The Great Gatsby Vietnam War Analysis

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War is the worst solution to solve a conflict between countries or parties. War involves massive killing without mercy, obliterating cultures without sympathy, and destroying a nation’s solidarity without regret. Most importantly, war can affect deeply on a person’s emotion toward love and its own characteristic. In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the main character, Jay Gatsby, known as The Great Gatsby, was fighting in the war for 5 years and when he returned his only love, Daisy, was married an upper class man, Tom Buchanan. Suffering from the pain of losing Daisy, Gatsby has changed and become a phony person. Also, the novel The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien, both characters Lieutenant Cross and Tim O’Brien are the witness of the Vietnam War. Lieutenant Cross was affected by his love emotion and he failed to take care of his man. Also, Tim O’Brien was scared by the consequence of going to the war and attempted to escape to Canada. Ultimately, the characters from both books have the experience of being in the war and their personalities were different before and after the war.

War is a time when two lovers are separately apart from each other for a long period of time. Also, it is a time when insecurity and nostalgia may occur to a couple. First, Jay Gatsby has been falling in love with Daisy long time ago before the war begins. His love and emotion towards Daisy only increase and never fall down even though Daisy does not reach Gatsby’s expectation. “I was not actually in love but I felt a sort of tender curiosity. (Page 52)” Gatsby fell in love with the ideal image of Daisy rather than the real Daisy herself. In Gatsby mind, he pictures Daisy as a splendid, impeccable, and sweet woman and he is totall...

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.... The long term effect has followed them to their regular life. Fear, anger, and pride have caused them tragedy in real life, the loss of love and issues with friends. Gatsby fails to acknowledge the crucial truth that Daisy is no longer in his life and all of his effort has laid to waste. However, Lieutenant Cross quickly discover the truth and accept it. He is no longer needs to live in his own fantasy world and can breathe a sigh of relief. Furthermore, Tim O’Brien has conquered his weakness, the fear of war. Tim’s mind has grown stronger though the event of war. Although people tend to elucidates war as the worst thing that can happen in human history, in fact, there is a lot of great thing that happen because of war. People can grow stronger, become united, and realize the value of life. Ultimately, war has a huge impact on people both physically and mentally.

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