The Great Gatsby and The Sun Also Rises

2155 Words5 Pages

Americans in the 1920s were fresh off of World War I and freshly into the Prohibition Era. The American Dream was well defined- a life of wealth, comfort, and exuberance. After a World War I victory, the Dream was thought to be in the near future for every American. The country was seen as a world superpower, wealthy after the devastation of a war fought entirely overseas and brimming with hope and possibility- at least on the surface. Despite the highs experienced by much of the country, it wasn't without its problems. Crime violence was benevolently running the streets and the Speakeasies beyond the reach of full Prohibition, the world was being set-up for The Great Depression, and America was brimming with members of the "Lost Generation." This generation and the hypocrisies and idiosyncracies of the "American Dream" inspired a rising and influential set of artists, poets and writers, and a list of best-selling books that both reflected and inspired the generation that devoured them. Authors such as Ernest Hemingway, Edith Wharton, Anita Loos, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Sinclair Lewis were some of the popular fiction authors of the 1920s who both entertained and delighted their readers, while also offering an intelligent reality check about the limits and realities of the American Dream.

The Sun Also Rises was one of the earliest novels to encapsulate the ideas of the Lost Generation and the shortcomings of the American Dream. The novel, by Ernest Hemingway, follows Jake Barnes and a group of his friends and acquaintances as they (all Americans) live in Paris during 1924, seven years after World War I. Jake, a veteran of the United States, suffers from a malady affecting his genitalia, which (though it isn't detailed in the s...

... middle of paper ...

...masculinity to Jordan Baker.

The Great Gatsby presents the similar wasteland ideals of The Sun Also Rises. Both authors appear to have taken cues or inspiration from T.S. Eliot's "The Waste Land " and depict an emptiness in the mass part of their settings. The Sun Also Rises often portrayed it's main characters lazing about and merely chatting and/or eating in Parisian cafes, signifying the lack of any real substance in their lives. Gatsby, too, features desolate wastelands in the Valley of Ashes , and even an emptiness in the lavish parties that Gatsby throws in his home in West Egg . Fitzgerald spends multiple pages listing the guests at Gatsby's parties during the course of 1922's summer. These guests carry names such as Hammerhead, Beluga, and Gulick; which indicate not only a drab feel but a lack of history, a sense of vulgarity, and a lack of real nobility.

Show More
Related

  • Alcoholism In The Sun Also Rises By Ernest Hemingway

    887 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout The Sun Also Rises, Hemingway paints a tragic picture of young adults being haunted by the lasting effects of post traumatic stress disorder onset by their participation in World War I and the restrictions it placed on their ability to construct relationships.

    Read More

  • The Sun Also Rises by Hemingway

    917 Words  | 2 Pages

    The novel, The Sun also Rises, was written by Ernest Hemingway and published in 1926. It tells a story of the 1920s, also known as the Lost Generation. World War I affects all of the characters in this book and plays a large role in their love lives. In Ernest Hemingway’s novel, Lady Brett Ashley is an attractive woman who uses her beauty as advantage towards men. Brett is involved in many different affairs and has many different relationships. Mike Campbell, Pedro Romero, Robert Cohn, and the most Jake Barnes. Brett is very powerful in these relationships, causing them to be very destructive to both Brett and the men. A group of American and British citizens travel from Paris to the festival of San Fermin in Pamplona, Spain, where their true characters are exposed through their drunken interactions. Throughout this novel, love is a major theme that is constantly affecting all of the characters involved.

