Characters and the Society in the Great Gatsby and the Brave New World - Critical Essay

Introduction

The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald uses varius characters to depict the nature of the American society after the end of the world war. The elements that influenced the morals and actions of the characters after the war determines their relationship with other characters and the readers. Huxley's brave world, on the other hand, depicts a utopian society where the existing social structures are guided, and the identity of individuals is depicted according to the classification on the social hierarchy. The ideals of a specific class are expected to be the same without the freedom to own thoughts and questioning the authority established. This perfect society however still depicts individual quest for meaning by most of the characters. Characters in both Fitzgerald and Huxley's seem to be living their lives in turmoil as they fail to make sense of it, their different nature, dreams and the way the society has changed seems to keep them unsatisfied with the lives they are living.

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The Great Gatsby: Chasing a Meaningful Life

The great gatsby utilizes figurative language to depict how most of the characters are reviewing their lives after the world war to satisfy their yearning for a meaningful life. Each character in the novel seems to be chasing after something that they feel life has denied them. The protagonist Gatsby believes that life has been unfair to him when it comes to over he struggles to fix it after getting wealth is vividly described in the novel. "I am going to fix everything just the way it was before" (Fitzgerald, 129). He believes that he can revert things the way they were so that life can be meaningful again. His struggle with love does not end despite having enough wealth. "It had seemed as close as a star to the moon. Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one (Fitzgerald, 122)." After getting lost to Daisy finally after a long time of longing Gatsby dreams seems to vanish. The latter depicts that the dream of having her has to stay only as a dream. A yearning that Gatsby is unable to satisfy despite striving to get what he was looking for. Having daisy is no longer depicted as significant an achievement as Gatsby had expected it to be.

The Brave New World: The Search for Individuality

In the Brave, World Bernard is also seen to be in constant search for his individuality so that life could make sense. Despite being humiliated and continually being reminded of how distinct and different, he is from the rest. He is determined not to be an inclusion of the society he believes is in constant control. Huxley depicts him as a male alpha with insecurity issues that leads him to be lonely. In the perfect world of Huxley, Bernard seems not to fit in; he is prejudiced against all the other male alphas. "The mockery made him feel an outsider; and feeling an outsider, he behaved like one, which increased the prejudice against him and intensified the contempt and hostility aroused by his physical defects (Huxley 56)."Feeling like an outsider made him question all the state ideals as he constantly searched for the meaning of his life through fame and politics.

The Jazz Generation and the Eroding Society

The Jazz generation is depicted by Fitzgerald as a generation that has lost so much due to the existing social struggle. A struggle that drives everyone to try and have a sense of belonging. The returnees of the war who came back in the society to find that everything had changed and there were limited areas and opportunities for them formed mobs. Fitzgerald describes the lifestyle of the mob using Tom and Daisy. He states that "they were careless people; they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated into their money" (Fitzgerald,145). Since life had no meaning, thus money is seen to control most actions of the characters. The society keeps eroding as the characters discard moral virtues as a means of expressing their frustrations with the way they live. Some of the characters to hide from the eroding society they segregate themselves so as they can depict their lives to be different om the rest. Nick is seen to praise and portray himself as an honest individual, "I'm thirty ... I'm five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor" (Fitzgerald, 135). His sentiments are meant to make him feel that he is different and a better person. Yet the way he is the judge of other characters in the book depicts him as an individual who envies the lives of others as he cannot attain such life.

The society of the brave new world has been categorically divided into several factions that is the Alphas, Betas, Gammas, Deltas, and Epsilons. The members of each social class are made to look distinct from another using factors such as clothing. The latter depicts the extent to which not only Huxley's but also the current society has devised ways of creating social segregation techniques so that people will find meaning in their lives by associating with the traits of a particular class. The alphas in the upper class are also depicted as being defiant in following the established rules to latter due to their ability to intellectually think for themselves. From time to time they are allowed to go outside (Indian reservation) and see how the inferior outsiders live. The latter is meant to give their lives purpose by depicting them as a superior species. In as much as the utopian world is depicted to be perfect and everyone contended with the way life is run, the need for self-identity and creating meaning to life haunts this creation. They end up using soma as a way of relieving anger, bringing patience and conformity with the status quo (Huxley 213).

Conclusion

The characters and the society in the Great Gatsby and the Brave new world are a representation of a life that is deprived of something as they are dissatisfied with the way the society has changed about their expectations of life. The society also acts as a fundamental element that drives this desire for a meaningful life. Additionally, the conflict between reality and the life led by the characters in the novels keeps them in constant search for satisfaction in life through self-motivation, friends, money, and relationships.

Work cited

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. "The Great Gatsby (New York: Scribner's, 1925)." The Complete Bestsellers Edition 2.6 (1920).

Huxley, Aldous. Brave new world. Ernst Klett Sprachen, 2008.