The Modern Tragic Hero Of Gatsby English Literature Essay

The Modern Tragic Hero Of Gatsby English Literature Essay In the novel The Great Gatsby, Gatsby is a tragic hero because he displays the fundamental characteristics of modern tragic hero. He is a common man, he contains the characteristics of a tragic flaw, and he eventually has a tragic fall. Although at first glance Gatsby might not seem to be the everyday man, in reality he actually is. At one point Gatsbys past is being examined and his parents are described as shiftless and unsuccessful farm people which shows the readers that he came from humble roots and was just like everyone else (Fitzgerald 95). He was not born into wealth and privilege and did not have any special background that gave him an advantage over others. Another instance in which Gatsby is portrayed as the average man is when Nick is discussing Gatsbys past and he says, So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent(Fitzgerald 95). This shows that the persona that Gatsby has created for himself is that of any average, immature boy. As the novel progresses further you find Nick recounting Gatsbys past and describing him as being a penniless young man which again shows the reader that Gatsby is really just the common man with a big dream (Fitzgerald 141 ). This statement helps take away some of the disguise of wealth and overwhelming power, and brings him into a more human perspective. Gatsbys tragic flaw is that his view of the world is obstructed by his own naive idealism. It is very clear to the reader that Gatsby is idealistic when, while Nick is over at Gatsbys house, he reflects on Daisys and Gatsbys relationship and he notes, There must have been momentsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ when Daisy tumbled short of his dreamsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ because of the colossal vitality of his illusion(Fitzgerald 92). This shows that even Nick, his best friend and the one that sticks up for Gatsby the most, sees that Gatsby perceives Daisy to be ideal and perfect. Gatsby does not see things as they really are and expects them to play out exactly as he thinks they will. An example of this is when Nick is talking to Gatsby after a party and he tells Gatsby that he cant repeat the past, and Gatsby responds, Cant repeat the past?à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦. Why of course you can!' (Fitzgerald 106). This delusion, that he can repeat the past and redo everything, blinds Gatsby to what is going on right in fr ont of him. It seems as though he does not realize how absurd the idea of obtaining Daisy love is. Gatsbys idealism also blinds him to how Daisy really acts and what her personality is like. An example of this can be seen in the imagery of the novel. Throughout the novel white is used as imagery for pure and innocent, while yellow represents corruption. A daisy has white petals and a yellow center. This imagery relates because it shows how Gatsby perceives Daisy. All he sees is a beautiful, loving woman who loves him back and he cannot see past his own idealistic view of the perfect Daisy to the corrupt, shallow, money-loving Daisy. Another example of Gatsbys overwhelming idealism is his own self perception. Gatsby thinks as long as he surrounds himself with riches and the wealthy, that people will accept him and he can erase his former self; Gatsby the poor farm boy. This shows how he is idealistic because no matter what a person does, the former self will always be there. Later in the novel when Nick is reflecting on Gatsbys idea of Daisy he notes, He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: I never loved you.' (Fitzgerald 105). This idea is not a realistic expectation because Daisy is already married and has a family to take care of; also her religion prevents her from getting a divorce and marrying him. All these are factors block Gatsby from obtaining his ideal dream, but he seems to be blind to them. Although Gatsbys physical fall starts near the end of novel, his spiritual fall arguably begins before you even meet him. In the middle of the novel you hear about Gatsbys past and how he was a poor average man, but he was honest and worked hard. As the novel progresses you hear about his relationship with Daisy and how it ended because he was not wealthy enough. He needed to become wealthy so that Daisy would marry him. To obtain this wealth Gatsby started to participate in dishonest and illegal deeds such as bootlegging. This shows a fall spiritually because he goes against his morals and values. Closer to the end of the novel, after Daisy kills Myrtle in car accident, you learn that Gatsby will take the blame for Myrtles death. Although this is a show of love for Daisy, it is eventually what leads him to his physical downfall. Throughout the novel you are shown images of Gatsby surrounded by all kinds of wealthy and high class people, and it seems as though he has many friends. Ho wever, at Gatsbys funeral at the very end of the novel when Gatsby is shot and killed, there is no one there except for a select few. This image is used very well because it shows how the mighty have fallen. The one person everyone thought had it all, in reality has nothing; no money, no love and no friends. Gatsby is a perfect example of a modern tragic hero because he has an eventual tragic fall, he displays certain characteristic that shows that he has tragic flaw and if you look beyond his wealth, you will see that he was just common man with a big dream.

