Comparison Of A Good Man Is Hard To Find And Babylon Revisited And The Great Gatsby

1008 Words3 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: A good man is hard to find character analysis

In literature, we often see the “happy ending”, where the guy gets the girl, they ride off into the sunset together, forever. This is a consistent presentation across literature. Though another popular style, but less often seen, is that of the unhappy ending, which we will explore in this paper. Its style is one that can strike emotion through readers as they turn each page. In this work, we will analyze two classic works: “A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor, and “Babylon Revisited” by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Both stories share the same type of ending style. We will analyze the themes & symbols that each story has and compare the two.
A Good Man Is Hard To Find
This story, by Flannery O’Connor, tells the story of three generations …show more content…

Scott Fitzgerald writes about a man named Charlie, who returns to Paris to visit his daughter, who remains in the custody of his sister-in-law, after the death of his wife during his time while drying out from alcohol in a “Sanitarium” (Fitzgerald 706). During his trip, he is offered the chance to retake custody of his daughter, Honoria. Charlie, who still drinks one drink a day to stave off alcoholic obsessions, ends up meeting a pair of drunks in the bar he frequents for his one drink. They end up turning up sloppy drunk at his sister-in-law’s, ruining his chances for the moment at regaining custody, due to the sister-in-law’s mistrust of his “sobriety” and the people he still communicates with. This story has one common recurring symbol, The Ritz Bar that Charlie frequents throughout the story. Its American theme reflects his home country while in Paris, and it was his home for many nights during his drinking years. He ends up in the bar at the end of the story, reflecting on how alone he is (Fitzgerald 713).
Comparison
Author …show more content…

In “A Good Man”, the Grandmother’s cat ends up causing the car accident that leads to their eventual deaths (O’Connor 549), a beautiful symbol of what is the Grandmother’s personality and values. This symbol is paralleled in “Babylon Revisited” when the two former friends of Charlie show up at the sister-in-law’s doorstep, destroying his chances of retaking custody of Honoria, his daughter (Fitzgerald 711). Both symbolize a long history of imperfections from each person that have come to fruition at a crucial point in their lives, which end up leading to their downfall (though their downfalls are vastly different, each carries significant emotional damage to each

Show More
Related

  • Emotion In Romeo And Juliet

    944 Words  | 2 Pages

    Love, what a small word for being one of the most powerful and complicated emotion someone can receive. Love grants people an experience of other emotions such as, sadness, happiness, jealousy, hatred and many more. It is because of those characteristics that love creates that make it so difficult to define the emotion in a few words. In the play, “Romeo and Juliet” by William Shakespeare, two star-crossed lovers, Romeo and Juliet, defy their parents in hopes of being able to be together and live a happy life. The characters in “Romeo and Juliet” show the characteristics of love through their words and actions throughout the play. The attributes the characters illustrate throughout the play are rage, loyalty, and sorrow.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Gus Van Sant's Good Will Hunting And F. Scott Fitzgerald

    878 Words  | 2 Pages

    Gus Van Sant’s Good Will Hunting and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby explore the themes of trauma and redemption through the creators unsystematic stories. Traumatic events and it’s effects on both protagonists are the main focus of the texts. Sant’s troubled genius, Will Hunting has difficulties connecting with individuals due to a history of emotional abuse. Fitzgerald’s famous romantic comes in the form of, Jay Gatsby, a financially successful man that has difficulties moving on from his former lover, Daisy. Both Jay and Will are on the path to self actualisation. Equally notable is the negative effects of the past on their personal lives and the different methods each character takes to overcome these experiences and grow. The creators

    Read More

  • Tone and Diction in Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and T.S. Eliot’s Poem, The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock

    655 Words  | 2 Pages

    Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby makes the reader feel almost depressed. Fitzgerald describes things that are usually viewed as pleasant and beautiful in dull, grim ways. The story line itself is grim, and Fitzgerald truly conveys that through his descriptions, which set the tone of futility. When reading the book, one understands right away that the story isn’t going to be a happy one. A description of Tom Buc...

