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Similarities Between Of Mice And Men And The Great Gatsby

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Helping others in American Literature

Though helping others achieve their dreams we ourselves can find happiness in our own lives. That is one of the themes created by characters in books The Great Gatsby and Of Mice and Men. The Great Gatsby takes place in the roaring 20’s. The is a story about Nick Carraway and the hidden secrets he learns and creates while becoming friends with his mysterious neighbor Jay Gatsby. Of Mice and Men is a drastic change from the Great Gatsby, it takes place in the 30’s during the dust bowl. It is a story about two big time dreamers, George Milton and Lennie Small, and the hardships they face while trying to reach their dream. In both stories the American dream is a big part of most of the characters, and each …show more content…

Nick agrees to invite Daisy over to his house so that Gatsby can see her (Fitzgerald 82-83). After Nick agrees Gatsby tries to offer him a job that will help him earn extra money (Fitzgerald 82-83). Nick declines his offer. This shows that Nick isn’t doing this to get something out of Gatsby, but just to help Gatsby be happy. Though in the end his attempts to reconnect them fully seems to be a fruitless effort this still shows that he tries to help Gatsby achieve the only thing that will complete his dream. Nick also comes to town with the group because Gatsby tells him Daisy is ready to leave Tom (Fitzgerald 114). He does this because he supports Gatsby in his imperative mission to win Daisy, therefore achieving his dream. When Gatsby dies Nick is the one who plans Gatsby’s funeral and takes care of everything (Fitzgerald 164). He stays loyal to Gatsby and never once gave up on him. Like Nick Carraway Steinbeck develops the character Slim to be a helping character. He is a caring character that helps George, but he also has a main role in the ranch and is one of the stable

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“Winter Dreams” and The Great Gatsby The short story of “Winter Dreams” and The Great Gatsby book are both written by F.Scott Fitzgerald. The American Dream is pursued in a similar way in the Great Gatsby and “Winter Dreams” thought the very materialistic characters Jay Gatsby and Dexter Green, falling in love with Judy and Daisy. The characters use the ideals of the American Dream (hard work, achievement, being self-reliant) to win the women they love.

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The 1930’s was a tough time for a bountiful amount of people and everyone was craving the idea of the American dream and being successful. Both John Steinbeck and F. Scott Fitzgerald portrayed the idea of the failed American dream through their novels, The Great Gatsby and Of mice and men, using various stylistic elements. Though Steinbeck and Fitzgerald used these elements differently they still bestowed the idea of a failed attempt at the American dream through foreshadowing, symbolism, and setting upon us. Both authors Steinbeck and Fitzgerald used foreshadowing as a hint of what might happen in the future of Lennie and Gatsby.

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Nick does not speak to Gatsby until chapter 3 and Nick didn’t really notice who he was speaking to when he first met Gatsby. At first glance at Gatsby, it seems like he is someone who is innocent and is also someone that seems charming. However, Nick has a negative perspective towards Gatsby: “Precisely at that point it vanished- and I was looking at an elegant young roughneck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd” (Fitzgerald 48).

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#1 New York Times Bestseller Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen and America’s greatest novel, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald share many similarities and connections. Both novels are set in the 1920’s. The Great Gatsby set in the roaring 1920’s and Water For Elephants in the first stage of the Great Depression, when the stock market crashed in 1929. Both novels also include fancy parties, in The Great Gatsby, it was in his beautiful mansion and the best house in West Egg and in Water For Elephants it was in car 48, which was the best car from the entire circus crew. The two novels, The Great Gatsby and Water For Elephants share connections and similar ideas with the American Dream and also similarities with the characters.

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At the beginning the plot was more of who was Gatsby and Tom Buchanan having an affair on Daisy. Nick then got invited to Gatsby's for one his amazing parties. Gatsby tells Jordan Baker to ask a favor of him that gets him involved in the plot. This favor is “ If you'll invite Daisy to your house some afternoon and then let him come over”(Fitzgerald 76). This quote from the book shows how Nick Carraway got put into the plot of The Great Gatsby by inviting Daisy to his house

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822 Words | 4 Pages

Crooks is the only black man on the ranch and is isolated because of his skin color. He doesn’t have many friends on the ranch because he is forced to sleep in the barn instead of the bunkhouse. One day when Lennie comes into the barn to play with the puppies, he comes into Crooks’ room. Although Crooks’ acts like he doesn’t want Lennie to come in, he still invites him to sit down. He talks to Lennie about George and reveals his bitterness about being alone, “You got George.

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Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck is set during the Great Depression, a time of pursuing the great American dream. That dream was based on “the ideals of freedom, equality, and opportunity traditionally held to be available to every American.” The novel focuses on the theme of realistic dreams and not on ideal life. Each character’s life, choices, and thoughts portray the characteristics of these dreams. Characters Lennie, Crooks, George and Curley’s wife display these characteristics well.

