Outsiders, always are and always will be

F. Scott Fitzgerald and William Shakespeare illustrate the struggle of outside characters in their respective works, The Great Gatsby and Othello. The main characters, Jay Gatsby and Othello, live in different time periods. Gatsby lives in magnificent New York in the Roaring Twenties, where life is all about reaching and living the American Dream of money and status. As for Othello, life in the seventeenth century is about maintaining a good social reputation. Fitzgerald paints a picture of the “American Dream” in the Roaring Twenties and the desperate pursuit of it and he depicts distinct social classes—old money, new money, and no money. Gatsby was raised in an underprivileged family in rural North Dakota but later manages to become stupendously wealthy. However, he is treated as an outcast because of the way he acquired his wealth, by participating in organized crime. Comparatively, Shakespeare’s play, Othello, is centered around a Venetian general, who is a highly respected Moor but is later driven by jealousy and deception, and treated as an outsider in the Venetian society because of his racial background. Nowadays being an outsider is just as bad as it was back then. The consequences of being an outsider still has grave implications and consequences but back then life is a living nightmare for an outsider and the only way to change that is by ceaselessly working towards fitting into society and being treated equally in the society. Fitzgerald and Shakespeare strive to make the readers understand that outsiders will always remain outsiders no matter how hard they try to remove the label from themselves. Gatsby and Othello experience discrimination due to their background, they are not able to maintain a healthy relationsh...

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...heir novels by illustrating the horrendous lives of outsiders and how they go through the same trials in their society. Fitzgerald and Shakespeare portray the lives of their main characters and how they go through various challenges such as dealing with discrimination due to their background and due to their outsider status and background prevents them from keeping a healthy relationship with their loved once. This demonstrates that the outsider traits and qualities are still the same from the 17th century till the present time but the consequences and advantages differ. The authors also prove because Gatsby and Othello work hard to achieve equality within the society, they manage to achieve it for a short time but then they end up going over board and losing it. Works Cited

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York, NY: Scribner, 1996. Print.