The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald and Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko - Essay Example

Identity always is an important and inevitable question that people often struggle with for wealth and power. However negative effects will occur with this struggle. The two novels The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko are stories about characters that identify too strongly with materialism causing a loss of identity by becoming alienated from their families, religion, communities, class relations, and many other issues. The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, portrays an exquisitely crafted tale of America in the 1920s. This time period was dubbed the “Jazz Age” by Fitzgerald himself. This novel demonstrates how materialism affects various characters. For example, Jay Gatsby only pursued material things to gain his love, Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby’s love Daisy married Tom Buchanan solely because he was rich. Nick Carraway, the narrator, was fascinated by the riches of Gatsby and the Buchanans, but frightened by the immorality that came with this materialism. Ceremony, written by Leslie Marmon Silko, describes the story of Tayo, a war veteran of mixed ancestry, a half white, half-Laguna Native American, who returns from fighting against Japan in the Second World War. After returning to the Laguna Pueblo, Tayo feels estrangement and alienation. After finding the pain overwhelming, Tayo takes comfort in alcohol. Subsequently, Tayo seeks a different kind of comfort. This journey leads him to find understanding of the world and his place through the help of the mixed-blood shaman, Betoni. In The Great Gatsby, the narrator, Nick, explains the situation of Gatsby and his friends through fresh eyes being from a Midwestern state. Nick is the moral compass of the book. He embodies a solid belief in the American ideal. Gatsby confided to Nick that he “committed himself to the following of the grail” (Fitzgerald, 149). This grail was the ultimate goal of love. In order to achieve this ultimate goal, Gatsby needed money and material objects. By living the American Dream, Gatsby garnered these objects for is love. Daisy would never have looked at him if he remained poor. Gatsby’s vision was to have Daisy’s affection. Gatsby was determined to have Daisy at all cost. When Daisy and Gatsby meet, it is before World War One. Daisy rejects Gatsby due to his lowly status as a poor soldier. After the war, Gatsby wants to join Daisy in this wealthy world. Gatsby equates success with money. After obtaining the money all that is left to gain was Daisy. He seems keenly aware of her attractive qualities when he said, “Her voice is full of money” (Fitzgerald, 120). Fitzgerald believes in the American Dream. The American Dream allows him to work his way up the society ladder in order to obtain Daisy. He believes money can buy prestige, popularity, and love, which makes him alienated from the uneducated community Gatsby was from. Fitzgerald portrayed Daisy like a princess in a fairy tale, with her money protecting her from the unpleasant aspects of the world. Daisy was described as “high in a white palace, the king’s daughter, the golden girl” (Fitzgerald, 120). In reality, Daisy’s fairy tale image that Gatsby holds is destroyed by the harsh reality of society. Fitzgerald describes Daisy as “gleaming like silver, safe and proud above the hot struggles of the poor” (150). This description suggests Daisy does not represent the ideal American life. Another layer of reality was added with statements like “the hopeless comments of the Beale Street Blues” (Fitzgerald, 153). These comments reflect the smugness of the wealthy in this novel. The wealthy people in this book do not have to face reality due to their monetary riches. Despite Gatsby’s attempt to penetrate this world, he was rebuffed at every turn. Wealth was not all the Daisy’s group had. Although Gatsby temporarily won Daisy over, he would never keep her forever. Some boundaries are not broken, even with money. Gatsby could gain all the money in the world, but he still would not be from a pedigreed background. Gatsby’s identity, in the end consisted of a self-made wealthy man. Despite his love for Daisy as a driving motivation, Gatsby made money. Unlike the other characters like Daisy and Tom, Gatsby’s motivation for the American Dream and the identity as a wealthy man was purer. Daisy and Tom did not know what it was to live life without money, thus could not appreciate their wealth. Gatsby was once poor, so the appreciation of his wealth was genuine. An individual’s motive for living the American Dream creates their individual identity. In Ceremony, by Leslie Marmon Silko, the identity of three women is significant into creating Tayo’s identity as a half white and half-Laguna Native American. These three women are Tayo’s birth mother, Auntie, and Old Grandma. After Tayo’s mother left him when he was four years old, he started sensing feelings of emptiness and abandonment. Tayo’s mother could not raise Tayo due to the embarrassment brought to the reservation by her unmarried status and the white man that fathered her baby. Auntie raised Tayo, stepping in to be the mother figured he needed. She willingly took him in, but only to “conceal the shame of her younger sister” (Silko, 29). Auntie treated Tayo badly due to the fact he