Essay Comparing The Great Gatsby And Their Eyes Were Watching God

525 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The great gatsby by fitzgerald summary essay

In American society, love, social class, and ambition are in the present life of Americans. Both books "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald and "Their Eyes Were Watching God" by Zora Hurston, are examples of Gatsby and Janie and their strive to reach the American dream. Both Gatsby and Janie are searching for love. Gatsby has found his love for Daisy, but he can’t have her because of there differences between social classes. On the other hand, Janie spends her journey searching for sense of herself and someone who treats her as equal. Despite the beginning of their past life they both reach the appearance of wealth and fortune. For Gatsby, his character is a delusion created by those who spread rumors just by seeing him throw the lavish parties. Gatsby's wealth is only a front because he was given the house from wealth and illegal dealings with Meyer Wolfsheim. Janie's character changes throughout the story in search of her identity. Janie inherited money from the death of her second husband. But the money doesn’t mean much to her ever since she met Tea Cake but still uses her money to provide for the both of them. Gatsby and Janie faced challenges on the search for their American Dream. In …show more content…

Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby tells the story of wealthy Jay Gatsby and the love of his life Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby dream was to secure Daisy just as things were before he left to the war. His impression was that Daisy will come to him if he appears to be rich and famous. Gatsby quest was to have fortune just so he could appeal more to Daisy and her social class.But Gatsby's character isn't true to the wealth it is a front because the money isn't real. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses the rumors surrounding Jay Gatsby to develop the real character he is. Jay Gatsby was a poor child in his youth but he soon became extremely wealthy after he dropped out of college and became a successful man and create a new life for himself through the organized crime of Meyer

Show More
Related

  • Jay Gatsby is a Sympathetic Character in Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby

    591 Words  | 2 Pages

    In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby provides the reader with a unique outlook on the life of the newly rich. Gatsby is an enigma and a subject of great curiosity, furthermore, he is content with a lot in life until he strives too hard. His obsession with wealth, his lonely life and his delusion allow the reader to sympathize with him.

    Read More

  • Recurring Themes in The Great Gatsby and Their Eyes Were Watching God

    1201 Words  | 3 Pages

    The recurring themes of society, class, and self identity can be seen throughout many different writings of the 20th century. Two of these writings include, “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald and, “Their Eyes Were Watching God” by Zora Neale Hurston. Both novels focus on the protagonist's goal of achieving equal rights in their own environment while at the same time trying to figure out who they are in the world. In the early 1900s, when “Their Eyes Were Watching God” takes place, slavery had very recently been abolished (relatively speaking) and the lasting effects of segregation take a toll on Janie, the protagonist. In the Great Gatsby, although Jay Gatsby is white, and thus does not have to deal with the factor of race, he struggles with many different aspects of American Society, mainly the class system and the American Dream. The American dream depicted by F.Scott Fitzgerald is a desire to gain wealth and prosperity. However, at the same time the book does not suggest that wealth equates to success. Even though Gatsby does have material wealth, he is not successful in gaining what he wants to be happy. Despite his material wealth, Gatsby is never united with the love of his life, Daisy. This shows that even though Gatsby has achieved the dream of wealth and prosperity, he has not achieved his final goal. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Janie too believes in the American Dream, and similarly to Gatsby, it is not a dream of wealth and prosperity. For her, it’s a dream of Freedom in all aspects of life. Both characters however, spend much of their time trying to conform to the rest of the world and essentially be like “everyone” else instead of trying to be distinct individuals. Societal norms of the early 1900s tak...

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Their Eyes Were Watching God And The Great Gatsby

    1159 Words  | 3 Pages

    The novels Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald are alike in many different ways, one being that they are both American novels set in the 1920’s. Their Eyes Were Watching God follows the life of a woman named Janie and her pursuit of love with her many husbands. The Great Gatsby is about a young entrepreneur named Nick that meets a mysterious rich fellow by the name of Gatsby who is in love with his cousin, Daisy. However, Daisy is married to Tom Buchanan, which creates conflict between Daisy, Tom, and Gatsby. In these two novels there are character interactions, places and events that reveal the best of society. Some of these places are the parties Gatsby throws and a place in the

    Read More

  • Failure and Destruction of a Romantic Ideal in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

