A Comparison of the Ways in Which Fitzgerald and Bronte Present Their Heroes. (2742 Words)

1955 Words4 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: The great gatsby: film and novel comparison essay

A comparison of the ways in which Fitzgerald and Bronte present their heroes. (2742 words)

In both "Wuthering Heights" and "The Great Gatsby", the authors have put the central focus for the readers on the romantic heroes of the text. The romantic heroes in the two texts are Gatsby and Heathcliff. These two characters are both very similar and very different and the following is a comparison of how each of them is presented in the novels.

One thing which both Gatsby and Heathcliff have in common is that they both have a mysterious past, which the readers know very little about. In Heathcliff's case, we are aware that he was an orphan living on the streets of Liverpool when he was adopted by Mr Earnshaw. Coming from such a humble and deprived background Heathcliff was not fully accepted by the inhabitants of Wuthering Heights. Mrs Earnshaw, Hindley and even Catherine resented him at first. Although Catherine grew to love Heathcliff as much as her father, Hindley's contempt for him grew after the death of his mother, who was an ally against Heathcliff. Hindley's hatred of Heathcliff was further provoked when it became obvious to him, that he was not his father's preferred son. As readers we know very little about Heathcliff's past before this point, and this adds to the aura of mystery which surrounds him.

Similarly, we know very little about Gatsby's past. Fitzgerald delays introducing Gatsby until late in the book, by doing this he his added to the sense of mystery and secrecy which surrounds him. During the opening chapters of the book, the only information which the readers are privy to, are the rumours and gossip from the guests at Gatsby's parties. At the end of the book we learn the truth about Gatsby, that he was ...

... middle of paper ...

...tery surrounding them, as the readers know very little about the background of the characters. Bronte introduced Heathcliff as a vulnerable and defenceless young boy, however as the novel progress he becomes obsessed with revenge on those who wronged him. In contrast Gatsby was never obsessed with getting revenge on Daisy even though she broke her promise to him. Because of this, Gatsby comes across as a decent and respectable man, who had a dream that was beneath him. Gatsby was devoted to Daisy, but she did not care for him the same way, "Daisy hasn't sent a message or a flower" to the funeral. Heathcliff, on the other hand, ends the novel as the villain, he was the instigator of many wicked acts throughout the book, however the readers do feel pity for him as he, like Gatsby, never achieved in his lifetime a loving unified relationship with the woman he loves.

Show More
Related

  • Gatsby, Nick, Daisy in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

    1598 Words  | 4 Pages

    Jay Gatsby is the main character in The Great Gatsby. He is the mysterious character that the story revolves around. Nick is his neighbor that gets invited to Gatsby’s party that set in on Gatsby being a mysterious person that has so many people talking about him and talking about different stories about Gatsby that unravel how big of a mystery Gatsby is. In The Great Gatsby, “Gatsby’s notoriety, spread about by the hundreds who had accepted his hospitality and so become authorities on his past, had increased all summer until he fell just short of being news” (Fitzgerald 105). In chapter six, the real truth is revealed about the great Gatsby. The stories of the mysterious Gatsby in the parties were not true. The stories about Gatsby also went around New York, which made Nick ask Gatsby about his past ("The Great Gatsby," Fitzgerald). Nick also asked about Gatsby’s past hoping Nick would finally hear the truth. According to The Great Gatsby, “This was the night, Carraway says, that Gatsby told him the story (its factual details have been told earlier in the novel) of his early life. The purpose of the telling here is not to reveal facts but to try to understand the character of Gatsby’s passion. The final understanding is reserved for one of those precisely right uttera...

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast Chicago And The Great Gatsby

    1571 Words  | 4 Pages

    “He had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it … It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself.” (Fitzgerald 48). In chapter 4, Gatsby was riding into town with Nick, and then a police came, all Gatsby did was raised a little white paper and the cop apologized for stopping him. This isn’t only about corruption in 1920’s, but how he was above the law. He has the reputation of the president. He can get away with anything he wanted, he loves the power and the respect. When people say Gatsby it’s like he’s an imperial. The spreading rumors of Gatsby are horrific by the sense that, they were so out of this world you don’t know how people really believed them. Everybody had different point of views of Gatsby, he loves each one if the rumor didn’t contain the truth, or him being poor. His actions seem that all he wants people to do is think of him as an opulent man. Gatsby loves recognition. This makes him lose the idea of his past life which he hated. He strived to forget how he grew up, and where he came

    Read More

  • F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Expression of Temptation, Deceitfulness, and Jealousy in The Great Gatsby

