Jake, Reinvented

Alcohol is a motif that expands the theme of High School Hedonism. Jake’s parties include loud music and an unsupervised house, but they would be nothing without kegs of beer and free access to other forms of alcohol. The high school partiers are already looking to celebrate their youthful happiness and feeling of invulnerability, but the alcohol adds fuel to their wild and impulsive behavior.

Alcohol consumption underlines the characters’ disregard for authority. Nearly everyone at Jake’s parties is underage, but they consume alcohol anyway, flaunting the rules and emphasizing their feeling of invincibility. The partiers’ unabashed drunkenness indicates that they don’t believe any harm will come from their chaotic behavior. Their drinking recalls the Prohibition context of The Great Gatsby—the novel’s source text—tying together the high school students with the hedonistic adults of Gatsby’s parties, who likewise consume alcohol illegally.

Alcohol is closely associated with Jake’s goal of becoming popular and winning over Didi. His access to alcohol makes him famous and helps build his cool-guy persona, since it suggests a certain level of maturity and a connection to college students and college culture.

As the drinking increases, so does the hedonism; the dangerous behavior accelerates with each additional keg of beer that shows up at Jake’s house. Eventually, things reach a breaking point, and alcohol plays a big role in the calamitous scene at Jake’s last party. The wade pools around the beer become literally dangerous, lighting on fire and nearly destroying Jake’s home. Meanwhile, a champagne bottle becomes a weapon, knocking Nelson unconscious and putting his life in danger. These close associations between alcohol and destructive violence emphasize the novel’s negative portrayal of self-indulgence and carefree abandon.