Comparing The Great Gatsby, Sula, And The Scarlet Letter

The worlds created by great authorial minds are often fraught with good, bad, and morally grey characters. This is apparent in works written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Toni Morrison, and Nathaniel Hawthorne, where all characters, including the protagonists, have thoroughly varied moral drives. However, in each of these novels, The Great Gatsby, Sula, and The Scarlet Letter respectively, the protagonist is still considered good. The guidelines for the “Good One” differ from novel to novel, suggesting that it is the author who defines these rules, despite any diegetic reasons for such a guideline. Gatsby is passionate, Sula is independent, and Hester is generous, despite everything. In each of these three novels, the authors define clear depictions

of what they value and consider Good within their protagonists, and by doing so, they define their worlds’ moral systems.

Jay Gatsby, the titular protagonist of The Great Gatsby, illustrates the way an author’s values can influence how a character’s perception can be placed in contrast with the rest of the novel’s world. The novel’s narrator, Nick, serves well as the voice of Fitzgerald, being both a near omniscient narrator and a neutral, reserved character. Fitzgerald writes Nick as matter-of-fact, humble every-man, one who thinks, “[...] I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.” (Fitzgerald 64). Nick, himself, is recounting his experiences through writing (Fitzgerald 60), which further suggests a link between the authors psyche and Nick’s constant drone of opinions. Nick is hesitant around Gatsby, but by the end of the novel he has deemed Gatsby as the Good One, "They're a rotten crowd," I shouted across the lawn. "You're worth the whole damn bunch put together." (Fitzgerald 162), which implies a level of confidence that we can have in Gatsby’s character. It is not a measure of good or bad that we must take into account when analyzing Gatsby’s character, but rather, his passion. It’s clear that Gatsby is a sympathetic character, he longs after Daisy for years, he builds monuments and businesses and connections all through his useful passions. It is all for Daisy, all in an elaborate scheme to gain her affections. He is the good not because of his generosity, really all of his motives are selfish, but because of the depth and intensity of his passions for Daisy, and everything that comes with her. In a world of cheats, parties, bootleggers, and fast lives, there is little in way of a rigid moral compass, rendering classic “good” and “evil” rather useless. Nick knows this, accepts this, especially in the context of Jay Gatsby; and so, Fitzgerald too, accepts this. Fitzgerald frames Gatsby in a way that suggests that he values this sort of man: a man who lies and goes through back doors, but is still worth everything if he has a dream.

In Sula, Morrison focuses on the dual importance of independence and loyalty, and through Sula Peace, calls into question the validity of ascribing Good to those who only follow the neutral path through life.

Sula and Nel are fast friends, becoming one with the other at a young age. Late in the novel Sula remarks on the differences in Nel’s demeanour and how she’d “[...]never remember the days when we were two throats and one eye and we had no price.”(Morrison 147) From Sula’s point of view, there never needed to be an exchange between her and Nel, a fingertip, a husband, a declaration of “pig-meat”, none of this needed to be quantified for them. Nel got married, she had children, and she stayed in Medallion–she lives the typical life that’s expected of her (120). In contrast, Sula left, exploring education and the world in the ways she wanted to, arguably the ways she needed to. When she returns to Medallion, that is when the superstitions of the town–their version of the traditional Evil–twists their image of Sula. However, this perception doesn’t change the realities of Sula, she’s still just the independent, fiery woman that she’s always been. Sula confronts Nel at the end of her life, she says, “How you know […] about who was good. How you know it was you?”(Morrison 146), she’s telling us, telling Nel, that not everything is as it seems. Sula can lie, can disappear, can have sex with her best friend’s husband, but that means nothing if she lived her best life. “Show? To

who? Girl, I got my mind. And what goes on in it. Which is to say, I got me.” (Morrison 143) Morrison echoes this, speaking through her at every possible moment, driving home the idea that feeling and truly being is the key to living a Good life, and therefore becoming one’s own Good One.

The Scarlet Letter is first and foremost a story about God, and everyone’s personal relationship with him, a theme that reveals itself in Hawthorne’s text as he relays Hester Prynne’s story.

It is in Hester’s relationship with the Scarlet Letter and her daughter Pearl that this is displayed most clearly. Hester is initially jailed for her sin of adultery, for the crime she committed against God. Throughout the book she is ostracized (76), scorned by the very townspeople who eventually deem her Good enough again to remove the A. She is strong in her convictions, standing up to even Chillingsworth.“It lies not in the pleasure of the magistrates to take off this badge,” calmly replied Hester. “Were I worthy to be quit of it, it would fall away of its own nature, or be transformed into something that should speak a different purport.” (Hawthorne 137) Hester’s commitment to her punishment implies her commitment to God, seemingly answering only to him rather than some mortal townspeople. She lives a life of humble shame following her sin, spending her time working for the townsfolk and raising her child, who acts as another manifestation of the Scarlet Letter. “God gave me the child!” cried she. “He gave her in requital of all things else, which ye had taken from me. She is my happiness!—she is my torture, nonetheless! Pearl keeps me here in life! Pearl punishes me too! See ye not, she is the scarlet letter, only capable of being loved, and so endowed with a million-fold the

power of retribution for my sin? Ye shall not take her! I will die first!” (Hawthorne 98) If Pearl, the living scarlet letter, is a gift from God, then it’s safe to say that the Scarlet Letter itself is a gift from God, confirming Hester’s duty and commitment to God himself. It is most telling, that at the end of the book when her life is nearly over, she returns to the puritan town still adorned with the Scarlet Letter.(202) Only when she dies has she proved her commitment to both her own self and to God, a plot that reveals Hawthorne’s values. He sees the beauty in someone who fully commits themself, wholly and truely to either themself or some greater being, ultimately deeming Hester to be the Good one of her story.

Each author, in an attempt to instill the line between good and evil, leaves a little piece of their own morals in their stories. The idea of any one character being the Good One using the traditional metric of good and evil seems contrived to these authors. It is clear throughout the three novels on display here that the notion of the Good One is derived from passion, from persistence and commitment to a goal, person, idea, or figure. The actions of any person, fictional or otherwise, are never always good, or bad for every person involved. There is no way to quantify morals in such a generalization, because one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, one thing that may be good for one person may conflict when presented in a new light. This leads to interesting dilemmas, and ultimately guides authors down a path of introspection. Since the primary focus in these novels appears to be passion, and all the ways that selfishness, independence, and persistence can affect it, there is a level of interpretation that expands beyond traditional Good and evil. Because of this flexible yet clear structure, the authors of the three novels discussed here are able to define the Good One in their stories to be one who is passionate, and true, weaving intricate tales that turn the idea of Good on its head.