Although most people
are inclined to believe in the American Dream, or the
idea that everyone has the same chance to improve their social status, the vast
majority are restricted by their family name and reputation. A person’s
heritage has always played a significant role within the social hierarchy, even
as it pertains to marriage. Early Europeans sought to outlaw morganatic marriage,
or intermarriage between people of unequal social rank, as a way of preserving
the traditional social structure. Despite the progress made over the past few
centuries, social distinctions and exclusions still exist and have a tremendous
impact on an individual’s life. F. Scott Fitzgerald
and Emily Brontë,
authors of The Great Gatsby and Wuthering Heights, respectively,
accurately identify the rigid social ranks between individuals, and the factors
contributing to their distinctions. Jay Gatsby, the protagonist of The Great Gatsby, comes from a farming
family and tries to improve his social status so that can fulfill his personal
ambition and marry Daisy. Even though Gatsby gains immense financial wealth, he
is still excluded from Daisy’s social class, or “Old Wealth,” because he is
limited by his background and lack of education. Similar to Gatsby, Bronte’s
main character, Heathcliff, is unable to enter Catherine’s social class because
although he too achieves financial wealth, he lacks the true heritage of an
aristocrat and a formal education.
Social hierarchy
Gatsby’s ambition to be a social elite began during his early
adolescence, when he began to concentrate his energy on obtaining economic
success. For instance, in his old book where his daily schedule is listed, he
devotes an entire hour towards practicing “elocution, poise and how to attain
it,” and reminds himself abstain from smoking and chewing (Fitzgerald 173). His
devotion to improving his public speaking and mannerisms clearly represents his
desire to become a member of the upper class because he must have the ability
to pass as elegant in order to fit in. Accordingly, his refusal to smoke and
chew tobacco illustrates his determination to differentiate himself from the
vulgar activities of the lower classes. Although the real reason Gatsby wants
to improve his status lies with his ambition, the abandonment from Daisy also constitutes
a significant reason, as well as an excuse. Gatsby recalls the first impression
of Daisy as “the first ‘nice’ girl he had ever known,” because they did not
have an “indiscernible barbed wire” that separated them (Fitzgerald 148). To
Gatsby, Daisy represents an entrance into the exclusive aristocracy, which is
demonstrated by the absence of “barbed wire.” Although Gatsby considers the intermarriage
of Daisy and him as a shortcut to make the dream of wealth true as the propose
chase Daisy in the beginning, he truly falls in love with Daisy after he is in
the relationship with her. However, the
failure of his romantic relationship which is result in Daisy abandon him because
the pressure from society, made he realized it’s impossible to a man from lower
class, like him, marry a upper class woman, no matter how deep their love is.
Meanwhile, it also stimulates him to
enhance his status while he feels the humiliation and inferiority of his
poverty, whichmade the great gap of
social status between Daisy and him.
Daisy
Gatsby introduces
his background to Nick as “[he is] the son of some wealthy people in the Middle
West-all dead now. [he] was brought up in American but educated at Oxford,
because all [his] ancestors have been educated at Oxford” (F. Scott Fitzgerald,
65). Fitzgerald utilizes that to emphasize Gatsby propose that made other
people believe he has potential abilities to be a upper class as well as old
wealth member as he was born in a old and well-known family and graduated from
a noble college, not just a new wealth.
"One night, we can build a nouveau riche, three generations to cultivate an aristocrat." -- Williams Shakespeare
Despite thathe tries to defend that he is the Old Wealth,
his statements and actions expose his feign. Nick as a gentleman comes from a
blue-blood family and his family went to Yale from generation to generation,
but he modestly said he went to college in “New Heave”. And it is feigned that
Gatsby show him the picture which he took in Oxford and the “Orderi de Danilo”.
Gatsby's party His house and
parties, the symbols of fortunes, wereutilized by Gatsby as measurements to flaunt his riches since he lacks
of a background as Old Wealth.
While Daisy
inclined to Gatsby’s position as she condemns Tom reveals Gatsby’s education
background, Tom emphasizes the division of Old Wealth and Nouveau Riches as he
says: “Nowadays people begin by sneering at family life and family
institutions, and next they’ll throw everything overboard and have
intermarriage between black and white. “ (F. Scott Fitzgerald, 130). It illustrates the intermarriage between
different social class could not accept by moralas it insinuates the absurdness of the
intermarriage between black, which represent Nouveau Riche, person who born in
povertyand White, which refers to
person who inherit money from blue-blood family, represents Old Wealth.
