Significance Of Death In The Great Gatsby

American Literature is defined as the literature written or produced in the area of the United States and its preceding colonies. Death is a common concept portrayed in American Literature. Titles such as Of Mice and Men, Inherit the Wind, and The Great Gatsby all have character deaths as a major part of their plotlines. Even though these deaths are a major event to the readers of the novel, it minimally affects the other characters of the story. Theses novels show that death doesn’t affect the masses – life goes on. This is proven in the titles listed above by the death of Lenny Small in Of Mice and Men, the death of Matthew Brady in Inherit the Wind, and the death of Jay Gatz in The Great Gatsby. Lenny Small is a main character with a mental disability in the novel Of Mice and Men. Lenny is accompanied by a man named George who takes care of him throughout the novel. George is forced to shoot Lenny at the end of the novel and it seems as though he’s the only one who is greatly affected by this death. “Now what the hell ya suppose is eatin’ them?” (Steinbeck, 107) is one comment made by a ranch hand named

Jay Gatz, our main character, is virtually all that our narrator can talk about. The entire novel is about the dazzling life and the mysteriousness of this man. Even though the entire novel is about this man, his death at the end hardly affects anyone. Gatz threw giant parties every weekend and not a single guest showed up at his funeral. Before the funeral, our narrator talks about how he hopes guests will show up, saying, “The minister glanced several times at his watch, so I took him aside and asked him to wait for half an hour. But it wasn’t any use. Nobody came.” (Fitzgerald, 174). Even though this man had all kinds of people showing up to his parties, not a single person could be bothered to show up to his funeral. Their lives continued as if nothing ever