Is love enough? Love can be portrayed in many different ways. The novel, Between Shades Of Gray by Ruta Sepetys, follows a family as they are forced from their home be the Soviet Gulag and forced to live in a concentration camp while The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a story about the decadence of the twenties and the futility of trying to recapture lost love. Both novels portray love in many different and sometimes contrasting ways. Matrimonial love can be seen from the point of view of someone who cheats on their spouse and from someone who is faithful until the end. Love can also cause people to become self sacrificing or to become self involved and materialistic. As well, unconditional love occurs in both novels. In the novel, …show more content…
In Between Shades of Gray, love is shown as a pure and beautiful thing. When Elena, the mother, was dying, she handed her wedding ring to her son Jonas and says, "J-Jonas, keep this...It's full of love. Nothing is more important." (79 p. 314) The ring is a symbol of her pure love for her husband and it shows how much she respects him and values his love. Elena is showing her children that love can keep you together until the end. Whereas, in The Great Gatsby we see how their love during marriage seems to be superficial and mean nothing to either Tom or Daisy. Over the course of Daisy and Tom’s marriage, they both seem to love too much, with too many people. We see this when Daisy says, "’Oh, you want too much!’ she cried to Gatsby. ‘I love you now—isn't that enough? I can't help what's past.’ She began to sob helplessly. ‘I did love him once—but I loved you too.’" ( 7, p. 264) Daisy was once in love with her husband Tom, until she learned of his cheating ways, but then she fell in love with Gatsby. In the end, Daisy decides to go back to Tom. Therefore, both Tom and Daisy are choosing to stay in a loveless, superficial, marriage. Both novels portray a marriage but one is with a choice for pure love while the other consists of a choice of a superficial marriage. Obviously, both couples view marriage differently, but in the end, their choices allow them to remain …show more content…
In Between Shades of Gray unconditional love is shown many times. One time is when Jonas asks his sister, Lina, “‘Do you want my coat?’ he asked. ‘I think it will fit.’” Lina is freezing and her brother chooses to forgo his own warmth and comfort in order to try to help his sister. This act that he chooses to do is definitely an act of pure unconditional love. This type of love keeps the family unit together during the hard times they are facing. At the same time, in The Great Gatsby, “Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay.” (4 p.78) This shows how much in love Gatsby is. He choose to buy a mansion because Daisy lived across the bay. He bought it in hopes of seeing her at one of his parties and being able to pick up where they left off. This shows his unconditional love for Daisy because he spent millions and continued to throw parties every day just with the hope of seeing her. He would do anything for her. Gatsby is hoping that his love for Daisy keep them together. Both novels show unconditional love but, during Between Shades of Gray it is a two sided love but in The Great Gatsby it is a one sided love so eventually while Jonas and Lina’s love endures and keeps them together, Gatsby’s love ends tragically. Although Gatsby’s love ends, Daisy does goes back to her husband, so Gatsby losing his love keeps Daisy and Tom
In the beginning, Gatsby was a poor army boy who fell in love with a rich girl named Daisy. Knowing from their different circumstances, he could not marry her. So Gatsby left to accumulate a lot of money. Daisy, not being able to wait for Gatsby, marries a rich man named Tom. Tom believes that it is okay for a man to be unfaithful but it is not okay for the woman to be. This caused a lot of conflict in their marriage and caused Daisy to be very unhappy. Gatsby’s dream is to be with Daisy, and since he has accumulated a lot of money, he had his mind set on getting her back. Throughout the novel, Gatsby shows his need to attain The American Dream of love and shows his determination to achieve it. You can tell that Gatsby has a clear vision of what he wants when Nick says, “..he 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 gla...
There is a fine line between love and lust. If love is only a will to possess, it is not love. To love someone is to hold them dear to one's heart. In The Great Gatsby, the characters, Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan are said to be in love, but in reality, this seems to be a misconception. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald portrays the themes of love, lust and obsession, through the character of Jay Gatsby, who confuses lust and obsession with love.
