Thesis on "Lust and Desire"

Thesis 5 pages (1546 words) Sources: 5 Style: MLA

[EXCERPT] . . . .

Lust and Desire

Ethan Frome and the Great Gatsby: The Progression of Lust and Desire in Early Twentieth Century American Literature

Though the twentieth century can hardly lay an original claim to the use of lust and desire as major themes in literature -- these are major driving forces behind human attitudes and behaviors, after all, and this has been reflected in art and literature since man first painted on cave walls -- these topics did develop a certain unique flatness and unsatisfactory quality in the modern period. The impossibility of a sated desire and the disappointment of lustful longing achieved became the common ultimate development of many works and in a curiously cynical way, without the grandeur of earlier tragedies with a similar message. This was especially true of certain American novelists writing at the turn of the century.

Edith Wharton and F. Scott Fitzgerald, though separated by a decade or two in their prominence, were two such authors. Desire can be seen n both of their works as a destructive force, which is a common element in many literary periods and genres, but it is also seen as somewhat base and meaningless; though the pursuit of desire is full of passion and meaning in the moment, it is ultimately entirely pointless and bereft of purpose. Both authors put forth this bleak view of desire in a way that manages to remain free from cynicism, and instead is enormously human and touching. Rather than laughing at or commenting on this supreme foible of the human condition, these authors expose this foible as a compassionate commentary on the senseless tragedy and pain that pursuits as meaningless as those of sexual lust specifically and desire in general bring to humanity.

F. Scott Fitzgerald is unquestionably best known for his novel The Great Gatsby. This work defines the Jazz Age of the nineteen-twenties in America, which was typified by easy money and lax morals. This world provides the perfect setting for Fitzgerald's tale of love, greed, and corruption -- and most of all, about the vain pursuit of desire. In Edith Wharton's far bleaker tale, which was written in 1911 but set in the late nineteenth century in a small and wilderness-bound faming community in New England. Though without the glitz and overt greed, Ethan Frome also can be read as an exposition of both the potency and the pointlessness of desire. These works are very different in their style, their characterizations, and in many of the conclusions they seem to draw regarding human nature, and yet they both lead to a similar view of desire as essentially empty and fruitless.

The Great Gatsby

Nick Carraway, the naive and innocent narrator of The Great Gatsby (who is both less naive and less innocent by the novel's close), experiences firsthand how empty desire is, and how foolish the pursuit of it can make a human being. Jay Gatsby, who comes form humble origins, has his heart set on the upper class Daisy, the extent of whose snobbery Gatsby cannot truly fathom until it is too late. Though she seems to love him and adores his new wealth, he cannot transform himself into the type of personage Daisy would spend her life with. He does try though; after a physical affair begins, Nick notes that the former "caravansary" of Gatsby's life falls "in like a card house at the disapproval in her eyes" (Fitzgerald 90). Gatsby is willing to create or sacrifice anything to win his desire.

The great irony of this novel, what would make it something approaching the tragic if it wasn't all so pointless and smoothly -- if irrevocably -- resolved, is the fact that Gatsby is entirely blind to Daisy's inability to truly love him and live with him. Critics have noted a theme of blindness throughout many of the events and images of the novel; one goes so far as to draw a direct comparison between the image of the large eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg on an advertisement for an oculist who never came to town and the "false promise of Daisy's moneyed voice" (Samuels 786). Gatsby is so blinded by the oversized nature of his own desire that he fails to see its lack of true return in Daisy's eyes. Daisy shares a lust and a certain amount of love with Gatsby, but her desires and his are not only different, but they are mutually exclusive -- the nature of Daisy's desires preclude Gatsby's.

Another scholar focuses on a key moment at the end of the novel that is often overlooked in many analyses. After Gatsby's death, Nick erases an unidentified "obscene" word that has been scrawled on Gatsby's doorstep. This can be seen as a necessary step before Nick's comment at the beginning of the book that "Gatsby turned out all right in the end" can really be fulfilled (Fitzgerald 6; Will 125-7). That is, the lust and desire that had so obscenely rule Gatsby's life must be eradicated in order for him to become the symbol of American dreams that Nick seems to interpret his character as. according to this interpretation, Gatsby is pure and idealistic, corrupted only by his desire. This corruption leads to his destruction, and to the destruction of Nick's world and worldview. Desire, in The Great Gatsby, turns out to be the mepty pursuit of one's own end.

Ethan Frome

Though desire ends in disaster in Ethan Frome as well, it is not the disaster of death but rather the disaster of a continued miserable existence in which all desire become impossible. The title character is married to Zeena, the now-deceased mother's caretaker and a woman significantly older than himself. Ethan has no real desire for Zeena in terms of passion or lust -- even the healthy kind of sexual appetite that keeps the next generation going. The lack of desire that exists in their marriage is itself destructive to a degree, but the two have found a means of getting along together that, although it leaves them both generally unhappy, falls short of the misery and destruction that the eventual desires sparked, portrayed, and played out in the novel ultimately leads at least Ethan to.

This desire is introduced by Mattie, who is young, enthusiastic, and passionate -- just as Ethan himself was before being called back home form college to care for the farm at his parents' illness. The evidence of the way Mattie rekindles his passions appears throughout the book -- it is, indeed, in many ways what the book is about -- but is especially clear when he works up the courage to take her arm in his in order to walk her home: "He longed to stoop his cheek and rub it against her scarf. He would have liked to stand there with her all night in the blackness" (Wharton 49). Even in this, however, we can see the pointlessness of the desire -- what Ethan wants is an eternity of Mattie and nothingness. There is no sense of production or completion in this desire, but it is rather a sort of timeless force that has no real place in the physical, day-to-day world of human life.

The obsession with blackness and darkness, as well as with an extremely rich internal reality that his external world fails to live up to, that is apparent in Ethan From's character can be read as an obsession with suicide, as well. The fateful ride on the sled that leads to Ethan and Mattie's injuries, causing Mattie to take Zeena's place as the infirm female and obliterating Ethan's desires for her -- and in all probability his ability to act on them -- fits with this interpretation nicely (Bernard 180-2). Unlike Gatsby, Ethan realizes that his desires cannot truly be… READ MORE

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