Furthermore, Tom emphasize the ideology of social hierarchy to deride Gatsby’s
background by improve his own status as a warn to Daisy that it would broke the
social order if she chooses a Nouveau Riche. And after Tom reveal Gatsby’s
illegal deal, Daisy’s sentiment has changed dramatically as she felt remorse
about she tried to go away with Gatsby as she “looked at Tom, alarmed now.”after Tom said, “you two start on home, Daisy, in Gatsby’s car” (F. Scott
Fitzgerald, 135). Because the illegal deal, which not only could be consider as
the testimony of his corrupt but also deny his background as his fortune was
not obtained by inheriting and that made Gatsby lose the potential possibility
of enter upper class. “In Gatsby’s car” symbolized Gatsby’s social class,
Nouveau Riche.If Daisy chooses to go
with his, then she could not keep her position among upper class any more and
would be degenerated into Nouveau Riche as Gatsby.
In Wuthering Height, Emily Brontë demonstrates how social status acts as the factor to impact the Catherine’s choice between true love and class. Compared by the love from Catherine to Heathcliff,
which is considered true love, the love to Edger is based on materiality
because it seems to be the pursuit of high-quality life under the factors like
class, status, wealth, and family, which exerts a subtle influence on Catherine’s
values as she explains the different of those two: “My love for Linton is like
the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter
changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath:
a source of little visible delight, but necessary” (Brontë, 80). To Catherine,
marrying Edgar doesn’t mean she will love Linton more than Heathcliff, just because she follows the
society hierarchy, as she describes Edgar “because he is handsome, because he is young. And he will be rich, and I shall like to be the greatest woman of
neighborhood”(Brontë, 76) which means Catherine prefers Edgar for his handsome , young,
wealth and status which is laid on external circumstance and is changeable, so
Catherine to his love also will be changed with that external things, and her
marriage with Edger never means she will leave Heathcliff as she plans “if I
marry Linton, I can’t aid Heathcliff to rise, and place him out of my brother’s
power”(Brontë, 79), she would like to enhance Heathcliff’s status by her husband’s
power, as well as help him get rid of Hindley’s control, though Heathcliff does
not like to accept her too much care. Furthermore, it also illustrates
Catherine doesn’t satisfy Heathcliff’s current status who is not only living in
poverty and also is treated as a slave by his brother, has a great gap from
him. Heathcliff is to her what a slave of the lower class is to a lady of aristocratic class. As Catherine once
tell her maid that “It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now” (I’ll find the
page no. ch.9), which means if Catherine marry him, she would degrade in to
lower class but marry a upper class men like Edger would make her stay in the aristocratic
class.
In a nutshell, both of Gatsby and Heathcliff have similar experiences as they are abandoned by the upper class woman who they
love while those women made the choice between the hierarchy of
social order and true love. After they realizes the cruelty of reality of social hierarchy, they obtained wealthy through assiduous working. Similarly, their persistence
of love-pursuing is praised and sympathized by readers. However, their fate are determined while they are born, the love emerges between different social
class will not to be end in a happy outcome, wherever how much they did for
trying to improve their status.
More stories about
social hierocracy and marriage
Arhduke Franz Ferlinand and Countess Sophie Chotek von Chotkwa
Morganatic marriage is the marriage between people of unequal
social rank, which prevents the passage of the husband’s title and privileges
to the wife and any children born of the marriage. The marriage of Archduke
Franz Ferdinand, and Bohemian aristocrat Countess
Sophie Chotek von Chotkowa is a famous example. Despite thatArchduke who was the heir of Austria-Hungary,
finally overcame the great pressure form his royal family and other European
upper class to marry Sophie, their marriage, which was a morganatic one, did not gain any esteems
from society. Their children took their mother’s family name and rank, and were
exclude from imperial succession. Countess Sophie serves as a aristocrat could
not be accepted, it is less impossible to Gatsby and Heathcliffto marry higher status women.
Deposed Queen Yoon
Queen Yoon
Experience of Deposed Korean Queen Yoon is another
famous example of the intermarriage between two extreme social classes. Her
husband who served asKing of Korean, in
spite of oppositions from royal family and ministers, marriaged with her, the maid who he loved.Without a powerful upper class background,
Queen Yoon treated disrespectful by King’s other concubines who were born in a
aristocratic family. And the envy and resentment of concubine triggered the struggle
in palace. As a result, Queen Yoon was repealed and exiled because the traps
from other aristocratic concubines. Queen
Yoon’s son, Yeonsangun of Joseon, inherited Korean throne after his father’s death. However, the blood
purge he emerged a in order to revenged the people who calumniated his mother,
brought the rise of a coup caused he was overthrown by aristocrats. -------------------------------------
Unlink sources: Fitzgerald, F. Scott, and Matthew J. Bruccoli. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner, 2004. Print. Brontë, Emily. Wuthering Heights. New York, NY: Signet Classics, 2011. Print.
