Comparison of Kanye West and Jay Gatsby Materialism is a key part of our society. It is something that exists in real life, and is portrayed in Literature. A real life representation of materialism in our society is Kanye West. Kanye West is one of the most successful rappers of our time. He is known for his extreme rants and controversial verses and sayings. Literature is also known for creating materialistic characters. Jay Gatsby from The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a great example of materialism. Jay Gatsby is known as romantic, mysterious man with an unknown past. Kanye West and Jay Gatsby are similar in their tough past, intense love, and crazy parties. Kanye West and Jay Gatsby both had a tough childhood. Jay
Kanye West is married to Kim Kardashian West. Jay Gatsby loves Daisy Buchanan ever since he met her in Louisville, KY at an Army Party. The intensity of their love toward their partners is deep. They spoil them with everything they need and look at them as goddesses. Jay and Daisy fell in love at the army party, but they could not marry. Jay was everything Daisy was not. Daisy was a rich debutante with a great last name, while Jay was a penniless man.(Fitzgerald) After Jay left, Daisy married another man, Tom Buchanan, who is a rich man that lives in East Egg. Gatsby returns from war and makes money as a bootlegger and soon becomes one of the richest men in West Egg. He builds a massive mansion in West Egg right across the sound from Daisy’s house. He throws massive parties just hoping that Daisy would slip in. He does everything for Daisy and dedicates his life to make her happy after they reunite. They have plans to run off, but eventually Jay gets killed and Daisy leaves him and stays with Tom. (Hacht 264-276) Kanye West is married to Kim Kardashian, and they now have a daughter, North West. Kanye met Kim in 2004 while Kim was married to another man. They both dated other people until they got together in 2012. Kanye waited over 8 years to date Kim. He wrote a line in one of his famous songs “Cold” saying “And I 'll admit, I had fell in love with Kim / Around the same time she had fell in love with
Works Cited
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1995. Print.
"The Great Gatsby." Literary Themes for Students: The American Dream. Ed. Anne Marie Hacht. Vol. 1. Detroit: Gale, 2007. 264-76. Literary Themes for Students. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 17 Oct. 2014.
"The Great Gatsby." Novels for Students. Ed. Diane Telgen. Vol. 2. Detroit: Gale, 1997. 64-86. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 17 Oct. 2014.
"Kanye West Biography." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 17 Oct. 2014.
"Kanye West (Ft. DJ Khaled) – Cold." Genius. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 Oct. 2014.
Messer, Lesley. "Kim Kardashian and Kanye West 's Wedding: Their Love Through the Years In Photos." ABC News. ABC News Network, n.d. Web. 17
The character of Jay Gatsby was a wealthy business man, who the author developed as arrogant and tasteless. Gatsby's love interest, Daisy Buchanan, was a subdued socialite who was married to the dim witted Tom Buchanan. She is the perfect example of how women of her level of society were supposed to act in her day. The circumstances surrounding Gatsby and Daisy's relationship kept them eternally apart. For Daisy to have been with Gatsby would have been forbidden, due to the fact that she was married. That very concept of their love being forbidden, also made it all the more intense, for the idea of having a prohibited love, like William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, made it all the more desirable. Gatsby was remembering back five years to when Daisy was not married and they were together:
New Essays on The Great Gatsby. Ed. Matthew J. Bruccoli.
Gross, Dalton, and Maryjean Gross, eds. Understanding "The Great Gatsby": A Student Casebook to Issues,
Jay Gatsby, who is one of the main characters of the Great Gatsby, is a man with a mysterious background and an unknown personality. He doesn't mention too much about his past except certain fabricated highlights of his life which were designed to impress others. The strange and humorous thing is that he carries articles of evidence that back up most of his lies to prove that he isn't lying. Gatsby is also the kind of man that is used to getting what he wants no matter what the consequences are, causing him to be a very determined man that once has an idea in his mind won't let it go until he accomplishes it. The things that Jay Gatsby values the most is money, to impress others and gain acceptance and most of all, having things his own way. In a manner, these are some of the characteristics of the American Dream and what people strive for when they come to America.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott, and Matthew J. Bruccoli. The Great Gatsby. New York, NY: Scribner, 1995.
Three works Cited Materialism started to become a main theme of literature in the modernist era. During this time the economy was good causing jazz to be popular, bootlegging common, and an affair meaning nothing (Gevaert). This negative view of money and the gross materialism in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby serves to be a modern theme in the novel. Throughout the novel, the rich possess a sense of carelessness and believe that money yields happiness.
Batchelor, Bob. Gatsby: The Cultural History of the Great American Novel. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014. Print.
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby was born into a life of poverty and as he grew up he became more aware of the possibility of a better life. He created fantasies that he was too good for his modest life and that his parents weren’t his own. When he met Daisy, a pretty upper class girl, his life revolved around her and he became obsessed with her carefree lifestyle. Gatsby’s desire to become good enough for Daisy and her parents is what motivates him to become a wealthy, immoral person who is perceived as being sophisticated.
He may just seem like another rapper to you but if you actually listen to his lyrics you can see he’s not like any rapper out there. His name is Kanye West and he was born in Chicago Illinois. He grew up in the “ghetto” and learned to appreciate life. He didn’t learn to really, truly appreciate life until October of 2002. Driving back to his hotel late one night after a recording session, the new-coming rap/hip-hop artist was involved in a devastating, near fatal car accident. The crash left him with a broken jaw in three places and an appreciation for life. Just weeks after being released from the hospital he recorded his first major hit, “Through the Wire,” with his mouth still wired shut. He records every song like its going to be his last song and that makes every song better than the last. He’s not only a rap artist but also a producer. He has been responsible for being behind songs like Jay-Z’s Izzo, Girls, Girls, Girls, The Takeover, and 03 Bonnie and Clyde.
Materialism has a negative influence on the characters in the novel, The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. “The most terrible thing about materialism even more terrible than its proneness to violence, is its boredom, from which sex, alcohol, drugs, all devices for putting out the accusing light of reason and suppressing the unrealizable aspirations of love, offers a prospect of deliverance.” This quote, stated by Malcolm Muggeridge, says that people get bored with the things that they have when they get new things all of the time. When they get bored with these things, they turn to stuff like sex, alcohol, and drugs. In The Great Gatsby, Myrtle, Daisy, and Gatsby are greatly influenced by money, and material things. The negative influence that materialism has on these characters is shown throughout the entire novel.
Trask, David F. "The End of the American Dream," Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby: The Novel, The Critics, The Background. Ed. Henry D. Piper. Charles Schribner's Sons, New York: 1970.
The Web. The Web. 24 Feb. 2011. Sutton, Brian. A. "Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby." Explicator 59.1 (Fall 2000): 37-39.
Jay Gatsby fell in love with a young Daisy Buchanan prior to his military assignment overseas in WWI. Gatsby wanted to marry Daisy but she wouldn't marry him because he was poor and not a socialite. Gatsby then spent the five years, after his return home from the war; he strived to accumulate enough wealth to receive Daisy's love and attention.
Jay Gatsby believes that wealth and power can lead to love and happiness. He spends his entire life trying to create himself and change his past so that he can rekindle his love affair with the love of his life Daisy Buchanan. The two were young lovers, unable to be together because of very different social statuses. After Gatsby learns that he cannot be with Daisy because of this, he spends the rest of his life attempting to acquire wealth and power.
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