What Are The Similarities Between Breakfast At Tiffany's And The Great Gatsby

Both Capote’s Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby illustrate that when one’s life is centered on the propriety and luxury that a traditionalistic lifestyle supports, they will repress into the comfort they’ve always known and fail to progress towards the American Dream. Those who start from humbler beginnings, however, possess the ambition that drives them to follow their vision of the American dream, failing to realize how unrealistic their dreams have become.
Topic Sentences:
Both Jose and Daisy have a hard time associating with the self-made class, as they lack the propriety and caution that satisfies the wealthy elitists.
Daisy and Jose’s fear of losing the reputation among society’s elite and the wealth that has

provided them with a safety net causes them to go to extreme measures to keep from falling in status, hurting those at the bottom along the way.
The ambition within both Gatsby and Holly push them to strive for their American dream, a dream that seems attainable at this point.
The realization that the American Dream is unattainable reveals the dangerous aspect of the modern citizen’s ambition, yet they will continue to keep searching within the illusion of the American Dream to find the hope it once promised.
Blended Quotes:
Holly appears to love Jose, though her interpretation of love is flighty, but feels that he is not her ideal lover because “he worries what people think,” and is afraid to be under public scrutiny. Holly notices how he “always turns his back to get dressed,” as he is overly concerned with acting proper, even afraid to show skin in the confines of his bedroom. As an elite, he has an image to obtain and in order to do so he must remain “too prim, too cautious,” afraid to take a risk and possibly further himself because it is easier to reside in the safety of his money (Capote 65).
Though she is happy to spend time experiencing Gatsby’s lifestyle and to spend a night with him, everything about his parties “offends” her because it’s not a “gesture but an emotion”, a concept that she has never been bred to believe in, as following one’s emotions rather than logic is not the traditional way to make decisions and is why she fails to sustain a relationship. The West-Egg party go-ers pretentious display of themselves and their ability to draw attention to themselves so openly reveals the “raw vigor that chafed under the old euphemisms”, as the raw emotions of the West Egg citizens contradicts the East Egg’s belief that it is proper to mask one’s hedonistic tendencies in a euphemistic way. The “simplicity” of the attendees is something that she “failed to understand”, the idea that these people’s simple devotion to money and their desire to display their accumulation of wealth until death is simply an idea that Daisy can’t get behind (Fitzgerald 107).
Jose hears of Holly’s arrest in a “public style,” providing him with fear that others will recognize his association with a criminal in such a public manner, an association that is frowned upon for an elite man. Jose degrades Holly for being apart of the self made class, as she is “different from the manner of woman a man of [his] faith and [his] career could hope to make his wife,” displaying the threat that a wild and improper women like Holly is to his career and position in society. Jose admits that he has always put his reputation first and for that he is a “coward”, categorizing himself as someone who is fearful to take risks and break the patterns that he has held for his whole life (Capote 78/79).
The actions of Daisy and the wealthy class that she is apart of are “careless people” who “smash both things and creatures,” as they have little regard for those who they have taken advantage of and they are in a sense unaware of the extent to which their actions have caused destruction.

They are blind to the harm they are allowing because they are too busy “retreat[ing] into their money,” giving them the reassurance of a safe haven that their wealth has constructed for them, something that the self-made class has never known. By hiding away into their luxurious life, the only people left to “clean up the mess” they have made is the lower class who already have so many other problems to deal with that yet, they must clean up the careless mistakes that they did not make (Fitzgerald

179).
When at Tiffany’s, Holly feels that “nothing bad could happen,” revealing that finding a place like TIffany’s where she can settle would provide her with a feeling of safety. The men in the store are dressed in “nice suits” and their is a lovely smell of “silver and alligator wallets,” displaying the comfort and stability that money provides, as all three items are of monetary value. Holly has never been happy enough with her life to settle down and once she can find a “real-life” place like Tiffany’s, a concrete home instead of a place that she simply dreams about, she might be able to “buy some furniture and give the cat a name,” (Capote 32).
After winning back the affection of his East-Egg lover, Gatsby “revalued everything” in his home based on what Daisy wanted, as he is willing to go to any extreme to keep Daisy happy and to keep his American dream of true love alive.

Gatsby’s possessions no longer contain meaning in comparison to “astounding presence” of Daisy that makes everything else seem “no longer real,” for Daisy is the only reality that he desired and everything else before her was just apart of the American dream that has now turned reality. Gatsby’s “unreasonable joy” is one of the first genuine emotions he has displayed within the story, as most of his emotions are ingenuine along with his self-constructed identity that he breaks down for the first time. Gatsby must be careful however, because like an “overwound clock,” he is overestimating the time he has with his lover and the happiness she provides for him, foreshadowing the short-lived American dream of many (Fitzgerald

91/92).
Holly had never even given the cat a name because she was still searching for her American Dream when all along the cat and her “belonged together,” displaying the realization that she did in fact find a home within her cat and the people within her life, yet she was too ambitious and always strived for more. The fact that Holly fails to realize “what’s [her’s] until [she’s] thrown it away” scares her because the dream she was always looking for has already passed her up, yet she still feels unsatisfied with her life. Holly is afraid that she will “forever” be ignorant of knowing the importance of the people and possessions in her life, though the American Dream does last forever (Capote 86).
Gatsby’s ambition had carried him a long way, and his dream appeared to be “so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it,”as he had everything he wanted in front of him while spending time with Daisy. However his dream was “already behind him” because in reality, Daisy was never going to be satisfied with a self made man like himself and it was foolish of him to think that he could obtain a future with a woman like Daisy. The ambition of Gatsby allowed him to “believe in the green light”, a symbol for the American Dream and in his case Daisy because the American Dream “eluded [him],” as it gives modernized men like Gatsby the belief that if one takes risks and works hard they can turn their dreams to reality. The naivete of the self-made man is evident in that “tomorrow [he] will run faster and stretch [his] arms out farther,” because the American Dream continues to lure those who always want bigger and better and who won’t stop until they’ve reached their goal and even then they will strive for more (Fitzgerald 180).