was a half-breed and not her own son. She preferred her natural son, Rocky, over Tayo. Auntie’s lack of compassion caused Tayo to be confused about his identity. Auntie’s identity was wrapped up in being a pure Laguna Native American. Tayo’s mother’s identity was wrapped up in trying to mimic being white. Apparently the white people called her names and were mean to her. Although she tried dressing just like the white girls, Silko explains “exactly like the white girl—the way the home-ec teacher taught them, the whites did not want anything to do with her. The only whites that liked her were “the white men smiled at her from their cars as she walked to the bus stop in Albuquerque back to the Indian School” (Silko, 68). With her pining to be white, Tayo’s mother lost her identity as a Native American. Once she became pregnant out of wedlock with a white man’s child, Tayo’s mother’s identity was muddled. Old Grandma’s identity was the strongest of the three women. She loved Tayo unconditionally. Old Grandma could care less about what people gossip about, this includes her own family. As an older, more mature, individual Old Grandma has travelled the path of her daughters, and to an extent, as a result she knows exactly where she belongs. She helps Tayo find his identity by approving of the half-breed shaman, Betonie. When Tayo returns from World War Two, he is very confused and depressed. Rocky died fighting the Japanese, but Tayo lived. Life did not make sense. Tayo thought that Rocky should have lived instead of him, since Rocky was loved and Tayo felt like he was not. Auntie started to take better care of Tayo, because Rocky was gone. Tayo did not feel like he deserved this attention. Tayo was also confused about his identity. Although everyone considered him to be a Native America, the Native Americans thought his white heritage was shameful. The Native Americans did not feel like they belonged. Tayo did not have an American identity, but wanted one. Tayo was upset with his friends’ attitudes: Here they were, trying to bring back that old feeling, that feeling that they belonged to America the way they felt during the war. They blamed themselves for losing the feeling; they never talked about it, but they blamed themselves just like they blamed themselves for losing the land that the white people took. They never thought to blame the white people for any of it; they wanted white people for their friends. They never saw that it was the white people who gave them that feeling and it was the white people that took it away after the war. (Silko, 43) The Native Americans were trying to feel like they were Americans. During the war skin color did not matter, Americans were fighting a common enemy. The war gave the Native Americans an American identity, but also took it away once it was over. Betonie helps Tayo find confidence in being half-white and half-Laguna Native America, since Betonie is half-white himself. Betonie is a shaman. He helps Tayo understand that his white side did not always have to conflict with his Native American side. Tayo began to find his own special identity through Betonie. He was more than a half-breed, Tayo was a unique individual. Betonie helped him understand Tayo’s specialness. The final piece in Tayo’s identity journey was his relationship with Montano. Tayo falls in love with Montano after she teaches him about being more Native American. Montano teaches about the land and what it means to the Laguna tribe. Montano helps Tayo with his nightmares. When not with her, Tayo only dreams of Montano. Tayo no longer has nightmares after realizing his love for Montano. Upon this realization, “Tears filled his eyes and the ache of in his throat ran deep into his chest” (Silko, 218). Tayo’s love for Montano gave him peace. By the end of the book, Tayo’s identity had matured into a man that knew where he belonged in the world. After an unsure childhood, a horrible war experience, and the trauma of being half-white, Tayo grew into a self assured individual. His identity was one of a reconciled individual. He was reconciled to his fate in life. In both The Great Gatsby and Ceremony the identities of the characters either changed or remained the same. The lead characters of Gatsby and Tayo both wanted to change their own identities and their fates. Both succeeded, but in the end, what they thought they wanted to become was not reality. Tayo would never become a full blood, despite his war service. Gatsby would never be born rich or with a pedigree. These identities did not make the characters happy. Only growing and coming into their own would make these characters happy. Tayo reached his goal, but Gatsby did not live long enough to achieve that identity of contentment. Identity will always factor into the power play for wealth and fame. The identity will always suffer when an individual tries to become something they are not. Gatsby tried to become a man with a pedigree. Tayo wanted to become an American. Both men succeed in their goals, but lost a part of their identities along the way. Trying to become someone else always comes with a price. Both men would probably agree that the price they paid was worth it. Gatsby and Tayo’s identities were what they both wanted by the end of each story. Works Cited Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Schribner, 1999. Silko, Leslie Marmon. Ceremony. New York: Penguin, 2006. Read More