Climax versus anticlimax: A comparison between the rime of the ancient mariner and The Great Gatsby

Climaxes are moments of improved tension which signify a central turning point within a text. Anti-climaxes can be defined as moments which subvert expectations as they provide a plot twist which are marked by decreased intensity. This essay testimonials climaxes in several performs.

In Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, the shooting of the road rat early on in the narrative is a especially climatic episode. McCarthy utilises this to convey from the starting that the man is willing to sacrifice his morality to survive and to shield his son. The episode is characterised by a number of pages of unattributed dialogue which physically convey it as essential to the novel and generate a moment of heightened tension in between the protagonists and the road rat. Without having any interruption from the third individual narrator, we are offered an intimate perception of the incident which enhances our understanding of the man as the boy’s protector. It is increasingly climatic simply because we are capable to witness, at a closer distance, the extent to which the man will go to defend his son: “If you appear at him again I’ll shoot you.” Adding to this, the episode enables McCarthy to establish the road rat as a microcosm for the wider fiends who inhabit the post-apocalyptic planet, whom the man and boy refer to broadly as the “bad guys”. This is simply because the road rat is revealed to be a cannibal with McCarthy utilising lexis connoting animalistic traits to describe the character. He is introduced as possessing “eyes collared in cups of grime and deeply sunk”. The animal imagery suggests the road rat’s lack of a moral conscience which intensifies the encounter as we really feel frightened for the man and boy’s survival. We worry that the episode may possibly see the demise of the man allowing the novel to be a narrative primarily based solely on the boy’s survival. Also, the road rat is described with the tricolon “lean, wiry, rachitic” which separates him additional from the man and boy with his inhumane appearance, fuelling additional our fears for the characters safety.

In addition, the man and boy’s arrival at the bunker can be perceived as a climatic event. It signifies a turning point in the narrative as structurally, it follows an episode of increased despair in the cellar with the “blackened and burnt” bodies. McCarthy creates a clear parallel amongst each places: they are both physically “padlocked” and provoke religious exclamations from the man (“Oh Christ” for the cellar and “Oh my God” for the bunker). The parallel which is perhaps most noticeable is the boy’s discrepancy towards both places. For the cellar, he says “Papa let’s not go up there” and similarly, for the cellar he warns “don’t open it, Papa”. This ensures that the discovery of the bunker is all the a lot more climatic since the boy’s reaction to each areas is disturbingly comparable and therefore, we are kept in a state of improved tension as we await to view what the man and boy will face in the bunker. We are completely able to perceive how they need to consistently put their safety at danger to survive and are forced to enter a place to be capable to deem it safe or hazardous. Also, the protagonists learn “crate upon crate of canned goods. Tomatoes, peaches, beans, apricots” in the bunker which juxtaposes with the “hideous” scene witnessed in the cellar. Some argue that the bunker symbolises hope which is climatic after an episode of such horror. This is due to the fact it is discovered at a time when the man and boy are in dire require of meals, emphasised by the boy’s physical state: “starved, exhausted, sick with fear”. It is described as the “richness of a vanished world” which evokes some readers to link the bunker with the paradise supplied by the garden of Eden, reinforcing the episode as climatic due to its hopeful and religious connotations.

Alternatively, the protagonists arrival at the “south” which they journey to throughout significantly of the narrative highlights a especially anticlimactic event. While the man and boy anticipate a welcoming atmosphere with “good guys”, they are enter a landscape devoid of hope which is not much distinct to the other regions they come across in their journey. Some readers regard this “gray beach” as representing the futility of the characters journey and ultimately, evokes a pessimistic response from them with regards to the ending of the novel. Conversely, the bathetic nature of the episode is probably best understood as revealing what we currently knew about the globe the man and boy inhabit. The sea which “is not blue” conforms to the portrayal of the bleak landscape produced by McCarthy all through the course of the novel and so, need to not be a shock to us. There is a parallel between the man’s response to the landscape at the starting (he sees it as “Barren. Silent. Godless.”) to his response to the sea (“Cold. Desolate. Birdless.”) This depicts the episode as anticlimactic due to the fact the man “could see the disappointment on [the boy’s] face” and the hopefulness of the characters appears to flounder.

In Coleridge’s ballad The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, the initial climax appears when the Mariner shoots an albatross which “did follow” his ship “every day”. We distinguish the event as 1 which behaves as a catalyst for the remainder of the poem as it triggers the Mariner’s curse and the exploration of the consequences of this single action. The occasion is notably climactic simply because the albatross is linked closely to religion and becomes a symbol of spirituality as it “perch’d for vespers nine”. Therefore, the Mariner’s admitting that “with my crossbow/ I shot the albatross” comes as a unprecedented shock to us as there seems to be no clear motive behind the killing and arguably, implies the Mariner’s ignorance and inability to respect God’s creatures. Some argue that Coleridge utilises the climax produced to reveal the Mariner’s horrifying rejection of religion. This could be related to the killing of Christ who was persecuted with no legitimate cause and beneath immoral consciences. The scene is made far more climatic with the dramatic interjection of the wedding guest prior to the Mariner reveals his crime: “God save thee, ancient Mariner…Why look’st thou?” The truth that the guest have to question the Mariner’s well getting highlights how devastating it is for him to retell the information of his crime and the immensity of his guilt.

