The Great Gatsby, Animal Farm or When I Whistle Essay

The Great Gatsby, Animal Farm or When I Whistle - Essay Example In Animal Farm, Napoleon is supposedly successful in the management of his farm, but fails to create the utopian society he envisioned because of his own fatal flaw, the desire for material comforts. Through these characters, both Fitzgerald and Wells are able to illustrate how a fatal flaw in the individual can contribute to their own downfall even while they make a more sweeping comment regarding the societies in which they were living. Both Jay Gatsby and Napoleon are seen as tremendous successes at some point in their life after building themselves up from dirt level. Gatsby has re-created himself from the son of a poor country man to a millionaire in New York through a long series of practiced moves designed to win him the girl of his dreams, Daisy. Napoleon has worked himself up literally from the dirt of his pigpen to the leader of a successful farm through a series of practiced moves designed to attain the equality of species he envisions. There is a moment in each story when each character seems to attain everything they have dreamed of. Gatsby hears Daisy tell him she loves him and envisions the two of them beginning a new life together. Napoleon wins the respect and admiration of the surrounding farmers as his farm proves to be more successful than any of the others around. Their use of skillful rhetoric to support their actions and desires is performed so well that it takes a long time before the truth is seen by readers and by other characters and even then, it’s only revealed slowly through the narration between the characters and the actions they undertake. This is illustrated most clearly in Nick’s summary of Gatsby’s last evening, â€Å"He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity