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What Are The Similarities Between Ethan Frome And The Great Gatsby

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Although seemingly love stories, the calamitous tales Ethan Frome and The Great Gatsby depict two characters, who in their struggle to find “true love”, end up lost in a tragedy. The Great Gatsby sets the reader head-on into the roaring 20s amidst the unspoken conflict between “old money” and “new money”. Ethan Frome takes place in the fictitious town of Starkfield, Massachusets and its story is stitched together by the unidentified narrator. The lavish mansions and depiction of city life in The Great Gatsby drastically contrast the small farms, deep in the woods in Ethan Frome. Nevertheless, Gatsby and Ethan share many characteristics as tragic heroes. Evidently, The Great Gatsby by Scott F. Fitzgerald and Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome are …show more content…

Ethan and Gatsby share many traits as characters but one main similarity between them is how they are both in turmoil at the end of the stories. In Ethan Frome, Ethan is left paralyzed and is stuck with Zeena and Mattie, living an unfulfilled life. Ethan’s life is droning and monotonous which is prominently depicted when Mrs. Hale admits to the narrator that she, “‘...don’t see there's much difference between the Fromes up at the farm and the Fromes down in the graveyard” (Wharton 157). To Mrs. Hale, the Fromes are ghost-like figures, as they are quiet and have lost all will to live life. Ethan has trapped himself into the life he was trying to escape and made his, Zeena’s, and Mattie’s life more difficult. Similarly to this, Gatsby never achieves his goal of obtaining Daisy’s love and eventually dies alone, with hardly any people at his funeral. During Gatsby’s funeral, Nick mentions while describing the scene, “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). Although a well-known and wealthy man, there were very few people who truly cared for Gatsby, which is displayed through the faltering attendance. Gatsby was determined to form a relationship with Daisy but in the end, no matter how hard he tried, he was stuck in the

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A novel that comments on society and the choices people make within it, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald makes a compelling story laced with deceit, hope, and the unattainable. Fitzgerald paints many colorful characters within this novel, but Daisy Buchanan seems to always be in the spotlight. Daisy searches for wealth and love, but finds them in two different men. Daisy Buchanan deceives the men in her life searching for her goal of having “everything” showing that this grail quest is doomed to fail.

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Can a smile on the outside conceal the turmoil of an unhappy marriage within?". Characters like Ethan Frome in Edith Wharton's novel Ethan Frome and Daisy Buchanan in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby provides compelling examples of the unhappiness that can pervade marital relationships. Marriages may seem happy, but this is not the case in reality. Daisy Buchanan experiences internal conflicts between her personal desires of happiness and societal expectations.

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Gatsby had spent so much time and effort pursuing this unrealistic view of Daisy that it became impossible for her to live up to these expectations. He never made a real effort to find out who she actually is, or even simply respect that she had created a life apart from him. It’s unsurprising that he is disappointed by reality; he has been living in an elaborate dream, deluding himself to believe that his plan to win her over will work just because he wants it to, and ignoring the real factors that would break this illusion until it is broken for him. Gatsby is aware of the factors playing against him when it comes to his dream of being with Daisy, such as her marriage and commitment to her family, but he creates a mental version of events that serve him when he cannot accept this reality. Subsequently, he suffers from realizing that his imagined perfect version of Daisy and their perfect life together is not real or reasonable.

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Oftentimes throughout literature, characters are symbols. Therefore, similar character traits reappear in different novels. The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a novel about the life of a wealthy outcast struggling with love in the iconic Jazz Age. In the book, one of the main characters, Tom Buchanan, is brutal, violent, and unfaithful. These same traits are evident in the character James “Jimmy” Hawkins from Practical Magic, a novel written by Alice Hoffman following two sisters lives and the events that alter their courses.

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In F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby, the two main male characters, Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby, represent two vastly different social classes and attitudes towards life. Tom represents the old money aristocracy, while Gatsby represents the nouveau riche. The two men are also competing for the affections of Daisy, Tom's wife and Gatsby's former lover. In this essay, I will compare and contrast Tom Buchanan and Jay Gatsby, highlighting their differences in personality, social class, and attitude towards life, while providing evidence and commentary from the novel. Tom Buchanan, a former college football star, comes from a wealthy, established family and is a member of the elite social class.

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Name: Jordyn Bonife Period: 3 Title: Gatsby is a tragedy Larson, English 11 Jay Gatsby’s flaws - His obsession with Daisy, his deprivation to live his American dream, and his inability to accept reality - in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby are the primary catalysts for all things tragic in the novel. Jay Gatsby is obsessed and madly in love with Daisy Buchanan, so much to the point where he would do anything for her, even die. “Was Daisy driving?”