Rules are inevitable. The disastrous nature of human
conduct generates the need of a governing central power and of policies that everybody
must abide to as lawful citizens. Scientific and mathematical developments also
bring about theorems and rules that are universally accepted as certain and
true. While these essential and fundamental laws establish themselves in human
minds, so do other more obscure and abstract social rules and standards of
beauty and hierarchy, driving people to accept and follow the ideals and creating social division and hierarchy.
The Golden Age of Certainty
Isaac Newton, 1642 - 1727
The Age of Reason, often referred to as the Enlightenment
or the Mechanical Age, depicts an era of physics development when the
scientists aimed to take everything apart and to analyze them thoroughly. They
believed in the possibility of defining and interpreting the behavior of all
particles with mathematical analysis and proposed that the motion of an object
from one stationary point in time to another is always connected and continuous.
This idea of continuity suggests that if the position and momentum of a
particle are determined, its state at any time in the future can also be
predicted. Isaac Newton, an important physicist and mathematician of the era who
developed the use of calculus (the mathematics of continuity) in his laws of motion, put forth a relevant idea: the clockwork universe theory. He stated in
the theory that the world functions as a clock created by God, and all the particles
in the universe advance, just like machines, with the linear progression of the
clock and follow the general rules of Newtonian mechanics, leaving all moments
in time entirely predictable. However, as Newton argues for the predictability
of future events, he completely abandons the idea of free will. Since
everything is certain and predetermined, nothing happens on the basis of human
will.
The Age of Uncertainty
Quantum mechanics, however, deconstructs the widely
believed notions of the Age of Certainty and challenges the Newtonian mechanism.
Originally proposed by Heisenberg and later revised by Kennard, the uncertainty principle asserts a limit to the precision of the momentum and position of an
object that can be determined. Heisenberg argues that the more precisely the
value of one is known, the less precisely the value of the other can be
determined. The principle challenges Newton’s earlier idea of continuity, in
which the predictability of future states is based on the knowledge of the
position and momentum of the particle in its present state. Another central argument
of the quantum theory is that particles do not move in a continuous way, but
instead come in discrete units. For instance, the position of an object at one
moment in time is completely independent of its position in the previous
moment; likewise, its position in the next point in time is also absolutely
random and uncertain.
Certainty in The Bluest Eye
These two opposing extremes can be applied to Toni Morrison’s novel The Bluest Eye. In
the novel, Toni Morrison depicts a society that functions similarly to the one presented in the Age of Certainty. The society displays the seemingly certain
and inalterable ideals of beauty and hierarchy and runs like Newton’s clock,
leaving no free will or possibility of change to the minorities in the society. The poor, instead of appreciating their unique natural self and their own identity, strive
to approach the standards of the whites and to be accepted by the society. Geraldine, a middle-aged black woman, rejects her own identity and conforms to the certainties of the society:
They come from Mobile. Aiken. From Newport News. From
Marietta. From Meridian. And the sounds of these places in their mouths make
you think of love. When you ask them where they are from, they tilt their heads
and say "Mobile" and you think you've been kissed. They say
"Aiken" and you see a white butterfly glance off a fence with a torn
wing. They say "Nagadoches" and you want to say "Yes, I
will." (81)
As an introduction of her in the book, Morrison chooses not
to present a specific character but instead to generalize with the plural
“they,” emphasizing Geraldine’s lack of individuality and her conformity to the
American ideal of beauty as presented in the Dick and Jane story. She,
along with many other black girls, tries to look and behave like the whites,
searching for ways to straighten her hair and soften her skin. The girls have
no pride or appreciation for their ethnicity and culture and show resentment
towards their own race in attempt to fit into the white society and to approach
the certainties that the white society present them with.
The Deconstruction of Certainty
Despite the failure of various characters’ attempts to
challenge the fixed system of ideals and their ultimate conformity to the
standards, Morrison attacks the certainty of the society by alluding to the
harm and destruction it brings to the characters’ life. Morrison opens the novel by presenting the Dick and Jane story, which serves as an embodiment of the American ideal and are taught to children not only for English-learning purposes, but also for them to understand the American culture and the accepted values such as gender and family roles:
Here is
the house.
It is green and white. It has a red door. It is very pretty. Here is the family.
Mother, Father, Dick, and Jane live in the green-and-white house. They are very
happy. See Jane. She has a red dress. She wants to play. Who will play with Jane?
