A Competitive Analysis of The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot and The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

   The Roaring Twenties bring to mind a generation of endless partying, which reflected very little of the morals of the generations preceding it. The world, for that generation, was fast-paced and thoroughly material, crowded with bizarre and colorful characters like David Belasco and Arnold Rothstein. Inspired by this era's "spiritually exhausted people" (Brians), F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and T. S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock address many of the same themes in attempting to restore the "lost generation." In developing these themes, both authors utilize weather, the concept of illusion versus reality and the direction of

Fitzgerald’s Great Gatsby and Elliot’s The Wasteland are two stories that similarly express the modernist post-war disillusionment. Both stories comment pessimistically on the direction that our world is moving in from the post-war modernist perspective. Both men looked past the roaring twenties, and realized that this time period was actually a moral wasteland. The final paragraphs of The Great Gatsby sum up their mutual lack of faith in American culture to improve.

In book, “The Great Gatsby,” F. Scott Fitzgerald depicts how the American was corrupted through wealth. Fitzgerald provides many examples. The most common example shown was Jay Gatsby. Gatsby’s idea that to achieve his American Dream must be to acquire wealth. In order to show this, Fitzgerald uses various literary elements. Two of those being imagery and foreshadowing, these played a critical role in describing the theme, and specific moods to show what was to come and as well as describe the story as a whole. These play a vital role in representing Gatsby’s life and journey to acquiring Daisy, his version of the American Dream.

F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ian McEwanpresent obsessive Idealised love as deranged and harmful.Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’, published in 1925,epitomises the euphoric atmosphere which permeated consumerist attitudes after WW1, during the period known as the ‘Roaring Twenties’ a revolutionary time associated with breaking tradition, Modernism, rapid technological change andnew definitions of the ‘modern’ woman. Fitzgerald’sfictional characters can be understood

The Great Gatsby is generally regarded as a story of love and tragedy, but in actuality, it was a story of a sad man chasing a baseless obsession with a woman and in trying to obtain this relationship, succumbing to immoral practices and ultimately dying alone. The author of The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a widely acclaimed author who had a life of tragedy and loss that greatly impacted his writing. He was able to see not only the light-hearted, celebratory, and successful side of the American Dream, but also the negative effects of overindulging with alcohol and incessant partying. He was able to indirectly write about himself and his losses in the stories he wrote. Unfortunately, he was not able to see how successful he had become.

As the narrator, the audience gets a deep insight into how Nick feels about Gatsby. Nick views Gatsby as an admirable figure, and thinks that Gatsby’s capacity to dream makes him “great.” Nick illustrates how, “...Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island sprang from his platonic conception of himself. He was a Son of God. A phrase which means anything means just that.” Plato was a Greek philosopher who created the idealism that every person aspires to some perfect or vastly superior form of itself. Therefore, when Nick refers to “platonic conception,” he is describing how Gatsby created himself based on envisions of his fondest dreams. Born into a poor farming family in North Dakota James Gatz always had a dream to belong in the upper class of

    Many argue that F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is an example of the "great American love story", but it is not. The Great Gatsby is not a tale about perfect love; it is a tale of love and lust corrupting individuals in their lives, and of an American dream that is never fulfilled. Throughout the story, we follow multiple relationships, but focus is on the single relationship between Gatsby and Daisy. This relationship, however, fails to fulfill many requirements that would make it a true love story, and thus, while some hardship is to be expected, this relationship encounters an excessive amount. To determine if The Great Gatsby is a "great American love story", it is necessary

“Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men, and men are great only if they are determined to be so,” once said Charles de Gaulle. This valiant quote by a former president of France accentuates my opinion of the Great Jay Gatsby. From humble beginnings rises our main focus of F. Scott Fitzgeralds’ The Great Gatsby. Young Jimmy Gatz is brought to West Egg from his heavily impoverished North Dakota family. His desire to be something greater than a farmer drove him to fortune and love through any means necessary; his life long obsession, Daisy Fay, infatuates Jay in his own insatiable thirst for her affection. James follows Daisy in the years after he is deployed to World War 1, and when he sees she has married Tom Buchanan he becomes hell-bent on replicating the success Tom has inherited in order to win over Daisy. Through moderately deceitful ways, Jay Gatsby builds his wealth and reputation to rival and even supersede many already lavish family names. Astonishingly, the great Mr. Gatsby, overrun with newfound affluence, stays true to his friends, lover, and his own ideals to his blissfully ignorant end.

