Motive of Alienation in The Great Gatsby by Fitzerald and A Hero of Our Times by Lermontov - Book Report/Review Example

07 September 2007 The motive of the alienation in the books "The Great Gatsby" by Fitzerald and "A hero of our times" by Lermontov The novels The Great Gatsby by S. Fitzerald and A Hero of Our Times by M. Lermontov were written during the different historical periods but vividly describe the motive of alienation and isolation affected the main characters. The uniqueness of both novels is that they capture the mood, the feeling, of a time in history. Through the main characters, Grigoriy Pechorin and Jay Gatsby, the authors rise above its historical context. Thesis Both characters, Pechorin and Gatsby, become alienated because of internal and external influences which lead to isolation and disillusionment: personal views and life philosophies and social factors they cannot reject or accept. In both novels alienation of the main characters is caused by external factors such as war time and economic instability. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzerald depicts hat for the preceding two generations there had been a feeling that civilization was at last outgrowing war. At the same time philosophers like Gatsby yearned for the nobility and self-sacrifice that they believed war produced. Fitzgerald describes: He did extraordinarily well in the war. He was a captain before he went to the front and following the Argonne battles he got his majority and the command of the divisional machine guns (Fitzgerald 2006). In contrast to Gatsby, Grigoriy Pechorin is still an army officer influenced by the Caucasian war. Lermontov depicts events, experience, time, memories through the eyes of Grigoriy Pechorin who differs from other characters. He is emotionally distant and depressed but this isolation is caused by boredom of war and military service. Lermontov describes the duel: Whichever of you is killed -- his death will be put down to the account of the Circassians. That is something like murder, but in time of war, and especially in Asiatic warfare, such tricks are allowed (Lermontov 1997). These events and attitude towards life is the last authority for both characters, and readers can oppose or compare the narrator's point of view with remarks and ideas of the main characters, and their own. Fitzgerald and Lermontov portray ideal world and idealized characters but they vividly disillusionment and isolation caused by war and military operations. It was a grisly, pointless carnage that had no relation to the romantic conceptions of war common before the war began. The reaction of most Americans to this situation was understandably cynical. Many intellectuals held the conviction that the hypocritical false idealism and loose thinking of an older generation had caused the war. The main difference is that economic reactions have a great impact on Gatsby and his isolation from the society but do not have a crucial impact on the character of Pechorin. The misery that came with the Depression changed people's attitudes. They resented the rich more than they had before, and blamed the rich for the Depression. Unrequited love and strong romantic feelings cause alienation and isolation of both characters from the society. It seems that Pechorin and Gatsby isolated themselves on purpose to avoid emotional sufferings and distress. On the other hand, this isolation and alienation only intensify their depression and emotional sufferings. Gatsby worships Daisy, and his whole illicit career is an attempt to recapture Daisy. "Daisy tumbled short of his dreams-not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion" (Fitzgerald 2006). He is carried along by her beautiful, hypnotic voice, but when she finishes, he feels that she has cheated him. Gatsby's inability to repeat the past is much more than the failure of an experience in romantic love, because for Gatsby that love is the essence of his powerful desire for a vaguely defined, selffulfilling greatness. Gatsby's version of the American Dream is specific about only two things: money and Daisy. The dream is misguided, and it fails. His pathetic belief that if he can only reconstruct some point in the past everything will be all right reflects modern man's continuing search for meaning in a culture that no longer has meaning. He knew that Daisy was extraordinary, but he didn't realize just how extraordinary a "nice" girl could be. her rich, full life, leaving Gatsby-nothing. He felt married to her, that was all" (Fitzgerald 2006). Through Gatsby's experience Fitzgerald is describing what the American Dream has become in his time. The American Dream, one of the last and finest fruits of Western culture, has become dead (and deadly) materialism. In contrast to Gatsby, Pechorin has numerous love affairs with women form different classes and occupations. Thus, romantic relations do not bring him happiness but lead to alienation and bored him. In this case, sin and guilt are the main characteristics of Pechorin which force his development. He kills him friend Grushnitsky in a duel and continuous love affair with his ex-lover Vera. The motive of alienation is depicted through emotional distress and sufferings of Pechorin. "Evil begets evil; the first suffering gives us the conception of the