F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath

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F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby and John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath are superb models of individual and settings’ contrasting elements. Each novel is respectively set in different decades and both serve as foils of another. In regards to the “American Dream,’’ Great Gatsby and Grapes of Wrath are examples of two separate, yet similar paths of this vision; Gatsby is the respective “Promised land” and contrastingly, Grapes is “hell on earth.”

The Great Gatsby, filled with its accomplished, ostentatious, and scintillating characters, is the beacon and example of the achievement of the American Dream and the “Roaring 20s”. In the carefree fantasy world of the Buchanans and Gatsby, everything is beautiful, clean, and the availability of any material item is limitless. In particular, the Buchanans are especially haughty and even supercilious in manner. They, like every other denizen of the prestigious Egg sections of Long Island, live a secluded grandiose life. The striking contrast and caveat to this is that the family did not have to work for their own wealth. They are part of the ‘old money’ of the nation and their attitudes, especially Tom’s, are reflective of their lack of intercultural awareness and their secret society mindset. When Tom makes the statement, "Civilization's going to pieces. The idea is if we don't look out the white race will be--will be utterly submerged (by niggers). It's up to us, who are the dominant race, to watch out or these other races will have control of things” (Ch 1) it is clear evidence of the small-minded bigoted nature of supposedly sophisticated elite. This quotation also gives insight into the mindset of many Americans in regards towards beliefs about the adduced racial and ethni...

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...the idea of an American Dream, much less its attainment, is a dream and a faraway prayer that is mysterious and an intangible concept.

Works Cited

• Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The great Gatsby . New York: Scribner Paperback Fiction, 1995. Print.

• Lombardi, Esther. "'The Great Gatsby' Quotes." Books & Literature Classics. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2011.
• "SparkNotes: The Grapes of Wrath: Important Quotations Explained." SparkNotes: Today's Most Popular Study Guides. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2011. .

• Lombardi, Esther. "'Grapes of Wrath' Quotes." Books & Literature Classics. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2011.

• Steinbeck, John. The grapes of wrath . New York: Viking Press, 1939. Print

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