...Mylie Beane Danny Oswalt Composition 1 25 September 2012 The Great Gatsby The Great Gatsby is a book filled with twists and turns of events from beginning to end. It involves a love/hate relationship triangle. The two characters I am comparing and contrasting are Tom Buchannan and Jay Gatsby. Both of these men yearn for a relationship with a lady named Daisy. These characters are similar because they each want to earn Daisy’s love; yet, they are drastically different. Both Tom Buchannan and Jay Gatsby are men who commit two different types of uniform foolishness. Tom deals with affairs of the heart, whereas Gatsby deals with business affairs. Each man loves Daisy dearly. Tom starts out, on their wedding day, showing disrespect for Daisy. Once Tom realizes there might be another man in the picture, he decides to show more love towards his wife. Gatsby met and fell in love with Daisy when they were in the South. She would not stay with Gatsby because she wanted more materialistic things in life. Both men are terrified of the thought of losing Daisy. Tom’s dignity could not possibly survive any loss; yet Gatsby’s thoughts of a well lived life with Daisy soon killed him. Tom Buchannan is a dirty, uncouth, ignorant, and opinionated man. He was born into a very wealthy and advanced family. Even though Tom grew up with plenty of money, he was never very courteous or generous. He is an overpowering and controlling individual. Tom is a rather large guy with...
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...How Does Fitzgerald Show the Importance of Society in the Opening Chapters of The Great Gatsby? The Great Gatsby is a 1925 novel penned by F. Scott Fitzgerald, who was an American novelist and short story writer. The tale of The Great Gatsby is set in a modified version of the Long Island and New York City area of the USA, with correlations to The Hamptons. Throughout the opening chapters of the novel, F. Scott Fitzgerald uses a vast amount of characters, motifs and themes to show the importance of society. These can vary massively but all appear to imply how corrupt society was in the 1920s. He also shows how the innate social standing of people defines and limits them for the rest of their lives. Fitzgerald portrays the 1920s as an era of decayed social and moral values, evidenced in the cynicism, greed, and empty pursuit of pleasure seen within nearly all of the characters. Capital is one of the main focuses of the novel, and it becomes apparent that throughout the tale, it defines not only their social standing, but the level of respect which they receive along with how they are interpreted by others in the novel. Fitzgerald begins the novel with an introduction from the narrator and one of the main protagonists, Nick Carraway. Carraway fought in the First World War, which we later find out he fought alongside Gatsby, giving them some form of common ground to base a ‘friendship’ upon. The novel initially begins with a poignant message from the father of Carraway; “When...
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...F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1924) and Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Sonnets from the Portuguese (1846) display and examine the differing powers of hope depicted through the theme of love. The Sonnets are rich in passion, individuality and sincerity, while the novel is uncertain, bleak and corrupted. By deconstructing the texts, one can examine the influence context has in demonstrating their values and opinions on these issues. In the Sonnets, Elizabeth Barrett Browning considers the perfectionism that her patriarchal Victorian society expected from places on women and in doing so she examines the limitations that transpire within. EBB’s passionate representation of love is somewhat paradoxical as she rejects the inherent Petrarchan sonnet structure and challenges many of the values connected to these forms. Her series of sonnets are social and political arguments that reflect themes of personal experiences as a woman, rejection of idealised platonic love and her desire to represent transcendental love. Nonetheless her inspiration arises from her context and the Romantics as she draws upon the impulse to alter the attitudes towards women and to validate human love. She connects lifeless desired objects into subjects “dauntless, voiceless fortitude” (Sonnet 13) which make her feebleness as a sonneteer, but concurrently indicating her strength as a woman and as a lover. In her struggle to maintain female subjectivity and feminine desire she refuses to be passive and...
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...Upper Class and Unethical Behavior – Then and Now In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, there are many conflicts that arise between the different social classes showing just how much of a difference having “old money”, “new money” or “no money” can make in the way people behave. The numerous interactions between them throughout the book show how the different classes behave. Each class is portrayed to have different attitudes and personalities. People think that with money comes power. However, we will learn that is not always correct. Like it is said, money is the root of all evil. Social class, or socioeconomic status (SES), refers to an individual’s rank vis-à-vis others in society in terms of wealth, occupational prestige, and education (2, 3). Abundant resources and elevated rank allow upper-class individuals increased freedom and independence (4), giving rise to self-focused patterns of social cognition and behavior (3). Relative to lower-class individuals, upper-class individuals have been shown to be less cognizant of others (4) and worse at identifying the emotions that others feel (5). Furthermore, upper-class individuals are more disengaged during social interactions—for example, checking their cell phones or doodling on a questionnaire—compared with their lower-class peers (6). (Piff 1) In The Great Gatsby, which takes place in the 1920's, there are three social classes defined, much like today’s society. There is ‘old money”, ‘new money” and...
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...C h a p t e r 1 Prewriting GETTING STARTED (OR SOUP-CAN LABELS CAN BE FASCINATING) For many writers, getting started is the hardest part. You may have noticed that when it is time to begin a writing assignment, you suddenly develop an enormous desire to straighten your books, water your plants, or sharpen your pencils for the fifth time. If this situation sounds familiar, you may find it reassuring to know that many professionals undergo these same strange compulsions before they begin writing. Jean Kerr, author of Please Don’t Eat the Daisies, admits that she often finds herself in the kitchen reading soup-can labels—or anything—in order to prolong the moments before taking pen in hand. John C. Calhoun, vice president under Andrew Jackson, insisted he had to plow his fields before he could write, and Joseph Conrad, author of Lord Jim and other novels, is said to have cried on occasion from the sheer dread of sitting down to compose his stories. To spare you as much hand-wringing as possible, this chapter presents some practical suggestions on how to begin writing your short essay. Although all writers must find the methods that work best for them, you may find some of the following ideas helpful. But no matter how you actually begin putting words on paper, it is absolutely essential to maintain two basic ideas concerning your writing task. Before you write a single sentence, you should always remind yourself that 1. You have some valuable ideas to tell your reader,...
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