    Read More

  • The Honest Truth of the American Dream: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

    1049 Words  | 3 Pages

    Throughout history people pursue three simple concepts that they believe will lead them to a perfect life; freedom, to be independent, and the ability to advance and succeed in their life. These three ideas are major components of what has become known as the American dream, a dream that is beautiful in the fact that it provides people with hope and a goal. This dream is what caused so many settlers to travel to the new world, the idea of being able to be anyone they wanted to be, even in modern times it still draws thousand if not millions to its magnificent idea. Unfortunately, it has slightly changed into an idea of being able to own a big house, be with someone they love, and live a life of ease. This ideal life, which so many strive for, is unreachable due to the harsh reality of life and inequality of man. However in the roaring times of the twenties Americans were not focused on the reality of life but were more focused on the idea of freedom and independence than ever before, they believed that they were free to do as they willed; they drank, they spent money, they partied, and they lusted. In Fitzgerald's book, The Great Gatsby, which is set in the twenties, we see just this; we see parties, excessive amounts of drinking and love affairs.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby

    903 Words  | 2 Pages

    In life, we ask ourselves the question what we are? In addition, we also ask ourselves how our perspectives allow us to see this world? These questions are an opening idea’s, which requires the person answering it, to be fully aware of his or her life, and then have the ability to judge it without any personal bias. This is why, in the book that was and is in a sense is still talked about in class, The Great Gatsby, which is a book that follows a plethora of charters all being narrated by, Nick Caraway, a character of the book The Great Gatsby. Nick Caraway is the character in the book which judges and describes his and other character’s actions and virtues. Now we speak of a character whose name is Jay Gatsby or other whys known as James Gatz, which is one of the characters that Mr. Caraway, seems to be infatuated with from the start of the book. This character Jay Gatsby develops a perspective, which in his view seems to justify his actions by the way that he saw the world that he was living in. In this essay, I will explain why the ambitions of a person, can lead them to do things that are beyond there normal character.

    Read More

  • Movie And Book Comparison Of The Great Gatsby

    779 Words  | 2 Pages

    In striking contrast, Fitzgerald described Gatsby’s parties as mischievous, yet sophisticated. There wasn’t any spinning or strobe lights like there was in the film, because things such as that weren’t available commercially in the 1920’s. Gatsby’s parties weren’t the only place to be vitalized. The Novel and Film Valley of Ashes were in evident contrast. The “Film Valley of Ashes” did have ash, but it was far from barren.

    Read More

  • America and the Decay of Morality: The Great Gatsby and The Sun Also Rises Introduction

    2099 Words  | 5 Pages

    The American Dream and the decay of American values has been one of the most popular topics in American fiction in the 20th century. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises create a full picture of American failure and pursue its ideals after the end of World War I by portraying the main characters as outsiders and describing the transportation in a symbolic way. Putting the aimless journeys for material life foreground, Fitzgerald and Hemingway skillfully link West and men and associate East to not only money but women. As American modernists, Hemingway utilizes his simple and dialog-oriented writing to appeal to readers and Fitzgerald ambiguously portrays Gatsby through a narrator, Nick, to cynically describe American virtue and corruption, which substantially contribute to modernism in literature.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby

    1004 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the novel The Great Gatsby, by Francis Scott Fitzgerald, various uses of symbolism and motifs appear throughout the story and provide insight into the deeper ideas of the book. The homes of the title character Jay Gatsby and major character Tom Buchanan are examples of this. The previous owner of Gatsby’s home was a brewery magnate, and the man who owned Tom’s house was an oil baron. The effects of wealth on the current owners of these two houses have characteristics similar to the fluids that the previous owners worked with. The way that Gatsby’s money affects him shares some qualities with alcohol, whereas the effects that Tom’s money has on him have several traits similar to those of oil. How Tom and Gatsby act due to their wealthy status assist in presenting one of the overarching themes of the work; despite how captivating it appears have wealth from a distance, and no matter what method is used to gain it, wealth has harmful effects on both the wealthy themselves and the people that they come in contact with.