    1264 Words  | 3 Pages

    The novel The Great Gatsby displays deceitfulness in many of its characters. The deceit brings many of the characters to their downfall. Gatsby had the greatest downfall of them all due to the fact it took his life. In The Great Gatsby , “ Gatsby goes to spectacular lengths to try to achieve what Nick calls ‘his incorruptible dream’ to recapture the past by getting Daisy Buchannan love” (Sutton). Gatsby always had an infatuation with Daisy, Jordan Baker said,”Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay” (Fitzgerald 83). Gatsby and Daisy did have a past together. While Jordan was golfing, “The Officer looked at Daisy while she was speaking in a way that every young girl wants to be looked at sometime[…]His name was Jay Gatsby and I didn’t lay eyes on him for over four years-even after I’d met him in long island I didn’t realize it was the same man” (Fitzgerald 80). Daisy is now in an abusive relationship with Tom Buchannan, “Nick Carraway attends a small publicly blames Tom for the bruise on her knuckle” (Sutton). When they meet again Gatsby showers Daisy with love and affection, wanting her to leave her husband Tom, but she does not want to in their society. Tom and Gatsby get into an argument and tom tells Daisy about Gatsby’s bootlegging that brought him to his riches. Tom yelled, “He a...

    Read More

  • Stereotypes and Stereotyping of Characters of The Great Gatsby

    1036 Words  | 3 Pages

    F. Scott Fitzgerald is well known for being an excellent writer, for expertly describing the Jazz Age, and for having a drinking problem.  However, he is not so well known for creating deep and intriguing characters.  In The Great Gatsby, the majority of the characters remain one-dimensional and unchanging throughout the novel.  They are simply known from the viewpoint of Nick Carraway, the participating narrator.  Some insight is given into characters in the form of their dialogue with Nick, however, they never really become deep characters that are 'known' and can be identified with.  While all of the participants in the novel aren't completely flat, most of the main characters are simply stereotypes of 1920's people from the southern, western, and eastern parts of America.

    Read More

  • The Complex Themes Hidden in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

    1703 Words  | 4 Pages

    Although after reading “The great Gatsby” one may get a feeling of hopelessness, it one of those novels that leaves you inspired even long after reading it. It’s a masterpiece not only because of the thrillingly brilliant plot or memorable characters but also because of the life lessons that it teacher to the reader. It is not just a typical ...

    Read More

  • The Pursuit of Wealth, Power, and Pleasure in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

    684 Words  | 2 Pages

    ...s with all of the parties and the pursuit of wealth, power, and pleasure in an era of change. The novel shows the relationship of Gatsby and Daisy as a symbol of this pursuit of wealth, power, and pleasure. The reader sees the pursuit of wealth through Daisy wanting Gatsby and Tom, both of whom have money. The pursuit of power is shown through Daisy’s decision of Tom over Gatsby as Gatsby is seen as a lower social status with little power compared to Tom who has tremendous power. Pleasure is seen through the extramarital affairs of Tom and Myrtle as well as Daisy and Gatsby. The Great Gatsby, through Tom and Daisy, reveals the human condition of the pursuit of wealth, power, and pleasure through these examples and shows that the “American Dream” is not possible in a life where one’s surroundings are pushing him/her towards a life of wealth, power, and pleasure.

    Read More

  • Realism In Gatsby And Hamlet

    1417 Words  | 3 Pages

    Struggling for perfection and reaching for the impossible are the driving factors in the lives of Gatsby, and Hamlet. In both The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Hamlet, by William Shakespeare, the theme of idealism is demonstrated as the main contributing factor into the evident downfall of both Gatsby, and Hamlet. Although each respectable character is faced with dissimilar scenarios, it is the similarities of Gatsby and Hamlet's character traits that allow them both to be victims of their own idealism. Gatsby and Hamlet both lose their lovers, leaving them to live heartbroken and lonesome lives. The tendency to masquerade as their true personalities, whether it be to escape the past or to plot the perfect revenge, displays the idealistic attitude of the two characters.

    Read More

  • Demise of a Soulmate in Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights

    706 Words  | 2 Pages

    Emily Brontë’s novel Wuthering Heights, set in the countryside of England’s 1700’s, features a character named Heathcliff, who is brought into the Earnshaw family as a young boy and quickly falls into a passionate, blinding romance with the Earnshaw’s daughter, Catherine. However, Heathcliff is soon crushed by this affection when his beloved chooses the company of another man rather than his own. For the remainder of the novel he exudes a harsh, aversive attitude that remains perduring until his demise that is induced by the loss of his soulmate, and in turn the bereavement of the person to whom the entirety of his being and his very own self were bound.

