Comparative Essay sw final

Comparative Essay

Intro: The beginning of the 20th century personified the struggle for equality as discrimination based on race and sex still existed and for many people achieving equality was only a dream . In the books "The Bluest Eyes" and "The Great Gatsby, the characters of Jay Gatsby and Percola Breedlove chase their dreams and struggle with being accepted and treated as equals with the society that they live in.

Thesis: Through the archetypes of the Jungian Lens, the main protagonists exemplify similarities in their struggle with the pursuit of a dream. The obsession with making their dream become a reality consumes them and contributes to their ultimate downfalls.

Three arguments:

Three Arguments:
1) Jungian theory describes the Anima as being the "soul image " or force/motivation that often causes us to act. In both novels the main protagonists show their similarities through the motivation to pursue their dreams from the pain and failure they had encountered in their lives.

Quote ( Great Gatsby) : "He talked a lot about the past, and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was." (Pg 111-112, Chapter 6)

Analysis:
- Gatsby keeps dwelling on the past and has been obsessed with trying to recreate it, as it was the happiest time in his life.
- Without Daisy grounding him in his life, Gatsby feels like he has no purpose in life and had lost a significant part of who he was as a person
-Although Gatsby really wants the life he had with Daisy 5 years ago, he does not take into account that people change over time and it is impossible for his life to be exactly the same as the past.
- If Gatsby tries to rekindle his dream of gaining back his love with Daisy, it will eventually lead to his ultimate downfall as a character

Connect to Thesis: Jay Gatsby manages to rekindle his relationship with Daisy Buchannan but does not get his fairy tale ending where she leaves her husband for Jay Gatsby. When confronted by Tom, Jay Gatsby asks Daisy to say that she never loved Tom but she could not do so. Jay Gatsby is crushed by the realization that Daisy is not totally swept off her feet to leave her husband and her family for him. His blind devotion for Daisy and the dislike her husband has for Gatsby leads to his downfall as Tom persuades Myrtle Wilsons husband to believe that Gatsby was his wife's lover resulting in Jay Gatsby being shot by George

Context: The perception by others around her that she is ugly motivates her to pursue her dream of turning her ugliness into beauty by having blue eyes. Pecola tries desperately to see with her own eyes what makes her undesirable and concludes that her appearance must be the cause.
Quote (Bluest Eyes): " Long hours she sat looking in the mirror, trying to discover the secret of the ugliness, the ugliness that made her ignored or despised at school, by teachers and classmates alike." (Pg. 45 ,Autumn 1)

Analysis:
-Percola is strongly affected by how others perceive her in society
- Percola wonders what about her ugliness makes teachers and classmates so hated by her
- Percola's low self esteem motivates her to pursue her of looking beautiful and having blue eyes hoping that this would be the answer to escaping the abuse she suffers both physically and mentally. some of her societies respect and not force her to live her life in shame.

- Percola's drive to act upon her changing her discriminated life would see herself as being beautiful, instead of the ugly little girl she is disgusted with Connect Back To Thesis: Pecola sees herself as being an ugly young girl who longs to be beautiful in a rather discriminated environment. When questioning her ugliness in the mirror, she struggles to find her true beauty and continually wants to find the negative aspects about how she appeared in society. Her pursuit of beauty leads to her disappointment in the novel as her motivation to obtain her blue eyes was theoretically not possible to achieve in reality.

Comparative Part: Pecola and Gatsby had different visions of their ideal dreams, they had the same drive to succeed in making their dream a reality motivated by the pain and failures they had encountered in their lives. Their obsession with their dreams leads to a not so happy ending with Gatsby being killed and Pecola drifting into madness.

2) Through the Jungian Lens , the persona is how we present ourselves to the world. It represents the mask we put on to others. Although both protagonist come from different economic backgrounds, they both encountered discrimination by the people in their community. They were both looked down upon, Gatsby for being the nouveau rich and Pecola for being a black girl.

Quote 2 ( Gatsby):
"Who are you anyhow?" broke out Tom....
"I found out what your 'drug store' were" he turned to us and spoke rapidly. "He and this Wolfsheim bought up a lot of side-street drug-stores here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter. That's one of his little stunt. I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him, and I wasn't far wrong." (Fitzgerald 147)

Analysis:
- Tom is trying to discredit Gatsby in front of daisy. He wants to tarnish the persona Gatsby has built up to being a rich successful hero by exposing the truth behind how he made his money through bootlegging. Gatsby's dream of winning daisy's heart is diminished by the ugly truth that tom has revealed.
Connect Back Thesis: Gatsby dream of sweeping Daisy off her feet and being with her forever is shattered by the revolution that Tom makes about the way Gatsby made his fortune. His relationship with daisy leads to his downfall as daisy's husband would Tom would be the ultimate barrier that prevent Gatsby from pursuing his dream.