    Read More

  • Bad Choices in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

    1582 Words  | 4 Pages

    Bad choices are made every day by everybody. Those bad choices could lead to consequences that are going to bother a person for a long time. Even more, that person may try various ways to correct that error. The intention is good, but things can go even worse if the effort is based on unrealistic fantasies. This effort is presented as a part of modernist ideas. Modernist writers dramatize this effort through the tragic outcomes of the characters. Three modernist pieces, A Street Car Named Desire, Death of a Salesman, The Great Gatsby, all of them sent out a message to the audience, the loss of past and how it cannot be recovered. Each piece features a character who lost hope, strived to recover the hope, and ended with a tragic outcome. A Street Car Named Desire featured Blanche; Blanche spent her whole life trying to get some attentions. Death of a Salesman featured Willy; Willy spent his whole life trying to apply the idea “Be Well Liked.” The Great Gatsby featured Jay Gatsby; Gatsby spent his whole life trying to win back Daisy. All of those characters ended with tragic outcome. Blanche was sent to asylum by her own sister. Willy committed suicide after felt humiliated by his sons. Gatsby was murdered with a gunshot planned by Tom Buchanan. Blanche, Willy, and Gatsby’s tragic fates are caused by their false beliefs about life, which are proven wrong by the contradictions between the reality and the illusion.

    Read More

  • Character Comparison: “The Swimmer” and “Babylon Revisited”

    1033 Words  | 3 Pages

    John Cheever and F. Scott Fitzgerald are both 20th century writers whose story’s thematically reflected the despair and the emptiness of life. In both story’s “The Swimmer” and “Babylon Revisited” the main characters undergo similar problems, although they are presented differently in each story. The subject matter of both stories, pertain to the ultimate downfall of a man. “The Swimmer”, conveys the story of a man who swims his way into reality. He at first is very ignorant to his situation; however with the passing of time he becomes cognizant to the idea that he has lost everything. In “Babylon Revisited” the key character is a “recovering alcoholic”, who return to his homeland in hope to get his daughter back. However, problems from his past reemerge and deter his attempt to reunite. Ultimately, both stories share rather inconsolable endings with no direct resolution to their troubles.

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby and the Valley of Ashes

    1160 Words  | 3 Pages

    Many times we hear of society's affect on people; society influencing the way people think and act.  Hardly mentioned is the reverse: peoples' actions and lifestyles affecting society as a whole and how it is characterized.  Thus, society is a reflection of its inhabitants and in The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, it is a wasteland described as the "valley of ashes."  Since the characters of this novel make up this wasteland, aren't they the waste?  Symbolically, this waste represents the lack of ethics of the 1920's society and civilization's decay.  In The Great Gatsby, morals deficiencies such as a lack of God, selfishness, and idleness are reflective of a society as doomed as  "the valley of ashes."

    Read More

  • Compare and Contrast of “Journey to The West” and “Tartuffe”

    857 Words  | 2 Pages

    end. This essay will further show how both stories shared similar endings, while at the same time

    Read More

  • Ends In Katherine Mansfield's 'A & P'

    1263 Words  | 3 Pages

    Have you ever experienced a day where nothing goes right? The story “A&P” written by John Updike is one of a teenage boy named Sammy who quits his job in hope of impressing some girls --- only to find they neither cared nor listened. “Miss Brill” written by Katherine Mansfield is a story about an elderly woman named Miss Brill who goes to the park to observe people; her evening is ruined when some kids make fun of the way she 's dressed. Miss Brill and Sammy started their day motivated, as the stories went on their moods shifted because their actions were affected by other people 's opinions. But sad endings don 't always have to be sad, there 's a lot a reader can learn from them. Sad endings are more memorable than other endings because there is a feeling of uneasiness left for the reader. It is also more realistic that people don’t have a perfect day or the hero gets what they wanted. Updike and Mansfield use sad endings to further the theme of disappointment.