    1652 Words  | 4 Pages

    In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald tells the story of a romantic ideal and its ultimate destruction by the inexorable rot and decay of modern life. The story is related by Nick Carraway, who has taken a modest rental house next door to Jay Gatsby's mansion. Jay Gatsby is a young millionaire who achieves fabulous wealth for the sole purpose of recapturing the love of his former sweetheart, Daisy Fay Buchanan. Five years prior to the principal events of the story, Daisy broke off with Gatsby and married the vulgar and arrogant Tom Buchanan because he was rich and came from a respectable family. In the years since, Gatsby turns his memory of Daisy into a near-religious worship. He places her on a pedestal and transforms her into his own romantic ideal. In the process, he also transforms himself. He changes his name from Gatz to Gatsby; he invents a past, saying he was from a wealthy family and studied at Oxford; he affects the speech patterns of an English aristocrat ("old sport"), and stages parties that resemble theatrical productions.

    Read More

  • Summer of Wealth, Dreams and Desires in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

    736 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Great Gatsby a, novel written by American author F. Scott Fitzgerald, follows a cast of characters abiding in the town of East and West Egg on affluent Long Island in the summer of 1922. Each of the characters, while part of the same story line, have different priorities and agendas, each character working towards achieving what they think would benefit them the most. As The Great Gatsby’s plot thickens the characters constantly show their discontent of the American Dream that they are living, always expressing their greed for more, three particular offenders of this deadly sin are Tom, Daisy and Gatsby himself. The characters motives stem from a mixture of boredom, a need and longing for the american dream, and simple selfish human desire.

    Read More

  • Character Analysis Of Jay Gatsby And This Side Of Paradise

    940 Words  | 2 Pages

    Fitzgerald’s character Jay Gatsby from his book The Great Gatsby, was very much in love with luxurious life .That is why in his early childhood he left St.Olaf’s College because he had to work as a janitor there to pay his tuition fees. It would not be wrong to say he hated poverty from his early life. This could be his main reason to feel attracted towards Daisy Buchanan, who was a symbol of beauty and class. During Gatsby’s military training he met Daisy and the two fell in love with each other. Though Daisy promised to wait for Gatsby yet married Tom Buchanan ,while Gatsby was studying in Oxford .Gatsby took his rejection seriously and made his aim to achieve Daisy. He started involving himself in illegal work to earn money and started throwing mysterious parties to show off his money and social status .The main motive behind all these was not his greed or revenge but it was all for Daisy, whom he thought to be the love of his life. According to Gatsby his love for Daisy was very innocent and it did not even matter to him that Daisy was married to someone else. He perceived Daisy as a symbol of purity and innocence and wanted to have her at any cost. The main mistake of Gatsby was he mistook his obsession for Daisy as love and also he wanted to erase their past separation from their life by dint of his new money. " Fitzgerald also seems to be problematizing the inevitability of the text’s ending: Gatsby “turn[s] out all right’’

    Read More

  • F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby

    655 Words  | 2 Pages

    During Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, it is apparent to be an absurd time for the wealthy. The shallowness of money, riches, and a place in a higher social class were probably the most important components in most lives at that period of time. This is expressed clearly by Fitzgerald, especially through his characters, which include Myrtle Wilson, Tom and Daisy Buchanan, and of course, Jay Gatsby. This novel was obviously written to criticize and condemn the ethics of the rich.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby And The Scarlett Letter Analysis

    959 Words  | 2 Pages

    In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald reveals to us our narrator Gatsby’s neighbor and cousin of the lovely, but shallow Daisy Buchanan, Nick Carraway, who construes to us about the infamous and mysterious Jay Gatsby. From the lavish parties, living in the fictional West Egg, and symbolic yellow car, who is Jay Gatsby? Jay Gatsby is a man blinded by his own greed and imagination. All he wants in life is money and love and the only way he affords his lavish lifestyle is by participating in crime. The era that this story takes place in, which is the 20’s, an era of economic prosperity, reflects greatly on the action...