Course of True Love Never Did Run Smooth Essay

I. Introduction Comparing Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream and Middleton’s The Changeling seems to be a very unusual topic for the first sight. The earlier is a festive merry comedy and the latter is said to be a revenge tragedy, moreover, is claimed to be a later transformation of Shakespeare’s Othello. Certainly, if we look at the structure of The Changeling on the surface we see a plot of a conventional drama of revenge, but as we observe closer it becomes evident that The Changeling lacks some of the significant features a tragedy has to retain. As far as the situation is concerned the plot could turn out to be a comedy. After some conflict and misunderstanding Beatrice and Alsemero could get married and live happily ever after, as it happened to the two couples in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In fact in the latter the basic situation was even more complicated, Hermia’s father knew that she wanted to marry Lysander and he opposed to it, but in The Changeling the lovers did not really have an objection from the ‘paternal’ side. What are the differences then? How could Shakespeare write his merriest comedy from a situation that turned out to be a cruel revenge tragedy for Middleton? The first part of he answer definitely lies in the different periods they lived in. The Elizabethan and Jacobean age, although they seem to retain little difference for us, hold numerous significant contrasts. Their world picture and understanding life differed in a lot, and so did their dramatists and audiences. Considering the title, characters and the structure of he plays we cannot see outstanding differences between them. Both the titles have comic connotations, suggesting a happy ending to the audience. As for the characters, The Changeling lacks the tragic hero and more importantly the Machiavellian malcontent, which was necessary for a revenge tragedy. What we find instead are simple, everyday individuals who find themselves in a peculiar situation which they cannot handle. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream we also find various situations of disharmony, misunderstanding, quarrel and stress, but they all turn into order by the end. The main contrast is in the attitude of the personae, that is the handling of the situation in a positive or in a negative way. The structural similarity is the use of a subplot, which in both cases serves as an emphasis of the main plot. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream the mechanicals’ earthly word and speech is aimed at stressing the different worlds of the play and also serves laughter. In The Changeling the mad-house plot serves same reason, but as it is a satire it makes us realise that the world of apparently normal people is full of madness, while in a madhouse everything turns out to be fine. Raising these points now we have to have a closer look on the two dramas and see that the so called revenge tragedy is rather comic and the happy comedy held more tragic signs than the actual tragedy. II. Tragedy and comedy The division of drama into comedy and tragedy has always been the first aspect of literary criticism. We have fixed ideas in our minds what are the so called tragic and comic elements. Using Norhtrop Frye’s terms, in tragedies these are the great tragic hero, conflict with something grand, like fate, gods, fortune. According to Frye the tragic hero is somewhere between the divine and the â€Å"all to human†, apparently a type which cannot be found in The Changeling. On the other hand if we put the typical pattern of comedy onto the plot of the drama we can see that it is consistent, whereas, adapting again Frye’s definition, what normally happens in a comedy is that a â€Å"young man wants a young woman, that his desire is resisted by some opposition, usually paternal, and that near the end of the play some twist in the plot enables the hero to have his will. These patterns tend not to change with time, but certainly in transitional periods the emphasis could shift. The Jacobean period being the age of crisis in both literary and social aspects, it has developed its own characteristics as tragedy and comedy are concerned. Jacobean drama was more concerned with revenge and blood but the focus was not on the individual but on a social type. The same tendency occurred in the comedie s, they were rather satires, parodies than real merriment. Jacobean pessimism, like today that of the post-modern took a reaction against the optimism of the preceding age, which is pointing towards the comedies of the French Classicist period, rather than having roots in the Elizabethan. III. The titles As I have mentioned, the titles both carry the connotation of change, but in a symbolic way, examining how the human power can accept change, how it can adopt to different troubled situations. They both have comic connotation and both suggest some passivity on the side of the