See the cat. It goes meow-meow. Come and play. Come play with Jane. The kitten
will not play. See Mother. Mother is very nice. Mother, will you play with Jane?
mother laughs. Laugh, Mother, laugh. See Father. He is big and strong. Father,
will you play with Jane? Father is smiling. Smile, Father, smile. See the dog.
Bowwow goes the dog. Do you want to play with Jane? See the dog run. Run, dog,
run. Look, look. Here comes a friend. The friend will play with Jane. They will
play a good game. Play, Jane, play.
Here is
the house it is green and white it has a red door it isery pretty here is the
family mother father dick and jane live in the green-and-white house they are
very happy see jane she has a red dress she wants to play who will play with
jane see the cat it goes meow-meow come and play come play with jane the kitten
will not play see mother mother is very nice mother will you play with jane
mother laughs laugh mother laugh see father he is big and strong father will
you play with jane father is smiling smile father smile see the dog bowwow goes
the dog do you want to play do you want to play with jane see the dog run run
dog run look look here comes a friend the friend will play with jane they will
play a good game play jane play
Over the course of
two pages, however, Morrison takes away the spacing and the punctuations, destroying
the vision of the ideal household and leaving the whole piece meaningless and
insignificant. By tearing the story apart, Morrison hints that underneath the façade of certainty, the values in the Dick and Jane are
only fabricated deceptions that bring children to learn to respect the idealized
and constructed cultural values and lose their own individuality.
The Destruction of Certainty
Pecola Breedlove, a poor black girl who stands at the very
bottom of the social hierarchy, barely receives any love in her childhood
experience and learns that the reason her mother prefers the white little girl
more than her and the reason her classmates mock and isolate her is because she is
poor, ugly, and, unlike the popular white girls in her school, does not have
blue eyes. Driven by the longing for love and people’s attention, she accepts
“blue eyes are beautiful” as an established and certain rule, yearning and
praying to attain them.
Ironically, Cholly, the only character who is willing
to reach her and offer his love, does so in a perverted and inappropriate way.
He, just like Pecola, did not grow up in a loving environment, has not been
loved, and does not now how to love because of his low social status and his race. Pecola, as a result of the sexual violation his father repeatedly performs on her, is driven mad at the realization of the remoteness of the
ideals from her. She, as Claudia points out, almost becomes an embodiment of ugliness that they look upon to uplift their own esteem. Because of the pressure the ideals and the so-called
certainties have put on her, Pecola has to comfort herself with a imaginary friend and imaginary blue eyes to get a sense of confidence and involvement in the society.
By demonstrating the effect these constructed ideals
of beauty and American values have on Pecola, Morrison effectively depicts and
argues against the destructiveness of certainty.
Likewise, the ideals turn Soaphead Church into a pedophile.
Geraldine, in her appreciation for white
beauty, abandons her own family.
The carefully constructed world of ideal
values and certainty is gradually falling apart.
The Appreciation for Uncertainty—Morrison's Call for Naturalness
Morrison's attack on certainty also reflects through her writing style. While the Age of Reason proposes a linear progression of time,
Morrison sides with the uncertainty and intentionally offers a more free-styled
and circular narrative with the use of seasons and multi-perspective in the
book. Her rather random form of narrative, with multiple narrators speaking in erratic
orders, coincides with the idea of independent and discreet units in quantum
theory, where the next moment is always uncertain and subject to change, implying the possibility for the minorities in the book to change their fate
and to advance in the social hierarchy. Morrison, mainly through the voice of Claudia
in The Bluest Eye, attacks the certainty
of ideals and standards of the American society and calls for appreciation for
the black’s unique “funkiness of nature” (83).
Unlinked Sources: Morrison, Toni. The Bluest Eye: A Novel. New York: Vintage International, 2007. Print.
Americanization is a fascinating process that generations of sociologists have attempted to explain. In 1782, a French-American writer proudly praised the country as a
melting pot, with Utopian visions of the emergence of an American “new man”.
However, American history is fraught with clamorous and silent confrontations,
persistent clashes of different cultures, and heated debates about values.
After the ninety-seventies, the desirability of assimilation was challenged. Advocates of pluralism coined the alternative metaphor of a salad bowl, in which cultures mix but maintain their distinct shapes.
In Prospective Immigrants Please Note, Adrienne Rich, a half-Jewish, half-gentile poet, offers a multifaceted interpretation of the Americanization. On one hand,
she warns the immigrants of losing their ethnic traditions. On the other, she
hints at the danger of rejecting assimilation. Ultimately, she expresses a
desire for personal choice and self-determination: an immigrant should be free
to select elements from his home culture and American (in this case, mainly white)
culture. She writes about the same belief using personal experience in Split at the Root: An Essayon Jewish Identity.
