession with capital that dominates all secondary storylines in the lives of the novels' characters. This is certainly the case with Undine Spragg and Jay Gatsby, and through an exegesis of the neurotic tendencies of these two protagonists, monomania surfaces as a debilitating psychological disorder, but one that conversely is integral to the functioning of elite New York society.
The term "monomania" must be defined and examined via the discourse of disability. Wharton's and Fitzgerald's monomaniacal characters are both disabled and enabled, so that in many ways, this condition surfaces as an entirely normal preoccupation of those in high society. Paradoxically, monomania is a means not only of survival within the social circles delineated by the two novels but also of prospering within them. As the social model of disability in particular will outline, the absence of excessive drives and desires is ultimately abnormal and disabling. As such, the terms "disability" and "degradation" will be used interchangeably to demonstrate the negative, regressive effects of monomania on both Undine Spragg and Jay Gatsby.
The earliest established disability model is the ancient or medieval conception that, according to G. Thomas Couser, sees disability as a sign of a moral-spiritual condition or "divine disfavor" (21). This disfavor usually presents itself physically-an impairment, deformation, or mutilation of the body that directly affects its function. The physical disability is a representative "outward manifestation of inner evil or depravity" (Sachs), and as such is a trope or metaphor for some metaphysical, moral, or spiritual difference (Couser 21). Thus the disabled body and the "deformed soul" become inseparable, and wholly representative of one another. The reforms for this type of disability, salvation or redemption (Couser 22), further enforce its perception as inherently evil, meant to redress the "moral lapse" (Sachs) that...