Similarities Between Othello And The Great Gatsby

Othello and Gatsby both drive themselves to become accomplished and successful standouts who changed the world around themselves— in a word, heroic. Jay Gatsby was a self-made man who came from an impoverished childhood in North Dakota. His long-term goal was to overcome poverty and become wealthier than even a poor country boy could dream of being. By the time he was thirty years old, he owned a customized Rolls Royce and lived in a mansion that everyone could see from hundreds of miles away, marking his success with visible and tangible signs. However, this meant that while everyone around him could see how far he’d come towards success, they could also see just how far away he’d gone from his natural state. In the same manner, Othello was

a reputable general in Venice, Italy and captivated his wife Desdemona with his valiant war stories. Yet it wasn’t easy for Othello to accomplish these extraordinary difficult goals, because the people of Venice did not accept that a black man could be so successful. In fact, the conflict in Othello comes from the fact that Desdemona’s father Brabantio could not withstand the fact she secretly married a black man, and Iago could not stand Othello’s high standing in Venetian society. In the Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Othello by William Shakespeare, the heroic ambition of becoming self-empowered leads to each hero’s tragic downfall, as these heroes subverted their perceived role in society in pursuit of their goals, inevitably leading to jealousy and hatred both from those around them and from within themselves. Othello and Gatsby both start at the bottom of society and through their self-devotion they have heroically risen to the top.
Gatsby’s heroic ambition of self-empowerment can be seen in his reinvention of his identity — from James Gatz to The Great Gatsby — and his determination to be socially elite.

For instance, as a young adult James Gatz realized that he could not accept living an unremarkable life with the farming people of his community and therefore “invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end”(Fitzgerald 98). Fitzgerald demonstrates that Gatsby was a man who driven to reinvent himself, to explore his dreams, and to go beyond his limits. What’s more, Gatsby’s self-empowerment, meaning his ability to make his own choices and own goals, was bound up in his ability to define his own identity. Gatsby’s fixation on living this fiction suggests that he hated his former life and was unable to consider himself successful if he was living the ordinary existence than his life began with. Gatsby was driven to become better because “he was faithful to the end” to his own personal conception of what it meant to live at the height of high society.

Secondly, Gatsby’s intense heroic ambition is paralleled by his high social standing, which Gatsby has worked hard to maintain. This idea is exemplified in the description of Jay Gatsby’s luxurious

mansion:
The [house] on my right was a colossal affair by any standard—it was a factual imitation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy, with a tower on one side, spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy, and a marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden. It was Gatsby’s mansion. (Fitzgerald 5)
With this imagery, Fitzgerald establishes that Gatsby’s house is one of the most exotic houses in West Egg and compares it to the Hotel de Ville in Normandy, which traditionally houses many high-ranking French officials, such as the Mayor of Paris. Likewise, Gatsby’s house is considered to be of high social status and attract the highest caliber of people. The house itself is a symbol of how Gatsby’s heroic ambition has grown. Gatsby began his life in an ordinary farmhouse but has come to live in a mansion worth millions and which draws only the most important kinds of people to visit.
Gatsby’s need for constant improvement, which stems from his own hatred for himself as well as from the jealousy of others, is what leads to this heroic figure’s downfall. Gatsby’s final conflict is his desire for Daisy, who he imagines will complete his vision of perfect success. When he realizes that she will never have him, the narrator imagines that Gatsby must have despaired at his own failures:
He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about . . . like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous trees. (Fitzgerald 161)
Fitzgerald’s depressing imagery of the unfamiliar sky tells his audience that Gatsby is realizing that something just isn’t right anymore. The sun is harsh and the grass is dead, and Gatsby has been halted in his progress. Gatsby is realizing that if he can not have Daisy, then there is no reason to live, because no material success is worth having without her. The simile of the “ashen, fantastic figure” also conveys that his “dreams” are over and his desires are merely ghosts of what they once were (Fitzgerald 161). He has lost his sense of self empowerment and does not wish to set any more goals. He hates his life because he feel like he has lost everything knowing that he will never be able to have Daisy. Fitzgerald also suggests that Gatsby knows his death is approaching with the use of ominous words like “ghosts” and “ashen” figures. His blind desire for success and his hatred of his own life set him on an unsustainable path and ultimately led to his downfall.
In the same vein, Othello’s heroic ambition of self-empowerment is built off his reputation and his downfall is from the heroic tragedy of hatred. Othello’s reputation means everything to him. He builds his reputation by becoming a general and continues to self-empower himself by completing all of his wartime tasks in an exemplary fashion. And not only does he empower himself in war, but in love as well. For example, Othello demonstrates his valor and self-reliance when during his explanation of why Desdemona should be his, regardless of their racial difference:
Let him do his spite;
My services which I have done the signiory
Shall out-tongue his complaints.
I would not my unhoused free condition
Put into circumscription and confine
For the sea’s worth. (1.2. 17-28)
By saying that he would give up all the treasure in the sea in order to win the hand of the one he loves, Shakespeare demonstrates Othello’s strong will and determination to achieve his goals. Othello’s self-empowerment has also built his confidence, because he believes that through the merit of his service, his reputation “shall out” Barbantio’s words (1.2.19).
The openness of Othello’s personality and the importance he places on his reputation lead to his downfall.