    Read More

  • The Importance Of Setting In The Great Gatsby

    1071 Words  | 3 Pages

    Setting is essential to any good novel, it envelopes the entire work and pervades every scene and line for, as Jack M. Bickham said, “when you choose setting, you had better choose it wisely and well, because the very choice defines—and circumscribes—your story’s possibilities”. F. Scott Fitzgerald created a setting in The Great Gatsby that not only is an overarching motif in the story, but implants itself in each character that hails from West Egg, East Egg, and the Valley of Ashes. West Egg, symbolizing the new, opportunistic rich, representative of the American dream, East Egg, the established, aristocratic rich, and the Valley of Ashes, the crumbling decay of society, are linked together in the “haunted” image of the East, the hollow, shallow, and brutal land that Fitzgerald uses to illustrate the hollow, shallow, and brutal people living there (176).

    Read More

  • Character Analysis of Jake Barnes

    1935 Words  | 4 Pages

    The pivotal character of Ernest Hemingway's novel, The Sun Also Rises is Jake Barnes. He is a man of complex personality--compelling, powerful, restrained, bitter, pathetic, extraordinarily ordinary yet totally human. His character swings from one end of the psychological spectrum to the other end. He has complex personality, a World War I veteran turned writer, living in Paris. To the world, he is the epitome of self-control but breaks down easily when alone, plagued by self-doubt and fears of inadequacy. He is at home in the company of friends in the society where he belongs, but he sees himself as someone from the outside looking in. He is not alone, yet he is lonely. He strikes people as confident, ambitious, careful, practical, quiet and straightforward. In reality, he is full of self-doubt, afraid and vulnerable.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby

    824 Words  | 2 Pages

    In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s classic novel The Great Gatsby, the reader is able to interpret the major socio-economic classes represented in Marxist Theory. Fitzgerald connects character actions and class status to a Marxist representation of the socio-economic structure of 1920’s American society.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby - Dreams of Happiness

    1685 Words  | 4 Pages

    The American Dream seems almost non-existent to those who haven’t already achieved it. Every character in the novel has moments of feeling happy and endures a moment where they believe that they are about to achieve their dreams. Naturally everyone dreams of being a better person, having better things and in 1920’s America, the scheme of getting rich is quick. However, each character had their dreams crushed in the novel mainly because of social and economic situations and their dream of happiness becomes a ‘dead dream’ leading them back to their ‘shallow lives’ or no life at all.

    Read More

  • Lost Characters in Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises

    1071 Words  | 3 Pages

    In the novel The Sun Also Rises, by Ernest Hemingway, the lost generation is discussed. After the WWI, many were affected in different ways. This post-war generation is described by discrimination, lack of religion, escapism and inability to act.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby Book Report

    3257 Words  | 7 Pages

    In writing this book, commonly refered to as the “Great American Novel”, F. Scott Fitzgerald achieved in showing future generations what the early twenties were like, and the kinds of people that lived then. He did this in a beautifully written novel with in-depth characters, a captivating plot, and a wonderful sense of the time period.

    Read More

  • The Lost Generation In The Great Gatsby And The Sun Also Rises

    1900 Words  | 4 Pages

    These events helped to shape their writing in The Great Gatsby, The Sun Also Rises and many other works of literature they wrote after the war. The Great Gatsby and The Sun Also Rises portray the Lost Generation, from different viewpoints. The Great Gatsby is a reflection of the Lost Generation from America’s perspective. One where the exuberance of the Jazz Age was used to hide the disillusionment that they were confronted with at the end of the war. The Sun Also Rises depicts the Lost Generation as it was in Europe, specifically Paris.

    Read More

  • The Lost Generation Exposed in The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway

    2080 Words  | 5 Pages

    Finally, Ernest Hemingway wrote The Sun Also Rises as an allegorical tale of the times he realized first hand and experienced as a way of life; indeed, his utilization of symbolism and character development represent the aimlessness of the “Lost Generation.” Works Cited Bloom, Harold. A. A. American Fiction between the Wars. Philadelphia: Chelsea House, 2005.

    Read More

More about The Great Gatsby and The Sun Also Rises

Open Document