Either you will go through this door or you will not go through. If you go
through
there is always the risk of remembering your name. Things look at
you doubly and you must look back and let them happen. If you do not go
through it is possible to live worthily to maintain your
attitudes to hold your position to die bravely but much will
blind you, much will evade you, at what cost who knows? The door itself
makes no promises. It is only a door.
Inside, or Outside
Either you will/go through this door/or you will not go through.
Door is a widely
used literary symbol, very likely due to the complexity and duality its simple
structure unifies: an open door signifies opportunity and acceptance, whereas a
closed door symbolizes rejection and disappointment; an opening door is often
associated with new adventures, and a closing door usually stands for farewell.
In the poem, to “go through this door” means to assimilate, to Americanize, and
to blend in. The outside is immigrants’ native culture, and the inside is
American (in the context of this poem, white) culture. “Either…or” has the
connotation of arbitrariness, suggesting that whether a person successfully
Americanizes is judged by others.
The first stanza
as a whole implies that the society demands a devotion to American standards
from immigrant. The society does not recognize immigrants as complex,
autonomous individuals. Immigrants are either embraced as new Americans, or regarded
as outsiders. Therefore, should anyone strive to reconcile two sides of the
door, incorporating some aspects of Americanness into his cultural background,
the society demands him to forfeit one for the other.
This door
metaphor, though written for immigrants, applies to colored people well. In The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison explores
African Americans’ quest for identity. Morrison presents most people as eager
conformers, shedding their racial identity in order to go through the door. The character Geraldine represents mulatto girls
religiously pursue “white” appearance and manners.
“The dreadful funkiness of passion, the funkiness of
nature, the funkiness of the wide range of human emotions. Wherever it erupts,
this Funk, they wipe it away; where it crusts, they dissolve it; where it
drips, flowers, or clings, they find it and fight it until it dies… when they
wear lipstick, they never cover the entire mouth for fear of lips too thick,
and they worry, worry, worry about the edges of their hair” (83).
Funk refers to
various natural imperfections of humans: body odor, breath odor, skin crusts, “lips
too thick”, “edges of their hair”… For African Americans, “funk” includes their
blackness. Geraldine is therefore fighting against her nature, against her
African American descent. The words “erupts”, “crusts”, “drips, flowers, or
clings” animate the funkiness, as if the girls view it as some kind of stubbornly,
indefatigably growing weeds. Their light complexion, white manners, and
property have sent them through the door:
the society gives them a place above the black people. But they have to cautiously
watch what they have attained, and continue the battle against “funk”, totally
denying their African American identity.
The Insiders’s
Loss
If you go through/ there is always the risk/ of remembering your name. In the second
stanza, “name” represents vernacular. Since language is the agent of culture
and traditions, “remembering your name” means the awareness of racial and
ethnical identity. “The risk” is the anxiety and fears of any exposure of the
nature self.
Jewish Immigrant Family
In Split at the
Root, Adrienne Rich recounts her father’s influence on her. The man is a
second-generation immigrant. When young Adrienne was casting Portia in The Merchant of Venice, he instructed her
to read the word “Jew” with scorn and contempt. She could see there was “a kind
of terrible, bitter bravado” about her father’s instruction, yet she hesitated
at questioning him. It was when she became a college student that she began to
understand her father. One day she bought a dress in a small shop and a Jewish seamstress
came to do alterations for her. She recalls,
“Something about her presence was very powerful and
disturbing to me. After making and pinning up the skirt, she sat back on her
knees, looked up at me, and asked in a hurried whisper: ‘You Jewish?’ Eighteen
years of training in assimilation sprang into the reflex by which I shook my
head, rejecting her, and muttered, ‘No’.”
Adrienne Rich
realized that the image of a frightened immigrant, a wandering Jew terrified
her, an American college girl having her skirt hemmed.
“And I was frightened myself,” she wrote, “because she had recognized me.”
Geraldine attests
to Adrienne Rich’s realization. When Geraldine returned home and her son Junior
accuses Pecola of killing the cat, she looks at Pecola and abhors the lowness
of black girls. “You nasty little black bitch. Get
out of my house.” she says (92). The fact that she herself is black generates
no magnanimity, because Pecola is an undesirable reflection of her race. Pecola’s
blackness instigates Geraldine’s insidious contempt and self-denial, as
Geraldine is reminded that she can be ostracized from the “white” middle-class for
her blackness.
Double Consciousness
Things look at you doubly /and you must look back/ and let them happen.