A recurring purpose displayed by Fitzgerald, to his readers, in The Great Gatsby is the importance of substance in relationships. Through the relationships-whether platonic or romantic-between characters he shows that there really isn’t much of a relationship at all if there isn’t substance as a foundation. Substance ranges from developing a real relationship or simply just knowing someone’s name. The importance of substance in a relationship was show when Jordan Baker told Nick Carraway, the narrator, her opinion on parties. She said she likes bigger parties more than small parties and that small parties are “so intimate. At small parties there isn’t any privacy” (Fitzgerald 49). This quote from Jordan shows that rhetorical choice of irony. This rhetorical choice furthered Fitzgerald’s purpose, because most will agree that

“The American Dream”, a national phrase in which is mainly praised by those who pursue the goal of living a better life. All of this is merely an illusion, there is no such thing as “The American Dream”. It is just a big hypocrisy in America and will not change the fact that everyone will still be labeled in a social class and used as a lure for those migrating to the US for a better life. Not only will those in America label your class, but the people you speak to and go out with will also depend on your income. “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald and “The Big Short” directed by Adam McKay are a great example of the dilemma occurring during this saying. Both the novel and the film portrayed “The American Dream” as a horrible portrait, having everyone seem inconsiderate and will do whatever it takes in order to fulfill their desires, no matter the outcomes.

So often, it seems, life can seem like a "patient etherized on the table" (Eliot, 3). Be it the apparent futility of existence as a whole, or the insecurity of those single moments of doubt; life is often fleeting. I believe life is best described as a fickle beast, always elusive; always turning down some new and unexpected road. This fleeting life is what both Jay Gatsby of  The Great Gatsby and Alfred J. Prufrock of "Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock" experience. These two men experiences move down remarkably similar paths as they quest for love and life. Yet each has sealed their shared fate in a different manner. As they head toward the seeming abyss of death, both

    The success of Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby is in part due to his successful characterization of the main characters through the comparison and contrast of Daisy Buchanan and Myrtle Wilson, Tom Buchanan and George B. Wilson, and Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby. The contrast is achieved through two principle means: contrasting opposite qualities held by the characters and contrasting one character's posititve or negative qualities to another's lack thereof. Conflict is generated when the characters sometimes stand as allegorical opposites. On the other hand, comparison of two characters is rather straightforward. This comparison and contrast is prevalent in Fitzgerald's

F. Scott Fitzgerald, one of the finest American authors of the twentieth century wrote The Great Gatsby during the Jazz Age to critique the distortion of the American dream, and his work has lasted long past his lifetime. Fitzgerald discusses the nature of love and wealth and stresses the importance of defining a person beyond their external position. In his novel, letter to his daughter, and the screenplay adapted from the novel, it is clear that F. Scott Fitzgerald utilizes exposition, narration, and imagery to illustrate how people in the 1920s did not understand the meaning of true love and worried about superficial characteristics, thus resulting in the corruption of the American dream from the pursuit of true love and equality to the pursuit of wealth and discrimination; however, he moralizes that human beings are capable of emotional growth and of escaping the illusion of wealth.

The disillusionment of the American Dream is a frequent but important written theme in the American literature. Fitzgerald’s famous book The Great Gatsby is one of the most important representative works that reflects this theme. F. Scott Fitzgerald is best known for his novels and short stories which chronicle the excesses of America's Jazz Age during the 1920s. His classic twentieth-century story of Jay Gatsby examines and critiques Gatsby's particular vision of the 1920's American Dream. The Great Gatsby can be seen as a far-reaching book that has revealed many serious and hidden social problems at that time. As one of the most popular and financially successful

In the beginning, Fitzgerald’s diction and detail tells ideas that criticize the upper classes society through the narrator and other characters. “ ‘I told that boy about the ice. These people! You have to keep after them all the time.’ (69) She looked at me and laughed pointlessly.” Myrtle was born into the wrong class like Gatsby. She wanted to fit in and not look like a ridiculous lower class person. By her saying this it makes her feel better herself and seem wealthy. “It’s really his wife that’s keeping them apart. She’s a catholic and does not believe in divorce.” (98) This was said by Tom and he said it to Myrtle to make it look his wife Daisy is religious and has morals. Morals are what catholics have to stay