    Read More

  • Symbolism In Perks Of Being A Wallflower

    133 Words  | 1 Pages

    Plethoras of symbols are represented in a coming-of-age novel Perks of Being a Wallflower written by Stephen Chbosky. Throughout Charlie's novel, he writes letters about his daily life to an unknown reader. In his high school year, he goes through many phases and emotions trying to seek him out. He faces his friend dying in the beginning of his high school year, to finding out news to what his Aunt Helen did to him. He receives mixed emotions to everything that happened to him, and blames he is the problem. Getting stoned and drinking is something Charlie does to help numb the pain because he deals with panic attacks in sort of a situation and depression. Depression makes him to face the real world, and it makes him question more about his

    Read More

  • Not True Love in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

    2808 Words  | 6 Pages

    Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet – popularly considered by many to be the quintessential love story of all time – is a play that we are all familiar with in one way or another. Whether it be through the plethora of portrayals, adaptations and performances that exist or through your own reading of the play, chances are you have been acquainted with this tale of “tragic love” at some point in your life. Through this universal familiarity an odd occurrence can be noted, one of almost canonical reverence for the themes commonly believed to be central to the plot. The most widely believed theme of Romeo and Juliet is that of the ideal love unable to exist under the harsh social and political strains of this world. Out of this idea emerge two characters who, throughout history, have been heralded as the world’s greatest lovers and who have been set up as yardsticks against which future lovers must be measured. The tragic courtship between Romeo and Juliet has become so idealized and revered that even the Oxford English Dictionary lists this definition under the word ‘Romeo’:

    Read More

  • Love in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet

    1589 Words  | 4 Pages

    Love in William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare examines the concepts of love in the tragic play

    Read More

  • Gatsby

    766 Words  | 2 Pages

    There was music from my neighbor’s house through the summer nights. In his blue gardens men and girls came like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft, or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his two motorboats slit the water of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes over cataracts of foam. On weekends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city between nine in the morning and long past midnight. (Fitzgerald 39)

    Read More

  • Romeo and Juliet

    665 Words  | 2 Pages

    The theme of love is highlighted effectively in Romeo and Juliet. At the play's beginning, Romeo describes his infatuation for Rosaline. His feelings are not returned and this means that he feels desolate: he shuts himself away from his friends and family. Shakespeare allows his audience to see that unrequited love can be painful. However when Romeo meets Juliet, all thoughts of Rosaline disappear. Romeo and Juliet's attraction for each other is immediate. The love they feel is passionate and based on a genuine understanding of each other's feelings. Romeo declares, "Did my heart love till no?" (Act 1, Scene 5) and Juliet realizes their love is special. Shakespeare encourages his audience to consider the qualities people need to fall in love and to remain in love.

    Read More

  • Compare And Contrast The Great Gatsby And The Notebook

    2011 Words  | 5 Pages

    Benjamin Disraeli once said, “the magic of first love is the ignorance that it can never end”. In similar ways, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby and the film The Notebook directed by Nick Cassavetes both share a similar love story producing the idea that first love never dies. Both the novel and the film present the idea of a lower class man falling in love with a wealthy woman. Neither of the men are able to stay with the women due to disapproval. When the men finally reconnect with the women, they realize they are already in a new relationship. Although the women are in different relationships, they know they are still in love with their first love, leaving a conflict for them in the current relationship

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Great Gatsby

    1308 Words  | 3 Pages

    “The film adaptation of The Great Gatsby directed by Baz Luhrmann in 2013 is almost as ingenious as the novel written by F. Scott Fitzgerald in 1925. It is easily understood, and keeps the audience attentive up until the very end. The sceneries, in most cases are very close to the description given in the novel and are very pleasing to the eye. Even the actors are well cast in most instances. The costuming fits the description of the 1920s perfectly, the computer generated imagery technology enhances the themes of the film and the music is appeals to the audiences’ auditory senses among other things which are to be explained below. Another aspect that makes a great contribution to the film’s greatness is the narration.

    Read More

More about Comparison Of A Good Man Is Hard To Find And Babylon Revisited And The Great Gatsby

Open Document