    Read More

  • Narrative Viewpoint in the Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald

    2661 Words  | 6 Pages

    Indeed one of the unique features of this novel is the mystery surrounding it’s main character ‘Gatsby-the man who gives his name to this book’ This sense of inscrutability which is omnipresent with Gatsby is cleverly achieved through the narrative techniques which Fitzgerald employs. The most obvious, and also most effective of which is the narration from Nick’s perspective. Throughout this novel it is Nick’s views of Gatsby which we read, not Fitzgerald’s and not anyone else’s. Only Nick’s. And even Nick seems to be some what in the dark as to Gatsby’s character, he often switches tact throughout the novel on his impression of Gatsby. This seems to insinuate that he has been ponderous over Gatsby for some time. The reader gains the impression that Nick has made calculating decisions throughout the novel, in terms of what he allows us to know about Gatsby. He is after all writing in retrospect. The very fact that Nick still has an ambiguous attitude towards Gatsby even after his death, endorses the readers opinion of Gatsby as a character who can not be categorised. He is uniqu...

    Read More

  • gatmoral Moral and Emotional Range of The Great Gatsby

    646 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, there is a broad spectrum of moral and social views demonstrated by various characters.  At one end, is Tom, a man who attacks Gatsby's sense of propriety and legitimacy, while thinking nothing of running roughshod over the lives of those around him. A direct opposite of Tom's nature is Gatsby, who displays great generosity and caring, yet will stop at nothing to achieve his dream of running off with Daisy. The moral and emotional characteristics of Gastby and Tom are juxtaposed, Tom, the immoral character and Gastby, the moral character while the other characters' moral and emotional developments appear between these two.

    Read More

  • Effects Of Romanticism In The Great Gatsby

    1661 Words  | 4 Pages

    The author also takes many universal literary ideas and alters them to demonstrate that just as the reader doesn’t expect certain twists in the plot of the novel, the people of the time did not expect the 1920s to experience such a terrible change in fortune. Fitzgerald switches around

    Read More

  • The Use of Characters, Symbols, and Narrator in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

    1351 Words  | 3 Pages

    ​The Great Gatsby is a straightforward story. It slowly creates and shows the characteristics of Gatsby. Nick presents the book through his eyes and his description of what is happening makes the book feel longer than it is (“Gatsby”, Kenneth). Nick describes what he sees and gives the reader his insight. He describes the room that he meets Daisy in during the first chapter. He also describes the dresses Daisy and Jordan wore and this provides us with what his eyes would see (Fitzgerald 12 of 178). Nick’s descriptions and opinions help the reader get in to the book and create their own opinions. The Great Gatsby is many smaller stories connected by the narrator, Nick Carraway. The beginning is three short stories that happen weeks apart. The story Nick is telling all happens in one summer, but he adds in his past and what he learns about Gatsby's past (“Gatsby”, Kenneth).

    Read More

  • Selfishness in "Wuthering Heights"

    797 Words  | 2 Pages

    Heathcliff is a character who was abused in his childhood by Catherine’s brother, Hindley, because of his heritage as a “gypsy”, and Hindley was jealous of the love that Heathcliff got from Mr. Earnshaw, Hindley’s father. This is also selfishness upon Hindley’s part since he only wanted his father’s love for his sister and himself. So to reprimand Heathcl...

    Read More

  • The Results of Keeping Secrets in the Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald

    1031 Words  | 3 Pages

    ...are shown that Gatsby is prepared to do everything in his power to acquire Daisy’s adoration again, even let her get away with murder and will blindly go to jail for her. This however only leads him to his ultimate doom, as he is killed by Myrtle’s husband, Wilson. He may be a liar, but readers empathize with him as his only fault for being dishonest is his love for Daisy and being so blind to see that she is not worthy of that adoration.

    Read More

  • F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Life, Narrator, and Criticism in The Great Gatsby

    911 Words  | 2 Pages

    In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald has explored three separate themes: his own life, narrator Nick Carraway, and literary criticism. Back then this good book called The Great Gatsby was released in 1925 (Shain). He could not think of anything else for the next novel (Shain). When it came to the twenties he was over his head (Shain). Fitzgerald was like a brother to Graham. She stopped all the rumors about him from his recent novels and stories (Doreski). Their social lives raised put more effort to make repeating small stories, for the “Saturday Evening Post”. Fitzgerald wrote a play that failed called the “The Vegetable”, they found durable frustration in getting to his other novel (Anderson).

    Read More

More about A Comparison of the Ways in Which Fitzgerald and Bronte Present Their Heroes. (2742 Words)

Open Document