Nothing is more important, to most people, than friendships and family, thus, by breaking those bonds, it draws an emotional response from the readers. Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan had a relationship before he went off to fight in the war. When he returned home, he finds her with Tom Buchanan, which seems to make him jealous since he still has feelings for Daisy. He wanted Daisy “to go to Tom and say: ‘I never loved you” (Fitzgerald 118) Gatsby eventually tells Tom that his “wife doesn’t love [him]” and that she only loves Gatsby (Fitzgerald 121). But the unpleasant truth is that Daisy never loved anyone, but she loved something: money. Daisy “wanted her life shaped and the decision made by some force of of money, of unquestionable practicality” (Fitzgerald 161). The Roaring Twenties were a time where economic growth swept the nation and Daisy was looking to capitalize on that opportunity. Her greed for material goods put her in a bind between two wealthy men, yet they are still foolish enough to believe that she loved them. Jay Gatsby is a man who has no relationships other than one with Nick Caraway, so he is trying to use his wealth to lure in a greedy individual to have love mend his
Daisy does not make it clear that she either loves her husband Tom or Gatsby. This idea is illustrated when Nick, Gatsby, Jordan, Daisy and Tom went to the hotel to have lunch and Gatsby ask Daisy to tell the truth of who she loves. But, “She hesitated. Her eyes fell on Jordan and me with a sort of appeal, as though she realized at last what she was doing—and as though she had never, all along, intended doing anything at all. But it was done now It was too late. ‘I never loved him,’ she said, with perceptible reluctance” (Passage 3, Lines 11 - 14). According to the response of Daisy, one can see Daisy telling that she never loved Tom, but with reluctance. Meaning that she didn’t want to tell it with her own willing. Although Gatsby feels very strong and confident with his love, when it comes to the right moment, in front of Tom Daisy does not show that she truly loves him. She could’ve said without any hesitation that she loves Gatsby and doesn’t love Tom but she does not do that. As a result, one can that regardless of how confident Gatsby felt on his love, Daisy does not truly love
The novel, The Great Gatsby, is a tragic story of lost love. Gatsby and Daisy are two different people in two different worlds. In their time apart, Gatsby was seeking for the American dream while Daisy was enjoying her riches with Tom. Gatsby is one of a few men who possess the knowledge of the true meaning of love. Love is so powerful and beautiful that Gatsby would do anything and everything to make Daisy his wife. However, love is also a mysterious thing that can turn anything from an everlasting relationship to murder. It turns out that Gatsby, a man with the possession of true love, is the one that suffers the most. Gatsby and Daisy, both represent love in their own unique way. Love could be beautiful but also cruel as the same time.
They both went at attaining love in similar and different ways. In the end though, Gatsby was able to realize that he would not be with Daisy and he accepted reality, but Blanche was still left trying to live in a fantasy. They would never get their first true love, and due to that they both lost a great amount. Gatsby lost the ultimate; he lost his life because of Daisy. Blanche lost the respect of all those who loved her, and was in the end sent to a mental hospital because she had lied so much, and when she finally told the truth it was unbelievable.
As the case with most “Novel to Movie” adaptations, screenwriters for films will make minor, and sometimes drastic, adjustments to the original text in order to increase drama and to reach modern audiences. Baz Luhrmann’s 2013 film interpretation of The Great Gatsby followed the 1925 classic great plot quite accurately, with minor deviations. However, Luhrmann made some notable differences to the characters and settings of The Great Gatsby in order for the story to relate to the current generation and to intensity the plot
...ces throughout the novel demonstrate how he is not as innocent or quiet as readers think. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald portrays Gatsby as not being a Romantic hero due to Gatsby`s attempts in faking his identity, his selfish acts and desperation for Daisy`s love and his fixation with wealth, proving that love is nothing like obsession. Gatsby does not understand love; instead he views Daisy as another goal in his life because he is obsessed with her and is willing to do anything to buy her love. Obsession and love are two different things: love is something that sticks with a person till his or her death, while obsession can cause a person to change his or her mind after reaching their goals. Thus Gatsby`s story teaches people that a true relationship can only be attained when there is pure love between both people, untainted by materialism and superficiality.