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Firstly, Fitzgerald begins by including different tone settings throughout the malicious murder in order to demonstrate the different forms of grief toward the different deaths. At the beginning of the close read when Gatsby anticipates a call from Daisy, Fitzgerald writes, “... he no longer cared. If that was true he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream”. This reveals the exact moment when the character of Jay Gatsby’s time has come to an end and dies. Jay will not obtain the individual that holds onto his dreams, therefore implying that we will never seize the day that all of the goals he manifested into Daisy, will not only be gone from his clutch, but also passed onto her husband, Tom, who portrays the epitome of hatred in Gatsby's vision.

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F. Scott Fitzgerald shares with the reader something that would make them feel uncomfortable to show the craziness that Gatsby has gone to for Daisy. A normal person does not collect photos of someone that they are secretly in love with and Fitzgerald knows this, which is why he adds it. This makes the reader now rethink what they had thought of Gatsby as just a mysterious character now making them think of him as a crazy stalker obsessed with Daisy. As the reader further understands Gatsby's crazy love, the author shows them the extent to which Gatsby will go regarding Daisy and the accident resulting in Myrtle's death. After the accident Nick talks to Gatsby to further understand the incident in which Nick asks Gatsby, “‘Was Daisy driving?’” to which Gatsby replies with, “‘Yes,’ he said after a moment, ‘but of course, I'll say I was’” (143).

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818 Words | 4 Pages

Gatsby could be one of the most shallow, unaware and manipulative characters in the book. The only things he cares about are money, material things, and Daisy. His judgment is clouded by love and desire for these things. Although much of Gatsby's actions are based upon the pursuit of material possessions, he values one thing even more, Daisy. Gatsby, throughout the whole book, only has one goal: to get Daisy, and he will stop at nothing to get her.

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In a book about a tragic love story, one would not expect to find a deeper meaning behind the dangers of jealousy or peril of lust. However, in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, there is a deeper meaning beyond jealousy and love. In The Great Gatsby, the author uses an empathetic storyline as a symbol to unwittingly give a complex depiction of the nuisance that people create that not only destroy our world but our society and gives warning to what will occur if we continue the path of destruction. With this intention, the brilliant opinionated writer, expressed his opinion through symbols such as the characters he uses, the setting the story takes place in, and the objects he uses in the book.

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1134 Words | 5 Pages

Although the common theme of The Great Gatsby is love, the true themes are lust and greed, which are the source of the book’s dark scenes. The true natures of the characters are never revealed, only their words and emotions, but never their personalities. And by extension, the

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1233 Words | 5 Pages

Their relentless ambition, devoid of ethical considerations, sets the stage for their eventual downfall, illustrating the addictive and destructive nature of such pursuits. Deception plays a crucial role in both Gatsby and Macbeth’s journeys, as they knit complex lies to attain their ambitions. Gatsby constructs an elaborate persona and fabricates stories about his past to gain social status and win Daisy's love. He tells Nick Carraway and others fanciful tales of being an Oxford man and inheriting his wealth, creating an image of a sophisticated and accomplished man. Nick notes Gatsby’s deceptive nature, describing him as someone who had “an extraordinary gift for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person” (Fitzgerald, p. 6).

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470 Words | 2 Pages

Gatsby invests his life to winning Daisy that his ambition turns into an obsession of having Daisy. Gatsby builds up a facade of his life to look more intriguing for Daisy. Gatsby throws parties to try to attract Daisy, but these parties are host to many guests that “came and went without having met Gatsby at all” (41). Gatsby’s death erases the facade of popularity when no one who went to a party of his shows up at the funeral. Gatsby is alone in the end.

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703 Words | 3 Pages

Ever since Gatsby had left Daisy, he has felt content with his life because he knows something is missing. Gatsby feels lonely and will continue to feel lonely without Daisy. Gatsby’s diminishing life is full of loneliness because it is “the promise of a decade of loneliness, a thinning list of single men to know, a thinning brief-case of enthusiasm, thinning hair” (129). Gatsby never does have Daisy all to himself, and dies knowing he never achieved anything more than great wealth. Gatsby is a perfect example of an

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853 Words | 4 Pages

Jay Gatsby, the title character of the novel “The Great Gatsby” is a man that can not seem to live without the love of his life. Trying to win Daisy over consumes Gatsby’s life as he tries to become the person he thinks she would approve of. What most readers do not realize is that Jay Gatsby’s character mirrors many personality traits and concerns that the author of novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald, had. In fact, Gatsby and Fitzgerald are similar in that they both had a girl they wanted to win over, took a strong stance on alcohol, and ironically both had similar funerals, also, both people also symbolize the American dream.

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