F. Scott Fitzgerald's Jay Gatsby is a thoroughly American character: deviant idealist and romantic; tenacious but sensitive; ostentatious but nostalgic. At the basis of him is a transcendental desire, and for this reason, as a character, he is never really brought into focus. For the “Great” Gatsby, Daisy is the vision of an ideal, deeply tied to the past, and to this end, Gatsby is a victim of his own creation. In light of Gatsby's lonely demise, the question remains whether The Great Gatsby is ultimately a critique of Gatsby or his dream. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why violent video games should not be banned"? Get an original essay To consider such a question, it is helpful to adopt a perspective that treats human nature with an almost biblical sensitivity, to analyze by locating aspects of reality. and human nature that lead us to see them differently. This is what Tolstoy offers the reader. Pierre Bezukhov of War and Peace seems to embody the kind of vitality that Gatsby lacks. Although Pierre meanders somewhat aimlessly among half-hearted activities for nearly half the novel, once he finds an image to fill the void in his soul, he is elevated to a higher spiritual plain. If we consider two pivotal moments in these novels—one in War and Peace and one in The Great Gatsby—we find their protagonists launched toward higher spiritual plains by the force of a fulfilled cosmic desire. A close examination—of what is at stake for each character and how achieving their dreams soothes their inner desire—will serve to illuminate the noticeably divergent destinies of Peter and Gatsby. Only after having "known" him for more than half the novel do we first hear the story of Jay Gatsby's birth: from the ashes of his former, much less glamorous self. James Gatz was a fairly ordinary character, of rural and bourgeois origin. But Jay Gatsby is a prodigious example of self-creation, not only by his improbable rise to the upper echelons of society – we are invited to forget his rather adulterous methodology – but by the effort he deploys to generate an identity conforming to the ideas of his mind. eye. Fitzgerald characterizes Gatsby, in his moment of self-engenderment, as “a son of God,” perfectly conceived, founder of his own image, omnipotent in his ability to shape himself according to his own imagination. Indeed James Gatz gives birth to his idea of ​​himself; “Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, was born from his Platonic conception of himself.” Endowed with sublime generational power, James Gatz imbues ideological aspirations with an earthly existence, and thus Gatsby was born. He models himself according to a perfect and immutable ideal. That Platonic ideals are ultimately inaccessible to those who walk in the world of sensation and instability escapes "Gatsby's instinct toward future glory." By fashioning himself according to his own Platonic idea, Gatsby makes the same mistake as the prisoners in Plato's cave: chained. on earth, they take for real what is in fact only an illusion, a shadow of images that their eyes cannot perceive. Platonic ideals become imperfect in their journey toward earthly terms, in which all things are unstable, constantly changing, and subject to time and death. The same is true of Gatsby's desire to mold himself according to an ideal, revealing the hubris of trying to embody a perfect being. It is in fact only the shadow of an ideological conception, less than the perfect, eternal and immutable image that it seeks to generate. It becomes moreclear the moment Gatsby remembers his first kiss with his beloved Daisy, when his fantasy is ruined as soon as it comes true. Although he may pretend – in fact, as he does throughout the novel – Gatsby cannot live as a self-made creation. He is a victim of his past, as we all are. And although he found his place among the American upper class of the 1920s, he also fell prey to it: chewed up, spat out, and unceremoniously cast aside. If Gatsby and Pierre are both maladjusted in the social circles they inhibit, Pierre is more likely to be so. Pierre Bezukhov is an outsider to the Russian upper class, his clumsy and unassuming ways overlooked only when the bastard son enters into his father's substantial inheritance. In himself and in those around him, Pierre feels the transformation that wealth brings him: “In the past, Pierre constantly had the feeling... that his words, which seemed intelligent to him while he was preparing them in his imagination, became stupid as soon as he 'he spoke. out loud… Now everything he said was charming. Welcomed as he is in high society, subtleties cannot serve to calm the turbulence in Pierre's soul in the face of the lack of sincerity in this world of appearances: this