Similarities Between Romeo And Juliet And The Great Gatsby

“... it is a story about failure and death, an idealistic quest for unworthy goals, and the almost total collapse of the aspirations of nearly all of the principal characters” (Nagel 113). The Great Gatsby is a story that represents people’s unachieved aspirations that lead to a sad existence and ultimately death. They are all trying to attain one thing, the American Dream. The American Dream is almost impossible to attain and that is why a lot of people failed when it came to living out the American Dream. In Fitzgerald’s, “The Great Gatsby”, Gatsby tries to attain the American Dream through Daisy throughout the whole novel but fails and is left heartbroken.

Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet – popularly considered by many to be the quintessential love story of all time – is a play that we are all familiar with in one way or another. Whether it be through the plethora of portrayals, adaptations and performances that exist or through your own reading of the play, chances are you have been acquainted with this tale of “tragic love” at some point in your life. Through this universal familiarity an odd occurrence can be noted, one of almost canonical reverence for the themes commonly believed to be central to the plot. The most widely believed theme of Romeo and Juliet is that of the ideal love unable to exist under the harsh social and political strains of this world. Out of this idea emerge two

Jay Gatsby, the title character of the novel is an incredibly wealthy young man, living in a medieval mansion in West Egg on an imaginary area of Long Island. Gatsby has many laudable traits. For example, he is filled with optimism and the ability to transform his dreams into reality. Jay is also extremely faithful to his true love, Daisy Buchanan, even to the point of death. When we first meet Gatsby, he is the aloof host of the fantastically opulent parties thrown every weekend at his mansion. It appears he is surrounded by wondrous luxury and is courted by beautiful women and the rich and powerful men of the time. Jay is also a very admirable character due to his status of wealth and being a hero of War World I, “In the Argonne Forest I took two machine gun detachments so far forward that there was half a mile gap on either side… I was promoted to be a major, and every Allied government gave me a decoration- even Montenegro”. However, Nick who narrates the book views Gatsby as a flawed man who is dishonest, deceitful, a liar, and a dreamer whom is searching for answers in the past, “he talked a lot about the past, and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself, perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy… if he could once return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was…”

The first dream that does not get fulfilled is the one of Gatsby. He starts off as an underprivileged boy and struggles his way to the top. We make his acquaintance when he is on the top of his life. He is enjoying his big house and his vast wealth. The one thing he cannot have is his lovely Daisy. Gatsby’s story reflects the “classical” American dream: Anyone can make anything of himself/herself with just elbow grease, spirit and a whole lot of confidence. Jay loves Daisy and, sadly, she is the one thing which he cannot procure to his “perfect life”.

Gatsby creates an identity for himself as a wealthy man, who lives a glamorous life by throwing huge parties, and is known by the most prestigious figures in New York. What the partygoers don’t realize is that the parties and his wealth is all in the hopes of rekindling with his love from the past, Daisy. In the novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald tells the story of a young man named Jay Gatsby, who came from nothing, and built up to be everything that he had hoped and dreamed of being. However, his one dream did not become a reality due to misfortunate events. All the money in the world couldn’t make Gatsby happy, as he died as his true self, not the identity he created for himself.

As Daisy simply advanced in her life, little did she know that James Gatz would leap into social heights and become Jay Gatsby so soon. James Gatz was a young poor boy, who thought he was never good enough for Daisy. Gatsby has spent the past few years prospering wealth, building a mansion; minutes away from Daisy, just to compensate for what he didn't have before.He devotes his entire life into moulding himself to be the man that Daisy desires and “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before [him].” After becoming the Great Gatsby, he hopes that eventually one day Daisy will find her way back to him. Gatsby’s love for Daisy has grown even fonder and after finally meeting her she doesn't satisfy his standards anymore, “There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams-not through her

Gatsby believed that in order to fulfill his own concept of the American Dream he needed to win Daisy’s love, and to do that he would need to “establish himself as Somebody.” Although he loves Daisy, he also sees her as more of a goal – a step toward the perfect life promised by the American Dream. In a way, Gatsby views Daisy much the way

The Great Gatsby, a highly acclaim American novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, entails the demise of the American dream by means of drawing a parallel between Jay Gatsby, a character whom covers his inner qualities with the idealistic characteristics of the rich during the Roaring Twenties in order to obtain the affection go the beloved and deeply flawed Daisy. Regrettably, throughout his conquest for Daisy’s affection, Gatsby falsely presumes that through his accumulation of wealth he will be able to acquire his deeply embedded desires for happiness, which mainly revolve around his acquisition of Daisy Buchanan. Eventually, Gatsby’s wealth ultimately results in his cataclysmic demise, as it is unable to provide him Daisy’s unconditional and

Early in the book, the character Jay Gatsby, is introduced as a dreamer who is gracious, charming, and a bit mysterious. As the novel progresses we also learn that Gatsby is a self-made man who achieved the American Dream of rising up from the lower classes to the top of society. But to Gatsby, the desire for Daisy and love proves more powerful than money. Something that shows his obsession of her, is this example.