characters, that is, they are changed by an external force, something that is standing outside them. The word ‘changeling’ had different meanings for the Jacobean audience, but mainly carried the act of change, transformation from one thing to the other. As the word ‘dream’ would have the same connotation, as our dreams are alterations of real life and of the self. The word ‘changeling’ had four different meanings that time: a person given to change, a half wit, a woman who had sexual intercourse or an ugly and deformed child changed by the fairies. Midsummer night, being the shortest night of the year also suggests change, change in the moon and season, demonstrating the difference in performance at night or day. As Martin White puts it The Changeling is built on a structure of antitheses ironically inverted and juxtaposed. These are castle/asylum, madness/sanity, reason/passion and appearance/reality. These antitheses are also present in the latter, substituting the castle for Athens and the asylum for he forest. The world turned upside down is comic in Shakespeare’s time, the theme of change is more important than that of the characters; on the other hand Middleton stresses the change of characters, and â€Å"the action turns upon the contrast between the character’s demands upon life and their limitations when an unwanted set of circumstances reveals them. IV. The characters In spite of this difference The Changeling also has the elements of comedy. As the characters are mediocre, they differ from the heroes of grand tragedy. In Jacobean times contemporaries would have seen The Changeling as a drama which has a plot based on a conventional revenge tragedy, but Middleton’s handling of the plot and the characters managed to end up in story of a group of quite ordinary people whose fate is the logical consequence of their stupidity and simplicity. On the contrary the protagonists of A Midsummer Night’s Dream are really remarkable as they do not accept their fate and the will of the father, but they try to break out of it by escaping to the wood, that is, by responding positively to the situation. This is the basic difference between the acting of the couples, Hermia-Lysander and Beatrice-Alsemero. Hermia: But I beseech your grace that I may know The worst that may befall me in this case, If I refuse to wed Demetrius. (I. 1. 62-4) Lysander: I am, my lord, as well-derived as he, As well-posessed: My love is more than his, [†¦ And, which is more than all these boasts can be, I am beloved of beauteous Hermia. (I. 1. 99-104) However, Beatrice does not ask his father for permission for marrying Alsemero, she is just asking for more time, and Alsemero does not seem to act either, as he says â€Å"I must part and never meet again / With joy on earth. † (I. 1. 205). He wants to leave, which clearly demonstrates his p assive attitude. They cannot face a situation that is not favourable for them, they are not fighting for their love, which is evident from the fact that much of what they say they say as ‘asides’. Their main problem is the lack of communication and mistrust, although Vermanendro likes Alsemero, and what is more, later admits that if he had another daughter he would give her to Alsemero. So the changes mentioned above has to come in a different way: in A Midsummer Night’s Dream the lovers started to act and the fairies interfere with the magic juice, which causes a crookedness in the play but here all the obstacles are turned into advantages. The remarkable thing is that they never stop communication, which would allow for a tragic outcome. Even when the lovers are completely crossed they manage to cope with the situation, thus making everything in the best possible way, and they are never ready to submit to their fate. Alsemero and Beatrice are entirely the opposite, their failure of communication with each other and their surroundings result in the murder of Alonzo. They are both shallow personalities, going on their own way. Alsemero, when first speaking to Beatrice, immediately kisses her and admits that he loves her. As Beatrice is concerned she has an ignorance of the world and even of herself. Her incapability of seeing reality changes her from a maid to a whore and a urderess, as Farr claims. She is a conventional spoiled child; like a princess in a fairy tale she is acting without calculating the human element. She thinks she will not be guilty as De Flores kills her fiance, and also fails to realise that De Flores will not be satisfied with money. She acts without thinking and consideration, as she says: I sha ll rid myself Of two inveterate loathings at one time, Piraquo, and his dog face. (II. 2. 