Similarities Between My Antonia And The Great Gatsby

Julian Restrepo

Mrs. Linn

Honors English

January 26, 2017

The Garden of Life

In a garden, there are many different types of plants; fruits, vegetables, shrubs, trees, so on and so forth, but in every garden, one will always find a flower! Whether that flower was intentionally put there or not, it made an unexpected appearance. Just in that way, flowers make their way into novels or poems. In this case, two unexpected flowers made their way into two different novels. The difference with these flowers is that they mean something when they’re all put together, something very important to every single human on earth. The sunflower from the realist fiction, My Antonia, and the daisy from the modern fictional novel, The Great Gatsby, make up the

One example of the corruption of Daisy can be found in chapter 9 of The Great Gatsby, "They were careless people, Tom and Daisy — they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money of their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made" (Fitzgerald 179). The reason for Daisy being corrupt and decaying is because of the things she's done and seen. She's done everything there is to do and has found herself feeling empty time and time again, this causes her to turn to the one man who truly loves her. Beneath Daisy’s cheerful exterior, there is a deep sadness. An example of the decay of daisy in the context, “What’ll we do with ourselves this afternoon,” cried Daisy, “and the day after that, and the next thirty years?” (Fitzgerald 74). Daisy tries to work up the courage to tell Tom she wants to leave him and she provides an example of her struggles to find value and purpose in her life. Daisy talks to Gatsby and tells him, “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." (Fitzgerald 261). Just as