For example, when Iago states that “[t]he Moor is of a free and open nature, / That thinks men honest that but seem to be so” (1.3.381-2). This guilelessness ultimately means that Othello is able to easily be manipulated and persuaded to suit whatever ends Iago desires. And based on this fact, Iago’s jealousy and hatred for Othello is allowed to flourish unobstructed, built on the catalyst of his great reputation, and ultimately leading to the hero’s death. For example, after the truth unfolds and uncovers all of Iago’s evil deeds, Othello states, “Of one that loved wisely, but too will; Of one not easily jealous but being wrought, / Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand. Like the base Indian, threw a pearl away / Richer than all his tribe” (5.2.340-4). Othello compares himself to a base Indian because of his ignorance to the value of a precious gem that is so hard to come by, referring to Desdemona and his treatment of her. The pearl which was Desdemona was worth more to him than anyone else in the world, but Othello confesses that because of his too-intense love and jealousy, he has transformed his internalized hatred of himself into suffering for others around him. Yet his last request was that the story be told truthfully so his reputation lives on forever, heroic to the end. His ambition has been fully realized because he died at peace with himself. And like

Gatsby, Othello kills himself because he has no purpose in life when there is no more room for improvement in his life without love or a legacy to leave behind.
When one desires success and perfection more than anything else, it is easy to get lost in the endless search and make drastic decisions too quickly. But in my own experience, slowing down to reorient yourself can end up making sure you end up at the right place in the end. I have been in a position similar to that of Jay Gatsby and Othello, where I had very high hopes about a romantic relationship that ended up being dashed. Like Othello, I was told by a friend that my girlfriend had been unfaithful, and like both men, I made a rash judgment based on the desire to be successful and leave all my mistakes in the distant past. I ended my relationship on the spot and then avoided my ex-girlfriend for months, when in reality my friend had lied and she had not been unfaithful. The instinct to keep moving, keep working, and always find something better for myself cost my girlfriend and myself months of happiness together. Like Othello and Gatsby, my pain could have been avoided if I had been willing to spend more time working through my problems instead of trying to leave them behind in favor of desperately trying to empower myself at the cost of the people in my life.
A hero can be defined as the one person who achieves their biggest goal while overcoming all of the obstacles in their way. But unfortunately, the skills that help a hero be successful, like self-empowerment, are often tied to things like self-hatred and can lead to alienation from those around them. Jay Gatsby was very successful, but he was driven by self-hatred. When he felt like he had lost his only outlet for that hatred, the endless working towards a successful life with Daisy, he had nothing left and could not go on. Similarly, Othello worked hard his whole life to be successful and was confident in his ability to win Desdemona as a wife. After hearing Iago’s jealous lies about his wife, he destroys his newly-built life in order to get rid of anything that could be considered a failure, like his marriage. In this way, the love and self-reliance that defines a hero can be turned into hate and accidental self-isolation. In the end, the powerful motivation of a hero’s success is actually a double-edged sword and heroes have to be careful to never turn it on themselves.