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Gatsby couldn't even talk to her without Nick’s presence. He needed Nick to be there and when Gatsby wanted to back out he needed the support of Nick to keep him there. For what he worked so hard for I don't understand why he keeps trying to run away like child. Nick had no “idea what “this matter” was, but [Nick] was more annoyed than interested. [Nick] hadn’t asked Jordan to tea in order to discuss [Gatsby]... and for a moment [Nick] was sorry [he’d] ever set foot upon [Gatsby’s] overpopulated lawn.

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“Of Mice and Men” is a play written by John Steinbeck during the 1930’s. Likewise, the play is also set during that time. The play, which centers around two farmer hands’ struggle to achieve their ambitious dream of owning a farm of their own despite harsh external conditions, aims to reflect the lives of middle-class Americans during the Great Depression. The play’s main element, in my opinion, is the fact that it was set in a time of struggle for all socioeconomic classes due to the upperclassmen’s financial catastrophe. Steinbeck brilliantly explores individual struggles in different characters in the play and how they are hidden within a much bigger societal problem that is experienced not only nationally but globally as well.

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F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway are among the most prominent exponents of literature of the twentieth century. Forming part of the Lost Generation, these authors not only develop similar themes throughout their works, but heavily influenced each other. The Great Gatsby being Fitzgerald’s magnum opus, serves as a prime illustration of the staples of contemporary literature. In the novel The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald, the author depicts himself through a character, Nick Carraway, conforming to other self depiction common in the Lost Generation, such as Hemingway in the Nick Adams stories. Nick Carraway and Nick Adams represent Fitzgerald and Hemingway, both serving as apertures into Fitzgerald’s and Hemingway’s view of the world.

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Adams’ depiction of what constitutes the American Dream provides a juxtaposition when contrasted with the negatively-portrayed underlying theme in these two classics of American Literature. In The Great Gatsby Scott F. Fitzgerald frames a story set in the iconic jazz-age of the Roaring Twenties. After a victory in the Great War, the quintessential era was seen as a prosperous time of extravagant parties and new beginnings when everything, including the character of Jay Gatsby who gives name to this novel, seemed possible. However, lost within the whirlwind of his own dreams Gatsby’s glory plummets under his unwavering faith in the American Dream. Offering a stark contrast and almost a decade later, John Steinbeck develops a world stuck in the Great Depression where its

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1981 Words | 8 Pages

For Gatsby it was his passion to keep achieving more. When he became rich he just let anyone into his home to make himself feel like his success was brought him something, but at the same time he did not talk to any of them. The truth was though, that Gatsby held parties not to share his success or even to be around people; he held them just to wait for the only thing that would make him complete: Daisy. All he did was focus on Daisy who he felt was the only person that could bring him happiness, but it led him to being very absent from others’ lives. Nick was invited to a party at Gatsby’s house and when he arrived at his house he explains, “I made an attempt to find my host but the two or three people of whom I asked his whereabouts stared at me in such an amazed away and denied so vehemently any knowledge of his movements” (Fitzgerald 46).

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1054 Words | 5 Pages

His one goal in life is to become wealthy and worthy enough of Daisy’s love. She is his motivator for almost everything in his life. He buys a home right acros the bay from Daisy’s, he hosts marvelous parties in the hopes she wanders in, and he grew his wealth in order to obtain the feeling of being worthy enough for her. Nick is highly aware of this and often talks about how he admire’s Gatsby for this. One of the last things that Nick says to Gatsby is, “‘They’re a rotten crowd, I shouted, across the lawn.

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1133 Words | 5 Pages

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby is a reflection of the American Dream. Written in 1925, the book tells the story of a man named Jay Gatsby, whose main driving force in life is the pursuit of a woman called Daisy Buchanan. The narrator is Gatsby’s observant next-door neighbor, Nick Carraway, who offers a fresh, outsider’s perspective on the events; the action takes place in New York during the so-called Roaring Twenties. By 1922, when The Great Gatsby takes place, the American Dream had little to do with Providence divine and a great deal to do with feelings organized around style and personal changed – and above all, with the unexamined self .

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2182 Words | 9 Pages

The narrator's role in influencing the reader's sense of money and power is also important in the novels. The narrator, Nick Carraway, is an outsider in The Great Gatsby, watching the excesses of the rich elite and the destructive nature of their ambition for wealth and prestige. The narrator's commentary on the novel's events exposes the perils of a government dominated by a tiny elite and serves as a cautionary note to the reader. The American Dream and how it is tainted by money and power is a major subject in The Great Gatsby. The story portrays the American Dream as a sham, tainted by the desire

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