Rumors In The Great Gatsby And Hamlet

Many people surrounding the protagonists in both F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “The Great Gatsby”, and William Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”, make use of rumors to further assist the deception of their characters, Jay Gatsby, and Hamlet, respectively. In “The Great Gatsby,” Jay Gatsby uses his wealth in order to conceal his inferiority in status from everybody so that he would be perceived as high-class. In Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”, Hamlet hides his motives for exacting revenge on his uncle by appearing delusional. Both characters keep secrets in order to achieve their goals against their antagonists.

Jay Gatsby’s life was filled with deception in an attempt to appear wealthy to make his way up to the East Egg. An example of this is when Nick says, “The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God...So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end”. This quote was said by Nick, who had recently learned the truth about Gatsby’s past. He uses allusion as he references Platonic

In order to make sense of his behavior, the royal family spies on Hamlet. Polonius, the king’s chief counselor, believes that he is lovesick for his daughter Ophelia. However, in reality, Hamlet plans to kill the king. Hamlet’s deception can be seen when he is questioned by Polonius as he says, “These tedious old fools!”(Shakespeare, II.II. 218). After Polonius leaves Hamlet, Hamlet drops his act and refers to Polonius and King Claudius as fools. The fact that Hamlet uses the plural of “fool” proves that he is very much aware of the happenings around him, and is not, in fact, delusional. In