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The Response to War in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott FItzgerald and A Farewell Arms by Ernest Hemingway

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Under little scrutiny, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and Ernest Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms seem to have common themes, but beyond the surface, the two books are radically different. The Great Gatsby is a tale about an ambitious man, Jay Gatsby, his old girlfriend Daisy Buchanan, and her husband, Tom Buchanan. Gatsby, after returning from war, becomes a bootlegger during Prohibition in an attempt to win back Daisy who is ironically unhappily married to Tom Buchanan. In contrast, A Farewell to Arms has a much less glamorous plot which focuses on Frederick Henry. Henry faces many obstacles due to his involvement in World War I. As a result of his hardship, he desserts his role in the army and attempts to escape the country with …show more content…

While Gatsby looks back on his service with admiration, Henry views it with much contempt. Another difference between Fitzgerald and Hemingway’s novels is their inclusion of women and their relationships in reference to the men and war. In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby and Daisy begin to develop their lives around one another prior to him being deployed. The pair is “‘getting deeper in love every minute,’” which causes Gatsby to push to gain Daisy so they can build their relationship no matter his personal goals, as he explains, “‘What was the use of doing great things if I could have a better time telling her what I was going to do?’” (Fitzgerald 150). The short lived time that the two spent together caused Gatsby to proclaim that they were on the verge of marriage, which changed drastically when he was sent to fight in the war. All of his hopes and dreams of building a life together with Daisy had to be put on hold while he fought. Believing that after returning home from his deployment he would be able to return to his previous life, Gatsby turns his focus from earning money, enticing Daisy, and gaining status in society to advancing his ranks in the army. Daisy on the other hand, moves on from Gatsby because she desires her “life shaped now” when he leaves because she is not immediately affected by the

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