Melancholic Subjects Between Two Deaths in The Great Gatsby and Wuthering Heights

Abstract

This paper provides a comparative analysis of the literary characters Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights and Gatsby from The Great Gatsby through the lens of Lacan’s concept of “Between Two Deaths” and Freud’s theory of “Mourning and Melancholia.” Despite their creation in different times and cultures, Wuthering Heights and The Great Gatsby share the commonality of failing to return to the symbolic order after the loss of love, existing as ghosts of desire outside the order of the real world. This study interprets these two characters as “beings between two deaths,” who remain physically alive despite experiencing “symbolic death,” thereby offering a more profound understanding of the dissolution and tragedy of the subject in literature. This theoretical framework integrates philosophical and psychoanalytic perspectives to illuminate the themes of desire, loss and the fragmentation of the self.