Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby and Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
The Roaring Twenties bring to mind a generation of endless partying, which reflected very little of the morals of the generations preceding it. The world, for that generation, was fast-paced and thoroughly material, crowded with bizarre and colorful characters like David Belasco and Arnold Rothstein. Inspired by this era's "spiritually exhausted people" (Brians), F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and T. S. Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock address many of the same themes in attempting to restore the "lost generation." In developing these themes, both authors utilize weather, the concept of illusion versus reality and the direction of time as a mode of conveying the promise of their dream to the citizens of the Jazz Age.
In both The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock and The Great Gatsby, weather and time of day play an important part in setting the tone and mood. Prufrock sets out in the evening, a time of uncertainty, neither day nor night, to confront his past. Likewise, the important events in the Great Gatsby occur at a significant time of day. Once, when Gatsby talked to Nick about his past, Nick describes it as "a time of confusion," (Fitzgerald 102) which the evening time has come to symbolize. Also, the time of final confession in the Great Gatsby was the night Daisy rejected Gatsby (148). Even the covering of the night was not enough to hide the disenchantment of his dream. At this time, Gatsby tells the whole truth about his past and his relationship with Daisy. This past was set in October, as was The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. When Gatsby looks back through the mists of time, he sees a perfect ...
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...both authors sought to communicate to their societies, the beauty of a dream uncorrupted by senseless illusions. In using the weather, the concept of illusion versus reality and the direction of time to convey the promise of their dream to the citizens of the Jazz Age, Fitzgerald and Eliot contrast the frustration and despair that was inherent in a spiritually bankrupt world with the fulfillment characteristic of a more grounded and less immoral lifestyle.
Works Cited:
Bewley, Marius. "Some Notes on The Great Gatsby." Mizener 70-76.
Eliot, T.S.. "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock." The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Ed. M.H. Abrams. New York: Norton, 1996. 2459-2463.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. 1925. New York: Scribner Classic, 1986.
Pinion, F. B. A T.S. Eliot Companion. Totowa: Barnes & Noble Books, 1986.
So often, it seems, life can seem like a "patient etherized on the table" (Eliot, 3). Be it the apparent futility of existence as a whole, or the insecurity of those single moments of doubt; life is often fleeting. I believe life is best described as a fickle beast, always elusive; always turning down some new and unexpected road. This fleeting life is what both Jay Gatsby of The Great Gatsby and Alfred J. Prufrock of "Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock" experience. These two men experiences move down remarkably similar paths as they quest for love and life. Yet each has sealed their shared fate in a different manner. As they head toward the seeming abyss of death, both remiss on all they wish they had done during their lives. By the time each man meets his end they both feel they have failed themselves and life as a whole.
The first interaction between Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan in about five years starts off raining and as they talk, the sun starts to eventually shine. In Chapter 5 of this novel, Nick Carraway and his fellow neighbor, Jay Gatsby, both decide to agree on a day that “was pouring rain,” which is the day that Gatsby would reunite with Daisy (88). Daisy would be arriving at Nick’s house at around four o’clock in order to tea with Nick, but what she does not realize is that she will be seeing Gatsby. Gatsby says, “One of the papers said they thought the rain would stop about four” (89). This ultimately shows that Gatsby wants the sun to shine bright when Daisy arrives as he hopes Daisy will fall back in love with him. At about half past three o’clock “the rain cooled . . . to a damp mist through which occasional thin drops swam like dew” (89). This again proves the point that the closer it is to Daisy’s arrival the calmer the rain starts to pour because weather symbolizes the climax of emotions late to come from Gatsby and Daisy. After about a half an hour past four o’clock and since Daisy’s arrival the rain pauses and “the sun [is] shone again” (93). This quote from the novel shows that the sun is shinning again as Gatsby sees
Each literary work portrays something different, leaving a unique impression on all who read that piece of writing. Some poems or stories make one feel happy, while others are more solemn. This has very much to do with what the author is talking about in his or her writing, leaving a bit of their heart and soul in the work. F. Scott Fitzgerald, when writing The Great Gatsby, wrote about the real world, yet he didn’t paint a rosy picture for the reader. The same can be said about T.S. Eliot, whose poem “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock,” presents his interpretation of hell. Both pieces of writing have many similarities, but the most similar of them all is the tone of each one.
The characters Fitzgerald created in both The Great Gatsby and “Winter Dreams” reveal the age in which he lived in and did very well to define the time period. In this way that Fitzgerald is regarded as a historian in the era. After World War I, American society went through a period of intense change. Traditional principles in God, country, and civilization were traumatized as Americans confronted the anguish of a war of that degree. During the 1920s, many Americans acknowledged that an old order had been substituted by a new, open society, one that embraced new fashions of clothing, behavior, and even the arts. Fitzgerald coined the name ‘‘Jazz Age’’ to describe this decade, which along with the ‘‘Roaring Twenties’’ came to express the Cultural Revolution that was then taking place at the time.