world where "the stupidest woman in the world... appears to people as the height of intelligence and finesse,'” and everyone bows before her Haunted by evil and lies, Pierre is incapable of actively participating in life – despite his existential troubles. the unanswered questions and doubts, the lack of meaning and inspiration in life – Pierre must still live. Self-preservation pushes him to subjugate these searches with sensory pleasures: “It was too scary to be under. the weight of all the insoluble questions of life, and he indulged in the first amusements that presented themselves, only to forget them." Pierre attributes an enigmatic character to the "questions of life. there is no solution to the most fundamental question: why should I live? It would seem, then, that Tolstoy understands Peter's anxiety as arising not from an inability to produce satisfactory responses, but from a lack of appropriate distraction. Peter and Gatsby share the label of outsiders and a deep struggle to belong. Both are of the element in which they find themselves immersed, but also powerless of another. In each story we find a moment where Peter and Gatsby's ideas of themselves come to fruition in relation to the object of their love. These instances are both instantiated in specific, memorable occasions in the respective novels. Furthermore, these deep relationships unite a cosmic desire with a mortal embodiment of that desire. After these experiences, these men are simply not the same. And if these two moments offer a resumption of an eternal questioning in the form of mortal love, these men are distinguished by their subsequent relationships with these moments of clarity. Gatsby spends the rest of his life trying to recapture what he felt when the stars aligned over his first kiss with Daisy, while the rest of Pierre's life is propelled by his enduring image of Natasha , which fills the part of him once occupied by uncertainty. . In order to discern the relationships that Gatsby and Peter have with these vital revelations, we must first investigate what is revealed in the moments themselves. Nick Carraway traces Jay Gatsby's self-creation to that moment, at the dawn of winter, when Gatsby kissed himself for the first time. Daisy under animated stars. He calls the language Gatsby uses to recall his memory appalling in its “sentimentality” – Gatsby's wordsare incredible precisely insofar as they are poetic. Walking together, Daisy and Gatsby arrive at this vast, pure place “where there were no trees and the sidewalk was white with moonlight.” The cosmic excitement caused by the force of the changing seasons echoes Gatsby's longing for his love. There is a palpable emotion in the air: “a mysterious excitement,” “a stirring among the stars.” The imagery connects human desire to the concerns of nature: cosmic questions seem in sympathy with Gatsby's emotion, in turn suggesting that there is a natural similarity between the threshold Gatsby longs to cross and the inevitably changing seasons . It's as if the world around him has prepared for this moment in Gatsby's life, and knows and understands his insatiable desire. This anticipation is expressed in Gatsby's regard for the powers and forces that aligned to facilitate his incarnation. In a moment that couldn't have lasted very long, as Gatsby knows his kiss with Daisy is fast approaching, his soul prepares for a great ascension. Daisy is the substance of his dream, in which the forces work to form a ladder that "climbs to a secret place above the trees - he could climb there...and suck the breast of life, swallow the incomparable milk of wonder.” There is no doubt in Gatsby's mind that this moment will provide the focus for the rest of his life's ambition. It is clear that when he drinks the elixir of wonder, he will be changed forever and irrevocably. But perhaps the great Jay Gatsby doesn't fully realize how this piece of perfection will irreparably damage his penchant for fantasy, ruined the moment those fantasies become corporeal. Gatsby hesitates. While lusting after Daisy, he longs to bring out the feeling in his soul at the image of her face approaching his. Perhaps he also hesitated in light of the price he had to pay to achieve his goal: he knew that when he kissed the girl and forever associated her ineffable visions with her perishable breath, his mind would no longer frolic never like that of a God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had just struck a star. Then he kissed her. Upon contact with his lips, she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete. Gatsby lingers as long as he can, engaged in the activity of listening to the sublime vibrations of the cosmic universe, before sealing his commitment to a unique time. -resistant role. To