satisfaction of torturing another" (Lermontov 1997). Pechorin appeals to emotions of readers through deep psychological experiences and his perception of sin and guilt. Pechorin has the extraordinary level of inner freedom and rebellion nature. Sin of Pechorin is combined with eternal laws. His alienation is caused by inability to adapt to social norms and false traditions preached by the society. "Love is like fire -- if not fed it dies out. Perchance, jealousy will accomplish what my entreaties have failed to do" (Lermontov 1997). Everything has to conform to the pattern of behavior Pechorin perceives as natural to man and which he therefore imposes upon the world. Readers sense the inevitability of Pechorin movement towards savagery, though Lermontov relates the stories with such economy and intensity that its predictability does not become monotonous. Perhaps Pechorin most notable quality is his conscience, which leads him to alienation. The main difference between the characters and their alienation is that Gatsby tries to find security in his past which causes his isolation while Pechorin tries to adapt himself to life circumstances but fail. Gatsby's whole purpose is to repeat the past-to get back to some state of perfect love with Daisy. He refuses to believe that he cannot repeat the past. Symbolically, Gatsby nearly knocks over a clock during the awkwardness of his reunion with Daisy. "Sometimes they [guests] came and went without having met Gatsby at all, came for the party with a simplicity of heart that was its own ticket of admission" (Fitzgerald 2006). Shipwrecked and disillusioned, without a sense of dedication to a cause or even an artistic ideal, both characters lack sufficient spiritual vitality to keep themselves creatively alive in the fullest sense. Gatsby comments: "I wouldn't ask too much of her," I ventured. "You can't repeat the past." "Can't repeat the past" he cried incredulously. "Why of course you can!" (Fitzgerald 2006). Usually love represents happiness and hope, but for Gatsby it means losses and hopelessness. Pechorin is isolated himself from the society unable to adapt to its rules and values. Pechorin is not just invoking sin and guilt in bits and pieces. There surfaced the long interior conflict between natural respect for the past and his equal abhorrence of its theological cruelty. Only the feeling of the intense emotions and guilty could even begin to answer to his struggle with himself over a past in which, dreamlike, he often felt he was living. "I saw how futile and senseless it was to pursue lost happiness. What more did I want To see her again For what" (Lermontov 1997). Pechorin contribution to the pessimism which characterizes so much of the important writing of the mid-ninetieth century was to probe the inner recesses of human behavior to see by what instincts people are governed. Pechorin proposes a view of man's essential nature which one might more normally expect to find argued in a philosophical treatise. "I often wonder why I'm trying so hard to win the love of a girl I have no desire to seduce and whom I'd never marry" (Lermontov 1997). Indeed, if the reader feels sometimes that the plotting of this hero is too schematic and relentless; this may be because Lermontov is concerned to demonstrate self-centredness of the human species than to explore the psychology of individual characters. Both authors are asserted that a man is intrinsically selfish. Pechorin comes in contact with expression of nihilism resulting in his rebellion against life itself in a way that is rarely possible in actual life Lermontov depicts moral and sexual desire of Pechorin, through his spirits, eternal memory and romantic nature. But more often his reaction was an eager curiosity to know what another person's existence really felt like. It means that evil nature can control out good side and lead to terrible events a person cannot control. Pechorin isolates himself from the world. He recollects: "A single, bitter, farewell kiss would not have enriched my recollections, and, after it, parting would only have been more difficult for us" (Lermontov 1997). The wall of traditions gives no quarter: it stifles Pechorin, a smothering reproach, perhaps, to his debasement of heritage and country. The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God-a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that-and he must be about" (Fitzgerald 2006). This frustration-feeling is very prevalent; readers often have vague feelings of dissatisfaction, cynical indifference and so on, and often we have no knowledge of their causes and so no possible means of dissolving them. In sum, Pechorin and Gatsby become isolated and distant from society because of personal values and qualities which affect their relations with people and life perception. The motive of alienation helps to know that whatever difficult and intractable stuff people find in their own emotions, the same has been felt by others, and has been more or less satisfactorily understood by them, and so is no longer the source of a vague sense of frustration. On the other hand, external factors including war and economic instability, social norms and traditions isolate both characters. Works Cited Fitzgerald, F.S. The Great Gatsby. 2006. Lermontov, M. A hero of our times. 1997. Read More