Similarities Between The Great Gatsby And Ernest Hemingway

Imagine. You are sitting in complete silence, even the nearby crickets won't dare to let out even the slightest of croaks. You stare down at your cluttered, dimly lit desk. Your hand grasps your pen, and the other rubs back and forth across your temple in angst. Your eyes pass over each paper, containing each incomplete thought, and your mind floods with memories of your past. Trapped by writer’s block, you are all alone with only your experiences, surroundings, and philosophy aiding you in the fall that is the dark reality of alcoholism and depression. For renowned authors F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway, these influences all played a crucial role in identifying their style techniques, as well as determining similarities and differences

What matters is, what are you going to do about it?” When looking at both F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Ernest Hemingway’s life experiences, through this lens, the recognition of their demise was inevitable. F. Scott Fitzgerald was the son of an Irish- American named Mollie McQuillan, and a wicker furniture manufacture from Maryland named Edward Fitzgerald. He grew up in an upper-middle class family, due to the donations of his aunt, however he still could not shake the idea that he was a poor man crashing a rich man’s party. From a financial point of view, Fitzgerald incorporated this reality into the character that was Nick Carroway. Nick Carroway was a reserved man, in the “[my house was a] eyesore, but it was a small eyesore, and it had been overlooked,” being next to Gatsby’s glamorous mansion. (Fitzgerald 5). Fitzgerald envied the rich, and made it evident in his writing, therefor, “Gatsby- who represented everything for which I [Nick] have an unaffected scorn,” (Fitzgerald 2). Because he experienced financial complications growing up and into adulthood, his writing style was altered to conform to what he had always known. He accentuated the rich, and compared his impoverished life to, “a certain desolate area of land. This is the valley of ashes,” (Fitzgerald 23). Fitzgerald believed in just getting items and the ability to be, “agonizingly aware of the easy money in the vicinity,” and because of this, The Great Gatsby, references old money; however Ernest Hemingway had a slightly different outlook, influenced by his childhood. Ernest Hemingway was born in Oak Park, a upper middle class suburb of Chicago to Dr. Clarence and Grace Hall Hemingway. Hemingway was the second of six kids, all of which were taught to hunt and fish from a very young age. Having learned these skills as a kid, he was able to incorporate the concept of fighting and working for something in his novel,