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maybenotamuggle:

Thought I would share my English paper with you, in case you wanted to look at it. I figured Tumblr would like the theme of it, at least. Sorry about the font.

       What man or woman — what human — does not strive to be great? Greatness is always a goal, sometimes an obsession. This obsession is what plagues F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Jay Gatsby as seen in The Great Gatsby and John Green’s Augustus Waters in The Fault in Our Stars. Their ideas are different: how to achieve greatness and why it matters, but the goal is the same. Despite the eighty-seven years that separate the two characters, they are united by the same all-consuming lust for recognition.

Possibly the greatest factor in Gatsby and Augustus’s desire for greatness is the origin of it. Jay Gatsby lives solely to capture the bright eye of the radiant Daisy Buchanan. He spends every ounce of his energy throwing parties he hopes she’ll go to and charming people he hopes she’ll know. Gatsby did not want greatness so much as he wanted the approval of his golden girl. One could argue that he was forced into it by his own subconscious. His motive for greatness was Daisy. Augustus’s motives were different. After being diagnosed with osteosarcoma — rapidly growing cancer in the bones — Augustus has plenty of time to muse over his own death and becomes “deeply engaged in trying to live ‘forever within the numbered days” (Quattlebaum 1). He spends much of his time imagining the grand impression he will leave behind. His greatest fear becomes being lost in the constant stream of people coming into the world and going out of it. With such a short lifespan, his need for greatness becomes evermore imperative. When he and Hazel (the narrator of The Fault in Our Stars) watch the gory film 300, Augustus is hugely excited by the quantity of heroic deaths. Later, Augustus tells Hazel that he looked online at an art gallery in Amsterdam, and frustratedly explains, “‘If you were to go…you would see a lot of paintings of dead people. You’d see Jesus on the cross, and you’d see a dude getting stabbed in the neck, and you’d see people dying at sea and in battle and a parade of martyrs. But Not. One. Single. Cancer. Kid…because there is no glory in illness…There is no honor in dying of’” (Green 217). Gatsby’s motives and Augustus’s motives were different, opposites even: Gatsby’s greatness was a means to an end, Augustus’s greatness was to accommodate for his own end. Gatsby’s drive was the “orgastic future” (Fitzgerald 180), and Augustus’s drive was his bereavement of a future at all. 

Once they had convinced themselves of the cruciality of greatness, they had to develop their own ideas of what greatness really was. Augustus believes that greatness is dying for a cause; being heroic in the most unforgettable way possible, leaving as large a footprint in the world as you can, and being remembered by all. He confesses to Hazel that all he wants is to leave a mark, because too many people die of disease and are forgotten (Green 330-331). As he points out in the beginning of the book, Augustus’s greatest fear is oblivion. Not only his own, after death, but of the entire human race, when no one remembers him, or billions of the others who have also died. Augustus wants the recognition of all, which sets him apart only slightly from Gatsby, who competes for the recognition of only one. Gatsby’s idea of greatness is being able to impress Daisy, to be the single object of her attention. He models his entire life around the possibility of finally catching Daisy’s attention, despite the uncountable failures. “Intensity of will makes Gatsby a great man…Gatsby believes in the promise of life. He will believe…despite his knowledge that life cannot repay his devotion. Gatsby knows that desire is a cheat, yet he persists in his aspirations” (Samuels 789). Gatsby’s idea of greatness is very different from what makes him great in actuality. He’s great because of his enthusiasm, persistence, and hopefulness. Augustus is great for the same reasons, defying the “civil war” being waged in his and Hazel’s cells (Green 216), fighting assumptions about the feebleness of cancer patients, and refusing to let life slip away while he still has it in his grasp.

Augustus and Gatsby both have best friends who act as foils regarding their ideas of greatness. Augustus is a little luckier, as Hazel is more inclined to share her opinions than Nick, who reveals more to the reader than he does to Gatsby himself. But this does not matter for our argument, because it’s the principals of what the companions are saying that matter to us. Hazel teaches Augustus and the reader that greatness does not have to known by all to be accomplished. Augustus even begins to agree at the end, realizing that sometimes doing no harm to the world is even better than being remembered by all (Green 312). Here we are hopeful that Augustus’s revelation about heroism helped him come to terms with the fact that he never accomplished his glorious wold-recognition. It may have been enough for him that he was able to help Hazel achieve her own peace of mind. Gatsby was not fortunate enough to escape his obsession before he realized its futility. Nick does notice this, saying, “‘I’m thirty…I’m too old to lie to myself and call it honor’” (Fitzgerald 177). Nick’s reasoning is both realistic and honest. It is important that The Great Gatsby has at least one character who does not fool himself into thinking he’s on the right track. But this does not make him any better than Gatsby. However disappointed, disillusioned, or discouraged Gatsby may be, he never gives up his dream, and this in itself makes him great. Even as it seemed to ruin him, Gatsby’s obsession created a sense of purpose and greatness in his character. “Fitzgerald is able to color the face of death, to turn the death agony into a gorgeous dance…Never has the dying swan sung so sweetly or so surely” (Sanders 794).

The Great Gatsby and The Fault in Our Stars are tales about the pursuit of greatness. Everyone’s idea of greatness is unique to himself: It is born of his motives, the people who help him succeed or the ones who subdue him, the people he hopes will notice it when glory is finally achieved. For Gatsby and Augustus, greatness becomes not only a goal, but a reason to live. Perhaps greatness is not recognition from the world or a girl you used to know, but wanting something badly enough to devote every ounce of your being to its completion. Perhaps greatness is not a goal, but a way of life.