Blackstar- Gatsby84
Jay Gatz developed the persona Gatsby in 1907, the same year the Chicago Cubs first won the World Series., while living with Dany Cody and Cody’s woman. Not much is known about the arrangements between those individuals or couplets, except that after Dan Cody, the wealthy financier and philanthropist, had intended an inheritance for Gatsby that was duplicity acquired by a romantic liaison in Cody’s life. Gatsby learned the Marxist-Thoreau-ean lessons about taking care of your economic and physical realities before success and freedom can be attempted. There after he had to rebuild his lost fortune and resorted to working with a criminal underground that was so expansive and powerful that they managed to fix the 1919 World Series. With his economic success satisfied he was again free to pursue his search for a salve for his Romantic loss.
Winston Smith of 1984, had no choice in his conversion in ideology. The world had already moved onto franchised Marxism as a means of sustaining the massive global war that raged ( or didn’t ) during Winston’s lifetime. Marx was famously resistant to the rapid success that Marxism was accumulating during the 19th century in Europe. He felt that it was happening too quickly and without the consent of the proletariat which would spell its’ political and social doom. In much the same way the Inner Party, the ruling caste in the novel 1984 forced their ascetic way of living onto others under the threat of violence. This was accomplished with political inquisition rather than through natural social conversion, which Marx had warned against.
Educated in the economics of his material situation Winston had accumulated enough free time and capital to purchase his journal, which acted as a catalyst for his ideological rebirth and simultaneously his act of rebellion against his masters. The act of writing and his strong emotions towards his Juliet, was the birth of Winston’s Negative Green ideology, his birth of individuality. Winston often dreamed of his late mother. Lacan would surely see that Winston is yearning to be merged again with the Illusionary Order. Having met his economic needs Winston begins to rebuild his lost ideologies. Having memories of life before the war, Winston was undoubtedly influenced by European Transcendentalists and behaves as he does towards his society because of these forgotten beliefs. Using these fragments of memory and following his intuition and creativity, Winston listens to the tone of his heart string and wanders into the prole section where he finds the journal in a junk shop that he will use to pen his rebellion and manifest his Platonic Ideal of himself.
Jay Gatsby and Winston Smith, two individuals struggling between ideology that has been imposed upon them and the one rooted deep within their hearts. The tension between the two lends strength to each of their struggles and forms the etheric membrane that the dream; Ahlam, manifest from. Winston is eventually able to comprehend how truth is less tangible than he once believed and was allowed a glimpse into the gaping maw of reality. Although Winston loses his sense of Individuality during his ideological conversion therapy, he is allowed to see the hand of Power as it drew back the veil of illusion and gave Winston a glimpse of a world without the boundaries placed by ideology. 2=2+5, pure magic, belief and dream. It is ideology that makes anything in life seemingly concrete. Winston began his dream amongst the Delphic vapors of Big Brotherly love.
Gatsby was stripped of his ahlam as was shown when, having arrived on the event horizon of his wildest dreams, he wore his pink suit. Pink is the hue of left after Green light has been removed from White light. In physics this is known as Negative Green. Negative Green, or pink, or even grey, represents all the other types of radiation beyond the visible spectrum of light. In this ideological grey area, Gatsby’s suit was his fiction suit, his apparatus for surfacing from his extended stay in the depths of lucidity and dream. The pink light emanating from Daisy’s bedroom completed the cyclical lock that forever bade Gatsby from reentering his dream world. The thrill is gone, the thrill has gone away.
Winston and Gatsby struggle with and against ideological powers beyond their comprehension. Not to say that their ultimate ends would be much different than what they would be, but if they had a deeper understanding of their conflicting ideologies they may have been able to save themselves from the tragic circumstances surrounding their demise. Both men set out to separate themselves from their circumstances, but without the proper ideological economy that would support and guide them. Instead each individual dissolves in the solvent of love and forever lose themselves.