What would you do for love? The novel Between Shades Of Gray follows a family as they are forced from their home be the Soviet Gulag and forced to live in a concentration camp. The Great Gatsby is a story about the decadence of the twenties and the futility of trying to recapture lost love. Both novels portray love as a major theme but, in Between Shades of Gray, love is shown to be pure and self sacrificing while in The Great Gatsby love is shown to be materialistic and superficial. Both versions of love are very different, but love is still shown as something that manages to hold people together.
The relationship between Gatsby and Daisy is one of constant lies, and deceit. Gatsby falls in love with Daisy before he goes to the Army as a young man, and Daisy fell in love with him too. Yet Daisy is very materialistic and Tom, a very rich man came into place and Daisy married him instead of waiting for Gatsby like she had promised. Gatsby waited for Daisy but she did not wait for him, and instead married Tom just for his money. This shows how there relationship has been riddled with lies since the very beginning of the story.
Daisy and Gatsby spend five years away from each other and when they get back together, the circumstances change. Daisy gets married to Tom Buchanan. Gatsby has no option except for grabbing Daisy’s attention. The love that the readers realize is passionate however this love changes into a forbidden one because Daisy is now married. Gatsby tries his best to convince Daisy that everything will go back like they used to, but she doesn’t seem to agree. The past cannot be repeated. Tom sees the love between Daisy and Gatsby but he does not say anything until the right time. The circumstances that are happening to both Daisy and Gatsby make their love forbidden. As much as Gatsby is very rich, he does not seem to be enough because he’s new money
The Great Gatsby: Unfaithfulness and Greed. The love described in the novel, The Great Gatsby, contains "violence and egoism not tenderness and affection." The author, F. Scott Fitzgerald, writes on wealth, love, and corruption. Two coupes, Tom and Daisy Buchanan and George and Myrtle Wilson, match perfectly with these categories. Both couples are different in the way they choose to live together, but are similar in a few ways. Unfaithfulness and greed are the only similarities the couples shared.
As an American citizen we seem to make presumption that all cultures are different from ours, and some might even call those cultures weird. Americans fail to realize just how similar we are to these “weird” cultures. By reading Things Fall Apart, by Chinua Achebe and The Great Gatsby by F.Scott Fitzgerald , it makes the reader realize how similar the African culture is from the American culture. There 's those obvious differences we already knew about with the two cultures, but readers can learn that not just American culture value men and give them advantages, but many cultures including 1900 's African culture. In both books we come across two main characters that is portrayed as being more superior compared to others. Okonkwo, main
The Great Gatsby presents the main character Jay Gatsby, as a poor man who is in love with his best friends cousin, Daisy Buchanan. Gatsby was in love with Daisy, his first real love. He was impressed with what she represented, great comfort with extravagant living. Gatsby knew he was not good enough for her, but he was deeply in love. “For a moment a phrase tried to take shape in my mouth and my lips parted like a dumb man’s”(Fitzgerald 107). Gatsby could not think of the right words to say. Daisy was too perfect beyond anything he was able to think of. Soon Gatsby and Daisy went their separate ways. Jay Gatsby went into the war while telling Daisy to find someone better for her, someone that will be able to keep her happy and provide for her. Gatsby and Daisy loved one another, but he had to do what was best for her. Gatsby knew the two might not meet again, but if they did, he wanted things to be the same. “I 'm going to fix everything just the way it was before”(Fitzgerald 106). He wanted Daisy to fall in love with him all over again. Unsure if Daisy would ever see Gatsby again, she got married while he was away. The two were still hugely in love with one another, but had to go separate ways in their
In the end of the affair love is defined as “the desire to possess in some, like avarice; in others the desire to surrender, to lose the sense of responsibility, the wish to be admired… and of course the biological motive” (1951, 3.V.85). Theses “motives” lead characters to pursue or reject love the effects leading to destructive consequences. In the end of the affair the narrator catalogues his experiences of love which breaks him and those around him, Greene displaying the destructive qualities of love. In the Great Gatsby love is chased as something illusive and ultimately transient leading