“In his blue gardens men and women came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars” (Fitzgerald 39). In his character, his relationships, and his gatherings, Jay Gatsby epitomized the illusion of a perfect romance. When Gatsby and Daisy met in 1917, he was searching for money, but ended up profoundly falling in love with her. “[H]e set out for gold and stumbled upon a dream” (Ornstein 37). Only a few weeks after meeting one another, Gatsby had to leave for war, which led to a separation between the two for nearly five years. As “war-torn lovers” Gatsby and Daisy reach the quintessential ideal of archetypical romance. When Gatsby returned from the war, his goal was to rekindle the relationship he once had with Daisy. In order to do this, he believed he would have to work hard to gain new wealth and a new persona. “Jay Gatsby loses his life even though he makes his millions because they are not the kind of safe, respectable money that echoes in Daisy’s lovely voice” (Ornstein 36). Gatsby then meets Daisy’s cousin, Nick Carraway, who helps to reunite the pair. Finally being brought together after years of separation, Gatsby stops throwing the extravagant parties at his home, and “to preserve [Daisy’s] reputation, [he] empties his mansion of lights and servants” (Ornstein 37). Subsequent to their reconciliation, Tom Buchanan, Daisy’s husband, begins to reveal sordid information about Gatsby’s career which causes Daisy to

The product of all of James Gatz's hard work is the longing Jay Gatsby, who epitomizes one of the main characteristics of the American dream: everlasting hope. Gatsby desire to win Daisy's love is his version of the old American dream: an incredible goal and a constant search for the opportunity to reach this goal. This is shown when Gatsby is first introduced into the novel. It is late at night and we find him "with his hands in his pockets out to determine what share was his of our local heavens." While Nick continues to watch Gatsby's movements he says: "-he [Gatsby] stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward-and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock. (Pg. 20-21). The green light that Gatsby reaches out for symbolizes his longing, his longing for Daisy, for money, for acceptance and no matter how much he has he never feels complete. This green light is part of the American Dream. It symbolizes our constant searching for a way to reach that goal just of in the distance, as Nick described it, "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter-tomorrow we will run faster, stretch our arms farther. And one fine morning-" (Pg. 180). Gatsby's

Jay Gatsby is a man of his heart, he is self determined from a young age to the gain wealth he possess. He comes from a family of poverty and hardship which is where his motivation to gain wealth resonates from. Gatsby exemplifies the success of the American Dream, but he has more fundamental personal dream and that is to get Daisy back. Ever since Gatsby had returned from the war he has wanted to reconcile with daisy and make up for the time lost. One of the weaknesses that Gatsby withholds is that he is unable to balance his romantic life with work responsibilities, he repeatedly leaves conversations with Daisy unfinished to pick up a call or speak to his accomplices, which leads the audience to believe that he may never be able to gain the

The transformation between James Gatz and Jay Gatsby is an example of how people can transform themselves according to their ambition for wealth and prosperity. The use of illegal activities to gain Gatsby's wealth is alluded to in the book, this shows the extent of how the American Dream circumvented the moral revulsion and pushed people who were crazy about money into crime - driving the moral standing of wealthier citizens into the ground. To Gatsby, his dream was symbolised by Daisy, Gatsby even says that her voice sounds like money, a direct correlation between Daisy and the wealth and happiness that Gatsby would supposedly enjoy if only he could have married Daisy but could still enjoy if he had married her five years later. His pursuit of happiness with Daisy was the ultimate cause of the degradation of Gatsby's morals and realistic dreams. This is because he held an unrealistic view of life and how he could recreate the past. His dreams had distorted reality to the point where when his rationality realised that the image of life and of Daisy did not coincide with the real life version his mind did not grasp that perhaps the dream had receded to the point of no return, consequently his dreams helped to

     Indeed he loves Daisy, but through his fantasy he builds her up to be someone she is not. Lost in his idealistic world, he molds his images of her into a perfect specimen. Nick Carraway comments, "There must have been moments when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams, not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion", yet he refuses to acknowledge these moments" (101). His state of reality is so greatly altered that he cannot believe she is not the absolute perfect woman he so desired five years ago. Jay Gatsby’s obsession with Daisy gives him a false illusion of her, much like the illusion of the American dream, both representing inevitable disaster. F. Scott Fitzgerald clearly uses Jay Gatsby to represent the materialistic attitude of the 1920’s. Literary critic Marius Bewley suggests that Jay Gatsby

Baz Luhrmann is an Australian born director. He is known for his adaptation of Romeo and Juliet in 1996 and The Great Gatsby in 2013, amongst others such as Strictly Ballroom and The Moulin Rouge. He is the creator of “Red Curtain Cinema” and in his eccentric filming methods: highlights important themes and ideas through the fast pace, camera angles, and use of modern music in period films.