Context: Pecola is heavily by influenced by the images around her as to what were the desirable qualities she had to possess to transform herself into the person who would be accepted rather ridiculed and scorned.
Quote 2 (Bluest Eyes): "Adults, older girls, shops, magazines, newspapers, window signs, -- all the world had agreed that a blue-eyed, yellow-haired, pink-skinned doll was what every girl child treasured"

Analysis:
-American culture promotes the idea that whiteness should be desired.
- Ones appearance will dictate if your liked or disliked by others.
-Pecola obsessed over the dream of having blue eyes .
-During Pecola's time, it was perceived that having blue eyes made you look pretty and beautiful.

Connect To Thesis: Pecolas dream of longing to have blues eyes has become much more clearer now as she perceives that by having blue eyes this would fulfill her dream of being accepted by others. Pecola is relying on the perception of other people or influences to determine what true beauty without realizing that she posses qualities beyond appearance.

Comparative Part: Pecola and Gatsby both want to hide behind the persona that they either wanted or developed in order to mask the ugly truths behind who they really were. They both were obsessed with how they would look to others. In Gatsby case he wanted to present the persona that he was a handsome self made millionaire, whereas Pecola wanted to be that blue eyed white little girl living the ideal life.

Context: Pecola and Gatsby both experienced pain and disappointment in their lives. These dark episodes in their lives motivated them to pursue their dreams as means to escape the abuse that Pecola encountered or Gatsby's escape from his past life as James Gatz.

3) "The Shadow" through the Jungian lens is described as being the darker side, the part of ourselves that we would prefer not to confront, those aspects that we dislike. In both books, Pecola and Gatsby present a darker side to their lives, that lead them to their obsession with the pursuit of the dream in order to achieve ultimate happiness in their lives. Although both characters had different dreams that lead to their happiness, their obsessions ultimately lead them to their downfalls as a character.
Quote( Great Gatsby): " I suppose he'd had the name ready for a long time, even then. His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people -- his imagination had never really accepted them as parents. The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West egg, Long Island, sprang from his platonic conception of himself"

Analysis:
-Jay Gatsby hid his true identity that he was poor and came from a small town in North Dakota
- Jay Gatsby was ashamed of his parents as they were shiftless and unsuccessful people
- Jay Gatsby had obtained the dream of becoming wealthy and popular, something that his parents could never obtain.

Connect to Thesis: Gatsby in pursuing his dream shows that he had a darker side to his life, one that he is trying to hide from his established upper class neighbours and Daisy. Gatsby was driven to transform himself from James Gatz the poor farm boy from North Dakota to the handsome and wealthy Jay Gatsby. Gatsby amassed his wealth by bootlegging which shows that he was willing to get rich by any means even through illegal activities. Gatsby knew he had to be rich and successful in order to fulfil his dream of rekindling his relationship with Daisy.
. The pursuit to win back Daisy in his life lead to his ultimate downfall as he did not win Daisy over completely as she could not bring herself to leave her husband for Gatsby when her husband Tom exposed him as bootlegger.

Quote from (Bluest Eyes): " A little black girl yearns for the blue eyes of a little white girl, and the horror at the heart of her yearning is exceeded only by the evil of fulfillment"
Analysis:
-The “horror” Morrison refers to is the sad fact that Pecola and other little black girls like would rather change their appearance to seem more “white” than learn how to appreciate the way they look.
-The quote points to the fact that what was considered society's standard of beauty, which is sharply skewed towards being white and blue eyed. The suggestion is that we find comfort in who we really are by accepting what we see in the mirror as beautiful.

Connect Back To Thesis: In Pecolas life, her dark side had been shown through the abuse and discrimination by her parents and the society around her. Pecola had the dream in her mind that if she were to obtain the blue eyes that she had deeply desired, she would be able to diminish all the hate and darkness she had endured in her life. Although Pecola wanted to have this dream become a reality, it eventually lead to her downfall as her dream of wanting her blue eyes never came true as her obsession with having them resulted in her losing her sense reality.

Comparative Part: Through both books, the characters Pecola and Gatsby had experienced there darker side through the events that they had endured throughout their childhood. Although both had different dark experiences in their lives, they used the idea of a dream to help mask the pain and agony of their grotesque realities. In both cases they used the ideas of a dream to help find happiness that they had always been longing for. In Pecolas case her happiness would be her dream of obtaining blue eyes, while in Gatsby's case it would be to obtain the true love of his life, Daisy.

Conclusion:
In the two novels , Pecola Breedlove and Jay Gatsby both were dreamers who were obsessed with pursuing their dreams in order to find happiness. Despite the two characters differences in race , gender and social standing , both of them shared the need to be accepted and loved by those around them. Both characters wanted to hide from the not so pleasant aspects of their lives by assuming a new persona . James Gatz the poor farm boy transformed himself into rich and flamboyant Jay Gatsby while Pecola Breedlove wanted to be a blue eyed beautiful girl. In the end both Pecola and Jay Gatsby failed to make their dream a reality. Gatsby’s relationship with Daisy Buchanan proves to be his downfall as he would be killed by the husband of Tom Buchanan’s mistress. Pecola Breedlove’s obsession with wanting her blue eyes to escape the hardship and suffering in her life lead to her escape from reality and into insanity where she is at peace with her blue eyes .