associate his "ineffable visions" with Daisy's "perishable breath" is to associate Gatsby's Platonic idea of ​​himself with a particular moment—when that self touched the earth and Gatsby kissed Daisy. Once this union is sealed, it cannot be changed and Gatsby loses his power of self-creation. Although he has developed his own Platonic idea, he now finds himself trapped in his incarnation, at this very moment. This sublime power of generation, this omnipotence in its capacity to shape itself, are the victims of Gatsby's pastoral desire. Both at this point and in Nick's final estimation, Gatsby seems obsessed with recovering something from the past. To the extent that he continues on the trajectory of his life, Gatsby is also irremediably linked to his past, “continually drawn back” into it. Daisy's kiss deals a death blow to Gatsby's eagerness to preserve an innocent and as yet unexplored world, tethering its mutable flesh to his noble ideals. His spirit will never again frolic “like the spirit of a God” because he has been made corporeal: embodied, frozen, stuck in his first union with Daisy. Pierre's soul climbs to equally high heights in his interaction with Natasha after herbreakup. of her engagement to Prince Andrei. Pierre is discouraged by Natasha's outward expression of despair, her feeling that nothing makes sense. Perhaps because Pierre shares this feeling, he comforts Natasha with a “voice so sweet, tender and sincere” that she cries tears of gratitude. At first, Pierre surprises himself with his sudden outburst of emotion, confused by the feelings welling up in his chest. With a tender look, Natasha leaves consoled for the first time in days. Pierre doesn’t know what to do next: “Where to go? Peter wondered. “Where can I go now?” Not at the club or to visit. Everyone seemed so pitiful, so poor in comparison to the feeling of tenderness and love he felt, in comparison to this softened and grateful look that she had given him at the last moment through her tears. Having felt such a deep bond of love with Natacha, everything else seems incredibly insignificant to Pierre. Until now, he did not know that his soul could soar to achieve a feeling of the sublime. It seemed that there was nothing useful in his ordinary environment. From now on, he can only view the world around him with pity and poverty of spirit. But in his next gesture, ordering his driver to take him home, Pierre reveals an inner transformation. His “joyfully breathing chest” draws in the new air around him, imbibing a brighter spiritual realm where, even in spite of doubts, life is surely worth living. Rather than finding everything base and meaningless compared to the pleasure of his soul, Pierre uses the image of Natasha to give his approach to life new meaning. The brilliant comet of 1812 streaks across the starry sky above him, echoing the new heights of his soul. The comet, believed to foreshadow destruction, evokes in Pierre a feeling of calm, protecting him from “the insulting baseness of everything earthly”. As they say, having discovered his “why” of life, Pierre is ready to tolerate any “how”. We imagine Pierre standing under species aeterni, the “immense expanse of starry night” closer because of the comet's proximity to earth, the emptiness in his heart filled with his proximity to Natasha. Close examination of the language that Pierre uses to describe the comet's journey across the sky demonstrates the motivation he gains from this sublime feeling. His soul follows the same “parabolic journey” as this “shining star”. In awe of this cosmic moment, Pierre's inner desire sympathizes with an event that is both of this world and yet rings with a universal energy. It seemed to him that "this star fully responded to what was in his softened and encouraged soul, which now blossoms into a new life." In this moment of unity between Peter's newly discovered sense of eternal purpose and cosmic grandeur, his soul is reborn. It is filled with the image of Natacha, anchored in time by the most fixed historical event in the novel: the great comet of 1812. Even the comet notices Pierre's internal evolution: Having flown with inexpressible speed through an immeasurable space on its parabola Sure enough, [the comet] suddenly, like an arrow piercing the earth, seemed to have struck here its once chosen point in the black sky and to have stopped, its tail raised energetically, its light white shining and playing among the countless other twinkling stars. Pierre, the odyssey of this comet is his. After traveling vast distances, “traversing immeasurable space,” he lands at this precise moment, balanced in the dark sky. In its stillness, the contented comet shines brightly and with energetic spirit. The fact that the comet followed., 2007.