A comparative essay exploring the conflict between love and morality in the pre-1900 poetry anthology and The Great Gatsby. Poems referenced include 'A Song (Absent from thee)', 'Whose List to Hount', and 'The Ruined Maid'. Achieved an A* Grade.
Compare how authors of two texts you have studied present the conflict between love and
morality
The conflict between love and morality is typically explored in the literature of love. It seems
that morality is frequently disregarded in an attempt to receive fulfilment from relationships,
and yet this has devastating consequences- powerfully portrayed through the failure of
Gatsby’s dream. Despite this, it seems that morality is not always triumphant in this conflict,
as in some relationships the warped idea of love prevails.
Ideas of love and morality seem to come into conflict due to misplaced sexual
desire. In both texts, many relationships seem to be insincere and their nature is
disconnected from morality. Indeed, the presentation of love within much of
The Great Gatsby is shown in this light, creating the ‘foul dust' of relationships and the
‘rotten crowd' which Nick describes, perhaps conveying the death and decay of what
love should represent. Likewise, many poems from the pre-1900 anthology convey
an absence of true love. The speaker of 'A Song (Absent from thee)' seems to manipulate
any sincere feelings in order to satisfy his misplaced sexual desire, presenting himself as a
‘straying fool’; perhaps reflecting the absurdity of his belief that his relationship can be
maintained alongside affairs. However, the immorality of his love isn't entirely disregarded as
the speaker claims that if ‘I fall on some base heart un blest', they will ‘lose my
Everlasting rest’. Arguably through references to heaven the speaker recognises
the seriousness nature of this game of love he plays, suggesting that the conflict
between love and morality may be damaging for him. In the Great Gatsby the
nature of misplaced sexual desire seems to have a more poignant impact of the
female addressee of insincere affection. The conflict between love and morality is
played out in the scene with the ‘fifth guest’, where Nick describes how the ‘glow faded from
Daisy's 'sad and lovely' face, ‘each light deserting her with lingering regret’. Readers are
therefore provided with imagery of physical loss of happiness from Daisy's expression,
conveying the notion that the conflict between love and morality can have painful
consequences. Yet Tom, the ‘straying fool' unashamedly continues in his affair with Myrtle,
suggesting that for men the consequences of misplaced sexual desire are accepted as the
necessary price to pay for abandoned morality.
However, it seems that relationships which attempt to disregard morals are futile. In Whose
List to Hount, the futility of the quest for a lover who is already bound to a relationship with
Cesar is quickly recognised. A sense of exhaustion for this metaphorical 'hount' is created,
as the speaker conveys how ‘the vayne travaill hath weried me so sore’. Gatsby's pursuit of
Daisy's love similarly crosses moral boundaries, the "string of pearls' which symbolise her
connection to Tom, paralleling the deer's collar 'graven with Diamondes in letter plain’.
Although Gatsby refuses to give up on his "hount', as he holds onto the hope that ‘Daisy'll
call too', it can be interpreted that nature takes its course through Gatsby's death. Arguably,
the death of Myrtle is also the result of a relationship which has disregarded morality. Myrtle
symbolically dies under the ‘Eyes of Dr T.J Eckleburg' - which Wilson claims to be God
watching over her immoral actions. As her 'thick dash blood mingled with the dust', her
position in the Valley of Ashes seems to be determined, and perhaps the immorality of her
actions are emphasised as she is
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