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Example research essay topic: Instinct And Impulse Nicole And Dicks Dick - 1,144 words

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... tame her, domesticate her, and bring her into the company of civilized men and women. Aside from this professional concern with bringing the mad into civilization, Dick is also very invested in his particular conception of civilization. We read, for instance, of Dicks early "illusions of the essential goodness of people; illusions of a nation, the lies of generations of frontier mothers who had to croon falsely, that there were no wolves outside the cabin door" (117). Further on, as Dick becomes more reflective, he begins to question dying for ones beliefs and of the social imperatives "to be good, brave and wise" (133). What prompts this questioning is the war, which shook Dick deeply.

We see this most clearly in book one, chapter thirteen where he and his entourage visit an old battleground. There, Dick becomes melancholy and "his throat strain[s] with sadness" (57). He also proclaims dolefully "all of my beautiful lovely safe world blew itself up here with a great gust of high explosive love" (57). In this odd statement, Dick takes ownership of this world and feels a great personal loss at what has happened even though he did not directly participate.

The scene in which he helps the red-haired Tennessee girl looking for the grave of her brother further shows the importance of the war to Dick. In these ways, then, Dick is portrayed as the protector of civilization, mourning the disillusioning effects of the war while working to repair civilization by treating the psyche. We are told a little over half way through the novel that "somehow Dick and Nicole had become one and equal, not opposite and complementary; she was Dick too in the marrow of his bones" (190). Given the novels outcome, there is an air of paradox to this statement. Clearly Nicole and Dick end the novel in very different conditions. How can this be if they are one and the same?

Doesnt this indicate oppositeness or complementariness rather than a unity of identity? I think that this air can be dissipated by understanding the trajectory of Nicole and Dicks relationship, using the identifications explained above, as an increasing move toward natural instinct and impulse, the effect of which is positive for Nicole and detrimental for Dick, as the only way he can handle such feelings is through alcohol. The first decisive move in this direction is Dicks relationship with Rosemary. We are told again and again that Dick had never done anything like this before, that the emotional whirlwind in which he is caught up is entirely new.

This comes out most clearly at the end of book one in which Dick impulsively goes to visit Rosemary at her movie set: "He knew that what he was now doing marked a turning point in his life - it was out of line with everything that preceded it" (91). And further on, "Dicks necessity of behaving as he did was a projection of some submerged reality. Dick was paying some tribute to things unforgotten, unshriven, unexpurgated" (91). I interpret this submerged reality as the presence of natural impulse and instinct, which he has hitherto repressed the aspect of himself that it is the psychiatrists job to subdue in the process of bringing someone into civilization. But, as they are aspects of him as well as of every person, they are "unforgotten" and "unexpurgated. " This episode and others like it mark a breakdown in Dicks civilized worldview. It is this breakdown that allows Nicole to begin finally to express her own nature, first by relapses into her hysteria and then by a more consistent and holistic embrace of instinct and impulse in her relations with Tommy.

The final stage of Nicole and Dicks break brings this out clearly. Near the end of the novel, Nicole comes to the realization that "She had somehow given over the thinking to him, [Dick]. She knew that for her the greatest sin now and in the future was to delude herself. Either you think else others have to think for you and take power from you, pervert and discipline your natural tastes, civilize, and sterilize you" (290). Nicole, then, awakens to her natural self, recapturing sovereignty over her own person, and refusing to allow Dick to fit her into his mold as to what she should be; Dick would no longer be the father with the authority of reason. As Fitzgerald says in narrating the decisive moment of their rupture, "She achieved her victory and justified herself to herself without lie or subterfuge, cut the cord forever" (302).

It is crucial to note that Dick comes to the same point, but as his natural instincts and impulses were for him a "submerged reality, " he could not accept healthily this change like Nicole, for whom instinct and impulse were always much closer to the surface. The only way for Dick to handle this unearthed reality within was to turn to the bottle. There is, of course, a natural comparison to make between Dick and Tommy here. It is noteworthy that Fitzgerald explicitly tells us "Tommy Barban was a ruler, Tommy was a hero. As a rule, he drank little; courage was his game and his companions were always afraid of him" (196). Tommy does not have to drink to deal with his passions; he is a man of passion already and, as such, is more similar to Nicole than Dick.

In this way, also, the love between Tommy and Nicole could have the reciprocity which Dick and Nicole's hierarchical, paternal, doctor / patient relationship could never have. Tommy could love back where for Dick, "so easy to be loved - so hard to love" (245). At the novels end, then, the naturalness of Nicole and Tommy has triumphed over the civilization of Dick. I should say, though, that I do not take this outcome to be an endorsement on the part of Fitzgerald of this impulsive naturalness. Rather, I read the novel as an exploration of disillusionment with the idealism of prewar America. I think Fitzgerald suggests as much when he posits the postwar years as the natural environment in which a story such as Dicks emerges: "His love for Nicole and Rosemary, his friendship with Abe North and Tommy Barban in the broken universe of the wars ending there seemed some necessity of taking all or nothing; it was as if for the remainder of his life he was condemned to carry with him the egos of certain people, early met and early loved, and to be only as complete as they were themselves" (245).

This plight, this condemnation, was not Dicks alone; it was that of an American civilization thrust into a new world in which it, like all others, must now deal with the sins of past and present in its struggle for survival. Bibliography:


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