The third
stanza, interestingly, describes a kind of double vision: an immigrant’s action
is judged by both cultures he is associated with, and he examines himself in
two perspectives: an immigrant; an American. This idea is strikingly similar
with W. E. B. Du Bois’s “double consciousness”, which he states as “this sense
of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s
soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity”.
The
experience of immigrants parallels that of African Americans with Americanization
being the common direction. Both groups are painfully aware of their difference
from the Anglo-Saxon race and voiceless in the white-dominant society. In the
Bluest Eye, the discrimination and indifference of others throws Pecola into
the conviction that she is hopelessly ugly, so “she
would never know her beauty. She would see only what there was to see: the eyes
of other people” (46-47).That all
she would see were others’ eyes implies that Pecola is preoccupied with people’s
views about her. She consents unconditionally to whatever labels the world puts
on her- “you must look back/and let them happen”.
The Outsiders' Loss
If you do not go through /it is possible /to live worthily
to maintain your attitudes /to hold your position/ to die bravely but much will blind you, much will evade you, at what cost who knows?
What complicate
the poet’s argument are stanzas four through six. Fourth and fifth stanzas offer
a romantic depiction of ethnic nationalism: by adhering to traditions and
upholding cultural values, immigrants can live respectably and worthily. However,
the sixth stanza points out that those who refuse to Americanize face costs.
Adrienne Rich
identifies the Jewish defense against non-Jews as a quality required for
survival over generations of persecution. Jews must arm themselves in a world full
of potential slanderers, betrayers, people who “could not understand”. However,
she questions, “What happens when the white gentile
world is softly saying ‘Be more like us and you can almost be one of us?’ What
happens when survival seems to mean dosing off one emotional artery after
another”? She portrays people of Jewish descent who exclusively interact
with their family members, shutting the door at the rich possibilities America
offers. They live in a bland world, laughter restrained, angers curbed, and
tears withheld. They conform to their original culture, and thus surrender the
precious freedom of determining what they want to become. They lack the courage
to break free from chains of ethnicity and choose their paths.
Inside, and Outside
The door itself makes no promises. It is only a door.
The end of the
poem returns to the central picture of an emotionless door. It is neither
hopeful nor hopeless, neither welcoming nor rejecting.
Since The Bluest Eye precedes Prospective Immigrants Please Note by several decades, it reflects an era with harsher racial climates. Most people were forced to conform to the white-dominant society and adjust to its standards. Furthermore, many immigrants do not share the history of slavery with African Americans, and they do not wear their ethnicity with skin color. Therefore, Morrison mainly aims to celebrate the nature, the root, and “funk”. Adrienne's poem, however, taken as a
whole, suggests that people should be free to determine their own ethnicity instead of being categorized into
insiders or outsiders by environment. The journey toward self-identification is not painless. As Adrienne Rich writes in Split at the Root, at different times in
her life, she wanted to push away one or the other burden of inheritance, to
state merely “I am a woman”. Fortunately, in a writing career that spanned over seven decades, she found her own identity: not gentile, not Jewish, but both; a feminist, political activist, and passionate writer.
Money Can't Buy Me Love: Contrasting Extravagance and Happiness
The key to eternal youth is simple: money. Whether inherited or earned, wealth can effectively extend one's longevity like nothing else. With money, one can live larger (have bigger homes, more expensive "toys"), party harder (ability to afford vast amounts of narcotics), and even extend one's lifetime (access to medical care and cosmetic surgery). The carefree superficiality of youth is also extended. With endless resources and no rules, nothing needs to be taken seriously. However, if everything is a joke, then nothing is funny. Happiness can be hard to find amongst all of the material possessions wealth brings. R&B artist Frank Ocean poignantly points out this hard truth with his song "Super Rich Kids." It is a powerful story of affluent young adults struggling to find real connections in an artificial world, much like the lives of those at the top of the social pyramid in The Great Gatsby.
Are these well dressed girls truly enjoying themselves?
Our story begins with the opening line of the first verse, with Frank as our narrator:
"Start my day up on the roof,
There's nothing like this type of view"
The "roof" in this scenario is Frank's penthouse apartment, the first of many images of his well-to-do lifestyle. In this context, the roof does not only embody his economic prosperity, but also his status at the top of the social hierarchy. By being born into a wealthy family, he has obtained a name to go with his riches, solidifying his ability to live freely. His "view" from his apartment lets him look on at those less fortunate than him if he wishes, all while residing safely above any real hardship. This elevated imagery parallels the introduction of Daisy and Jordan, in which they appear to be "buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon" (8). These women too are floating through life, "rippling and fluttering" about the social pyramid yet always safely secured at the top (8).
Nice clothes and nice cars: the epitome of the high social class.
Ocean also comments profusely on the superficiality of the wealthy, something the Roaring '20s is notoriously known for. F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author of The Great Gatsby, describes America during this era as a time when "the shows were broader, the buildings were higher, the morals were looser and the liquor was cheaper." Though set in the present day, Ocean's lyrics echo this period, particularly in the hook:
"Too many bottles of this wine we can't pronounce"
Here the lack of sophistication parallels that of the wealthy guests commonly featured at Gatsby's parties. Ocean's inability to pronounce the name of the wine shows a lack of sophistication as well as extreme intoxication. He has more than he needs of something he mentally can't comprehend. This too rings true of those at the party, where the atmosphere is full of "casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot, and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other's names" (40). All of this frivolousness is expected among the demographic that Ocean describes: the young, high-school/college crowd. In Gatsby's world, though, this shallow lifestyle is one that every adult pines for and only an elite few achieve, signifying this sort of eternal youth money brings about.
An extravagant scene of a superficial Gatsby party.
However, there is a major drawback to this seemingly perfect lifestyle. Ocean first hints at it in the hook with the statement, "parents ain't around enough," implying a lack of stable love and care. The idea is outrightly stated by the bridge, which repeats the same line over and over as if it were a mantra:
"Real love, I'm searching for a real love
Real love, I'm searching for a real love"
His world has become so fake that he longs for a real human connection, one of the few things money can't buy. The Gatsby equivalent of this search is embodied in the character of Daisy, for her many searches for love have left her "pretty cynical," in her own words (16). Her old wealth upbringing has given her a carefree existence in which she's never had to work a day in her life, but it has left her empty of feeling anything fully. She has had many love affairs throughout her life, including two with Gatsby, but she is still never satisfied. Perhaps the most vivid image of her instability is the scene in which Jordan finds her before her bridal dinner to Tom in bed, drunk, rejecting the three hundred and fifty thousand dollar pearls he had given her. She sits there and talks to Jordan like a child:
"'Here, deares,' She groped around in the waste-basket she had with her on the bed and pulled out a string of pearls. 'Take em downstairs and give 'em back to whoever they belong to. Tell 'em Daisy's change' her mine'"(76).
This moment marks the only time in the novel when Daisy acts in a non-collected manner. Her rejection of the pearls is a rejection of the wealthy lifestyle that has trapped her. She eventually returns to it, but her drunken act of rebellion is a tell-tale sign. Her true emotional turmoil finally comes to the surface, and her juvenile behavior signifies that beneath the wealth, the upbringing, the name, and the status, Daisy is still a scared little girl. As Ocean so expertly phrases, she's a "super rich kid with nothing but loose ends, super rich kid with nothing but fake friends."
Our story ends with a return to the beginning:
"We end our day up on the roof
I say I'll jump, I never do"
No matter what troubles were faced, by the end of the day, Ocean and his friends are still at the top of the social/economic hierarchy. He says he'll "jump," meaning he'll leave his pedestal of wealth and search for something meaningful, but he knows he'll never leave the security his superficiality provides him. This rings true of Daisy at the end of the novel, and how she is capable of just moving on after the deaths of Myrtle and Gatsby. She can afford to be careless, and nothing truly painful can ever reach her. However, she can never be truly happy. It is a sad existence at the top, having everything you can imagine except what really matters. As the song fades out, Ocean repeats his mantra from before, signifying a dying dream:
"Real love, ain't that something rare
I'm searching for a real love, talkin bout real love
Real love, yeah."
Sources Not Linked:
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner, 2004. Print.
Pride and Prejudice is a book that obviously reflects the Old World that Gatsby pursued. The story was based on 19th century Britain when traditional aristocracy was greatly celebrated. The social milieu was class divisions between nobility and commoners, which one’s family connections and career affected one’s status. P&P talks about the middle-class Bennet family which have five unmarried daughters. Mrs. Bennet is anxious on their marriages and urges them to marry rich men. Her wish comes true when two of the main characters, her daughters Jane and Elizabeth marry two young gentlemen, Mr. Bingley and Mr. Darcy, although people around，especially their powerful relatives strongly protest on breaking the underlying social rules：nobles shouldn’t degrade themselves, which means they need to marry people from the same class.
The Bennet family
The Great Gatsby and P&P have some common themes, which most significant are the role of class and materialism. Meanwhile, these two elements are also factors that affect the main characters’ consideration for their marriages. For example, Elizabeth in P&P afraid of being gossiped by others of marrying a higher class; Daisy in the Great Gatsby married Tom just because he is relatively affluent. This shows the importance of keeping sublime status of nobility by avoiding intermarriage with commoners and having a comfortable life with abundant wealth in the past.