146-8) Being unable to see what is going on Beatrice unquestionably thinks that this is the best solution for her problem, using a man she hates for killing another man she hates. Reality is not revealed to her even by putting this improbable situation into words. The treatment of the heroine illustrates the difference of Middleton’s drama from the typical revenge tragedy of the age. In fact, no one has the cause to kill in this drama, as Farr puts it: â€Å"Middleton’s presentation is not the conflict between passion and power but the unmasking of lust by the logic of commonplace happenings. † The other difference is De Flores, who is not a characteristic malcontent either. He is in love with Beatrice and it is his lust that makes him a murderer. Although he is always one step before Beatrice and we can assume that he is aware of his murder we do not have the same feeling towards him as towards the typical malcontents in tragedies, such as Iago or Richard III. We feel pity for him from the beginning for the undeserved loathing of Beatrice. He is not evil, he would not have done anything bad to Beatrice or anybody else. It is Beatrice who is evil, but just to a limited extent as she cannot realise the weight and consequence of her ideas and thus starts behaving in a negative way, opposed to the lovers of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She is the ‘deed’s creature’ (III. . 137), nothing else but an unthoughtful person who cannot part reality from her passion. She still thinks at the end that it is a significant basis for her self defence that ‘love has made me / A cruel murd’ress. (V. 3. 64-65). On the contrary in A Midsummer Night’s Dream it is the situation that is foolish not the cha racters: they are intelligent people in an inherently foolish situation, but the plot does not lack the hint of a tragedy, which is present on two levels. On the one hand, it is threatening with the harsh Athenian law, and on the other, it is there in the subplot, in the performance of the mechanicals. Also we must not forget that the closest drama of Shakespeare is Romeo and Juliet, which has much resemblance with this plot. But here, although the characters are the playthings of the fairies, they manage to understand the experience of irrational love and so their behaviour is not at all irrational or foolish. V. The structure Concerning the structure the outstanding similarity is the use of a subplot. It has two functions, reinforcing the twin themes of the dramas, which are castle/madhouse and reality/illusion. The main plot and the subplot are not together at all throughout the action but the presence can be felt in both cases. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream the subplot is the earthly world: the language is ordinary and has a very big contrast with the poetic lines of the lovers, especially with the rhyming couplets of the fairies. In The Changeling the characters of the main plot speak in an ordinary way, and there is more wit in the speech of the madhouse people. Both subplots serve as the comic elements in the drama, but with a different aim. The theme of the jealous husband and the wife is a social satire on the one hand, and on the other, it acts as a reflection and foreshadow of the action of the main plot. It demonstrates the crookedness of the world, that apparently mad people can handle the situation in a better way while sane people’s relationships end with four cruel murders. In A Midsummer Night’s Dream, however, the function of the subplot is just the opposite. The play acted by the mechanincs, despite its clumsiness, is a tale of woe, suicide and fatalism, quite contrary to the play which contains it.

The Cave Bear vs. the Cave Lion Who Wins

Avian Influenz An Agricultural Perspective - 1499 Words

Avian Influenza is a major controversy in the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). Many researchers have researched the outbreak and how it contributes to the world we live in. Avian Influenza impacts a variety of people, places, and animals in the world. The articles reviewed discuss the different cases where avian influenza outbreak has impacted a major area and how they are ridding the virus. The articles vary from how the virus affects humans, to how it affects other animals, and the precautions used by different areas if the virus encounters. Conducted Research In the article â€Å"Avian Influenza: An Agricultural Perspective,† Andrea Morgan (2006) researched the impact avian influenza has on different parts of the world. In her research she realized that the most harmful pandemic of the disease was the â€Å"Spanish influenza† which affected 50 million people worldwide. The strain of avian influenza Morgan based her research around was the H5N1 influenza A, which is found in poultry. She researched how fast the influenza can be transmitted and who it affected worldwide. In order to prevent the spread of influenza in the United States, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) follows specific measures to ensure that they do not contain the outbreak (Morgan, p. 139). Influenza is most commonly found in birds, but it can also be transmitted to swine causing it to be more easily developed in humans. Which leads to research done by Piaggio, Clark, Franklin, and