Furthermore, this climatic sequence in the starting is brought to a stand nevertheless with the stagnation of the sea. This is a specifically anticlimactic moment because we anticipate the Mariner to serve the consequences for his thoughtless killing almost immediately. However, Coleridge subverts this and introduces the “silent sea” which the crew enter as “the 1st that ever burst”. The word “burst” demonstrates their violent entrance which contrasts with the “silent sea” with the sibilance making an atmosphere of impending doom. This additional develops the anticlimactic moment because with such a violent entrance, we anticipate a dramatic sequence of events. Rather, Coleridge reveals how the ship was “stuck, nor breath nor motion”. “Nor” has negative connotations which probably emphasises the absence of life in the sea and thus, how isolated the crew are. Also, the ship’s stagnation is described as being “as idle as a painted ship/Upon a painted ocean”. The simile depicts the stillness of the ship with the idea of it being a like a ‘painting’, implicating the ship’s inability to make progress. From Coleridge’s gloss (“And the albatross begins to be avenged”) we can deduce that the stillness, despite getting anticlimactic, is a direct effect of the albatross getting “shot”.

In addition, a climatic moment is arguably the Mariner possessing “blessed them [the water snakes] unaware” and the albatross falling from his neck. Getting currently established the albatross as symbol of religion from the extremely beginning, Coleridge utilises the act of it falling from the Mariner’s neck as a physical representation of his guilt getting alleviated. Following the “seven days, seven nights, I [the Mariner] saw that curse”, Coleridge implies how despite the fact that it was time which led to the Mariner’s alter in perception, the eventual shift is sudden: “a spring of adore gushed type my heart”. The word “gushed” intensifies he moment as it captures the rapidness of the Mariner’s blessing and reinforces the concept that he is “unaware” of what he is carrying out. This forms component of the climax simply because we are left anticipating whether the Mariner’s redemption will be complete or if he has to suffer far graver consequences for his killing. Also, the actual moment the “the albatross fell off, and sank like lead into the sea” is considerably climatic due to the fact the simile compares the albatross to “lead” which we associate to weight and illustrates the immensity of the Mariner’s guilt. As it falls, the Mariner is capable to pray (“To Mary Queen the praise be offered!”) and sleep (“Oh sleep! It is a gentle thing”).

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Fantastic Gatsby, the meeting between Gatsby and Daisy in chapter five is particularly anticlimactic. This is their 1st encounter right after the ending of their brief lived romance “five short years ago” and understandably, we apprehend it to reignite the passion of their previous romance and for Daisy to reside up to Gatsby’s dream version of her. However, the encounter becomes anticlimactic with our expectations becoming reverted as it becomes clear that Daisy fails to embody Gatsby’s dream vision of her with Gatsby himself exclaiming to Nick that “this is a terrible mistake”. Also, there is a notable lack of dialogue between Gatsby and Daisy which forces us to concentrate on their body language. Gatsby keeps “his hands in his pockets” and even knocks more than “a defunct mantlepiece clock”. This highlights the initial awkwardness of the moment which is anticlimactic as it is not a show of the passion we envisaged. Gatsby’s clumsy action of knocking more than the clock depicts his unsuccessful try to recapture the previous through this meeting with Daisy. Adding to this, as the incident with the clock requires location, it is ‘pouring’ with rain which demonstrates how Gatsby is at the height of his discomfort and this fails to be a turning point in the narrative as Gatsby does not reawaken the really like he felt 5 years ago. Even Nick himself remarks “there have to have been moments…when Daisy tumbled quick of his dream”. This conveys how the encounter which should have left Gatsby feeling one particular step closer to his dream of becoming with Daisy is anticlimactic due to the “colossal vitality of his illusion”. It reveals the delusional good quality of Gatsby’s vision and validates the problems with “living as well extended with a single dream”.

Additionally, the deaths of each Myrtle and Gatsby are climatic. The deaths of each characters are by no means straight revealed and only told through the response of other characters. Myrtle’s “life violently extinguished” and her “thick dark blood with the dust”. Her death is considerable as it leaves no one for Tom to construct his affair with and this seems to have impacted him tremendously:”tears have been overflowing down his face”. This is a turning point in the novel because it is arguably the very first time in which we come close to feeling sympathy for him as prior to his show of emotion, we perceive him as controlling and treating individuals “as although he have been moving a checker to one more square.” Also, some readers view Myrtle’s death as leaving a “reel of chaos in its wake”. This is not only due to Tom losing his mistress, but also as a result of the complications it leaves in between Gatsby and Daisy. Each characters are not in a position to create their partnership completely and they look a lot more distanced following the death as Daisy makes no conscientious work to cease Gatsby from taking the blame for Myrtle’s death to save her.

In addition, Gatsby’s death is climatic due to the fact it perhaps signifies the death of the American Dream as well. This is because Fitzgerald establishes Gatsby as the embodiment of the American Dream with his reinvention from ‘James Gatz’ to the much more glamorous and prosperous ‘Jay Gatsby’. He represents ‘new money’ which is in line with the American Dream’s excellent of ‘perseverance resulting in success’. Hence, his death symbolises the ending of the American Dream and arguably Fitzgerald’s belief that the American Dream itself is corrupt and unable to be genuinely profitable. Linking it to Gatsby’s demise brings the novel towards a climatic end due to the fact we do not anticipate such a horrific end for out protagonist. Some readers argue that Gatsby’s death is produced more climatic by the truth that we count on him to be murdered for his criminal connections rather than for Myrtle’s death which he was not even responsible for. Also, Gatsby was killed in his pool and his choice to use his pool on the “first day of autumn” illustrates a defiance of the alter in seasons and his inability to leave the past behind. We note this as critical to the narrative because it is his wish to recapture the past which probably leads to his death. It is final and poignant reminder of the possibly fatal consequences of trying to reshape the previous into the present.