Ideal Love The Great Gatsby Analysis

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Body 1 Ideal love by Breaking Social Conventions Elizabeth Barrett Browning follows ideal love by breaking the social conventions of the Victorian age which is when she wrote the “Sonnets from the Portuguese”. The Victorian age produced a conservative society, where marriage was based on class, age and wealth and women were seen as objects of desire governed by social etiquette. These social conventions are shown to be holding her back, this is conveyed through the quote “Drew me back by the hair”. Social conventions symbolically represented by the character that “drew” her back, this personification emphasises the negative effect that society has on an individual. However Barrett Browning is shown to hold out against these social conventions The Jazz age was a period after World War 1, where there was an increased emphasis on materialistic desires due to the economic boom that was due to the war. “The Great Gatsby” is a novel about Nick’s view on the relationship between Gatsby and Daisy. This relationship however initially is not able to prosper, this is shown through the simile “let me leave it in the soap dish when she saw that it was coming to pieces like snow”. The letter symbolising the relationship between Gatsby and Daisy which at first seems to be pure and innocent however as obstacles such as the materialistic society feeds on them the letter falls apart showing the fragility of ideal love. As the amount of money that Gatsby has increased, Daisy is again shown to fall in love, this is shown through the hyperbole of “It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such, such beautiful shirts”. The irony of this quote emphasis that the amount of money that Gatsby had was the cause of their relationship not growing, however it is also shown that their relationship is finished and no amount of money can help their relationship. This is reflected by the symbolism of the unattainable green light which symbolises Daisy, as Gatsby attempts to reach out and grasp this light. Gatsby’s ideal love dream is seen to be false as the materialistic values of the time get in the way unlike Barrett Browning who breaks social convention to find her true

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