Under the feudal hierarchy, the British society was ruled by wealth and power. People strived to attach to the dignitaries to gain more benefits. Mrs Bennet is interested in letting one of her daughters to marry Mr. Bingley just because she heard he is wealthy. She knows nothing about his characters.
``What is his name?''
``Bingley.''
Mr Bingley in the movie(Simon Woods as Mr Bingley)
``Is he married or single?''
``Oh! single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!''
``How so? how can it affect them?''``My dear Mr. Bennet,'' replied his wife, ``how can you be so tiresome! You must know that I am thinking of his marrying one of them.'' (p.6,P&P)This shows Mrs.Bennet is actually wanting her girls to marry to money. Mrs.Bennet wants her children to improve their social status or just to give others the impressive that they are from the high society. Also, the Bennet’s estate is entailed, which means her daughters will have nothing when Mr.Bennet dies.
In order to meet Mr. Bingley, they went to the Netherfield Ball. It is a social event that both nobilities and middle class participated. Mrs.Bennet forced her daughters to participate to meet gentlemen. It is an only way for women to speak to men they want to know in the conservative society.
the Netherfield Ball
“The evening altogether passed off pleasantly to the whole family. Mrs. Bennet had seen her eldest daughter much admired by the Netherfield party. Mr. Bingley had danced with her twice, and she had been distinguished by his sisters. Jane was as much gratified by this as her mother could be, though in a quieter way. Elizabeth felt Jane's pleasure.“(p.13,P&P) Mrs. Bennet is happy that Jane is admired by Mr.Bingley who is well-off because she thinks Mr.Bingley is possibly going to marry Jane such that Mrs.Bennet relieves on Jane’s life. A good marriage can decide a woman‘s life. Whether it will be prosperous or suffering depends on their husbands as women rarely work at that time.
In the Great Gatsby, the vogue of marrying to the wealth exists too. Daisy’s marriage is a perfect example. She is reluctant to marry Tom. Tom acts as her safe path to keep her honor and quality of life because he is rich.
“She began to cry – she cried and cried. I rushed out and found her mother’s maid, and we locked the door and got her into a cold bath. She wouldn’t let go of the letter. She took it into the tub with her and squeezed it up into a wet ball, and only let me leave it in the soap-dish when she saw that it was coming to pieces like snow. “(p.76 GB) She is drunk because she is unhappy and confused. She reveals herself on indecision on the wedding day when she sees the letter from poor Gatsby. She is still in love with Gatsby. Her heart is separated into two parts: a part tempting her to follow her strong feeling to Gatsby, another part urging her to be realistic by marrying Tom to keep superior social and financial status. At last she chose the later action. This reflects that Daisy is in love with money more than Gatsby.
Gatsby and Daisy in the movie(obert Redford as Jay Gatsby and Mia Farrow as Daisy Buchanan.)
While Daisy gives up Gatsby due to his poverty, even when Gatsby becomes very wealthy, he is still being disdained.
"I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let Mr. Nobody from Nowhere make love to your wife. Well, if that’s the idea you can count me out […] Nowadays people begin by sneering at family life and family institutions, and next they’ll throw everything overboard and have intermarriage between black and white.”(p.130 GB) It is so sarcastic when Tom looks down upon Gatsby because of his impoverishment and class, not of having a relationship with his wife. This indicates that he cares more his high status than his wife. Daisy is just a complement and a performance tool in his rich life. Wealthy people get the most beautiful and ascendent women. He also describes discriminately the difference of classes as the difference between races, which demonstrates the solid concept of aristocracy dominance in the wealthy world. Gatsby’s new money earned from the New World is regarded as nothing. He gains no reputation or power, such that he is called Mr.Nobody.
While GB and P&P have common themes, their settings were completely different. GB is based on the US just after the Progressive Era and post WWI. There was a crash between conventional feudalism and the rising of newly rich people who are motivated by the American dream. People strived to improve their lives by creating possibilities through hardship and fortune. They had more financial freedom, i.e. earning money from the stock market and buying on credit. Pre-war values like hypocrisy and utilitarianism were overlooked. On the other hand, P&P is based on the old feudal society. There was clear class gradation. People from the lower class could hardly climb the social ladder. This formed a vicious cycle of poverty for the large population of the poor. One’s Social status depended on the number of lands one had. The King granted lands to the nobles and then the nobles hired the serfs to plant on the lands.