    Read More

  • Daisy's Love In The Great Gatsby

    1031 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a fictional story of a man, Gatsby, whose idealism personified the American dream. Yet, Gatsby’s world transformed when he lost his god-like power and indifference towards the world to fall in love with Daisy. Gatsby’s poverty and Daisy’s beauty, class, and affluence contrasted their mutual affectionate feelings for one another. As Gatsby had not achieved the American dream of wealth and fame yet, he blended into the crowd and had to lie to his love to earn her affections. This divide was caused by the gap in their class structures. Daisy grew up accustomed to marrying for wealth, status, power, and increased affluence, while Gatsby developed under poverty and only knew love as an intense emotional

    Read More

  • A Comparison Of Women In The Great Gatsby And Their Eyes Were Watching God

    986 Words  | 2 Pages

    “Freedom cannot be achieved unless women have been emancipated from all forms of oppression” (Nelson Mandela). History has shown that women have always been treated unequally compared to men. They are heavily repressed by stereotypes formed by society and by men who believe they are superior to women. Zora Neale Hurston explores the roles of women in the novel, Their Eyes were Watching God, through the characters of Janie and her second husband, Joe Starks. Even with two different marriages Janie never got the chance to be who she really was; the men in her life held Janie back from what she wanted. Similarly in the novel, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Daisy Buchanan is the wife to Tom Buchanan who is an arrogant man that seeks

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby: Money, Power, and the Fulfillment of Dreams

    894 Words  | 2 Pages

    In The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald money, power, and the fulfillment of dreams is what the story’s about. On the surface the story is about love but underneath it is about the decay of society’s morals and how the American dream is a fantasy, only money and power matter. Money, power, and dreams relate to each other by way of three of the characters in the book, Gatsby, Daisy, and Tom. Gatsby is the dreamer, Daisy cares about money, and Tom desires and needs power. People who have no money dream of money. People who have money want to be powerful. People who have power have money to back them up. Fitzgerald writes this book with disgust towards the collapse of the American society. Also the purposeless existences that many people lived, when they should have been fulfilling their potential. American people lacked all important factors to make life worthwhile.

    Read More

  • Jay Gatsby's Dream

    1072 Words  | 3 Pages

    F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby is a tragic tale of love distorted by obsession. Finding himself in the city of New York, Jay Gatsby is a loyal and devoted man who is willing to cross oceans and build mansions for his one true love. His belief in realistic ideals and his perseverance greatly influence all the decisions he makes and ultimately direct the course of his life. Gatsby has made a total commitment to a dream, and he does not realize that his dream is hollow. Although his intentions are true, he sometimes has a crude way of getting his point across. When he makes his ideals heard, his actions are wasted on a thoughtless and shallow society. Jay Gatsby effectively embodies a romantic idealism that is sustained and destroyed by the intensity of his own dream. It is also Gatsby’s ideals that blind him to reality.

    Read More

  • What Is The Power Of Love In The Great Gatsby

    1117 Words  | 3 Pages

    The power of love truly drives someone to become something even if they come from nothing. The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a novel set in the time of the Roaring 20’s. It was a story of a young, poor man by the name of Jay Gatz motivated to end up with the woman of his dreams, Daisy Fay. Daisy left him for a man of wealth and high social class, Tom Buchanan. He did everything that he possibly could have in his power to win Daisy, but it was never enough for Daisy to demote herself from old money to new money. All of the characters lived despairing, unfaithful lives all in the title of social status and wealth, they did not care about love only their title. The obsession for wealth causes people to make

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby Themes And Motifs

    1347 Words  | 3 Pages

    Gatsby decides to devote his whole life to achieving the material goods with which to satisfy Daisy. The Quote, "Her voice is full of money," is said about Daisy by Gatsby.(76) To me this means that she has been raised rich and will always remain rich, which is the American dream. He lives in the past on a moment of absolute happiness hoping he can relive that state of emotion sometime in the future. Jay Gatsby, like any normal person, wants to fit into society. His feelings for Daisy make him strive to achieve that goal. In the novel "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jay Gatsby attempts to fit into Daisy's society by any means available.

    Read More

  • gatdream The Dream in F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby Great Gatsby Essays

    821 Words  | 2 Pages

    Jay Gatsby, the central character of F. Scott Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby symbolizes the American dream. The American dream offers faith in the possibility of a better life. Its attendant illusion is the belief that material wealth alone can bring that dream to fruition. Through Gatsby, Fitzgerald brings together both these ideas. Jay Gatsby thinks money is the answer to anything he encounters. He has the best of everything. The fanciest car, the largest house, and the finest clothes. Jay has everything except the object he most desires, Daisy. Gatsby believes he can win Daisy over with wealth, that he could achieve the ideal she stood for through his material possessions.

    Read More

More about Essay Comparing The Great Gatsby And Their Eyes Were Watching God

Open Document