Jay Gatsby, the protagonist of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, is used to contrast a real American dreamer against what had become of American society during the 1920's. By magnifying the tragic fate of dreamers, conveying that twenties America lacked the substance to fulfill dreams and exposing the shallowness of Jazz-Age Americans, Fitzgerald foreshadows the destruction of his own generation.
A person might be the master of their own thoughts, but can be the slaves of their own emotions. Powerful emotions can cloud a person’s judgment due to the strong sentiment behind them. In “The Great Gatsby and “The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock,” each of the leading male characters has allowed their emotions to construct their decisions for them without the use of logical reasoning. It demonstrates how one’s feelings can cause them to make foolish and insensible choices. These ill-advised choices made can lead to failure. In "The Great Gatsby” and the "The Lovesong of J.Alfred Prufrock", both main characters’ reason and logic succumbed to their emotions, blinding their judgment and ultimately, causing their collapse.
“The Great Gatsby” and “The Love Song for J. Alfred Prufrock” are two pieces of writing written in the 1920’s. Both F. Scott Fitzgerald and T.S Elliot were able to express the overwhelming force of the most powerful human emotion. Although the two eponymous characters seem vastly different from each other in, it can be seen when analyzed in greater depth that the two hold more similarities than differences. Both Prufrock and Gatsby live more in their own minds than the actual world. This causes them to become isolated from other people and become captives by their own illusions. Both men will eventually allow love and fear to corrupt their lives and lead them to make decisions which will ultimately bring about their demise.
Certain authors, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, wanted to reflect the horrors that the world had experienced not a decade ago. In 1914, one of the most destructive and pointless wars in history plagued the world: World War I. This war destroyed a whole generation of young men, something one would refer to as the “Lost Generation”. Modernism was a time that allowed the barbarity of the war to simmer down and eventually, disappear altogether. One such author that thrived in this period was F. Scott Fitzgerald, a young poet and author who considered himself the best of his time. One could say that this self-absorption was what fueled his drive to be the most famous modernist the world had seen. As The New Yorker staff writer Susan Orlean mentions in her literary summary of Fitzgerald’s works, “I didn’t know till fifteen that there was anyone in the world except me, and it cost me plenty” (Orlean xi). One of the key factors that influenced and shaped Fitzgerald’s writing was World War I, with one of his most famous novels, This Side Of Paradise, being published directly after the war in 1920. Yet his most famous writing was the book, The Great Gatsby, a novel about striving to achieve the American dream, except finding out when succeeding that this dream was not a desire at all. Fitzgerald himself lived a life full of partying and traveling the world. According to the Norton Anthology of American Literature, “In the 1920’s and 1930’s F. Scott Fitzgerald was equally equally famous as a writer and as a celebrity author whose lifestyle seemed to symbolize the two decades; in the 1920’s he stood for all-night partying, drinking, and the pursuit of pleasure while in the 1930’s he stood for the gloomy aftermath of excess” (Baym 2124). A fur...
The 1920s were a time of big dreams, moral decline, and hardships in America . The Roaring Twenties were a different time altogether with its bootleggers and speakeasies, women becoming more independent, the poor becoming poorer, but through all this was The American Dream keeping the hope afloat. F. Scott Fitzgerald captured this era in his book, The Great Gatsby. Through his many symbols he illustrates the hopes, the forgotten God, and the oppressed Americans of the Twenties. The symbols in The Great Gatsby help convey several different themes, from wealth to loss of morals, to poverty.
The Great Gatsby by Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald is a novel that eloquently summarizes what the entire American society represents through Fitzgerald’s view. This novel develops its story in New York, at a time when the jazz age was at its peak. The roaring twenties, the era of glamour, infringed prohibition, conflict, growth and prosperity. The main concern in that age was materialism, sex, booze, and entertainment. The American Dream was the idea that anything, especially success, was possible through hard work and determination no matter where the individual comes from. On the other hand, in Fitzgerald’s perspective, he was aware of the falsity of the values in the American society; and also he was aware of the importance of honesty and sincerity. The argument is poetically obvious, through his novel Fitzgerald shows us that reality will always end by demolishing any idealism; because the American dream is untouchable, intangible, a hoax, a fraud, and a lie that only leads to the destruction of those who believe in a single dream for too long.
The 1920’s was a tumultuous time for a young generation in search of a little fun. After World War I, gender roles were no longer the concrete pillars of society and the roaring 20’s era was born out of the ensuing chaos. This chaos included jazz, loose morals, and the sale of illegal alcohol that would ensure this generation of rabble-rousers would be notorious. Many writers attempted to capture the essence of this remarkable time. One of the most prolific of these writers, and one of the biggest contributors to the language that now surrounds the time, was F. Scott Fitzgerald. Through the theme of the deterioration of the American dream and American morals and traditions, F. Scott Fitzgerald reflected his life in the jazz age, including
The 1920s era is known for different names such as the Roaring Twenties, the Jazz Age, the Age of Intolerance, and the Age of Wonderful Nonsense. Moreover, the era claimed the beginning of Modernism in America, which led authors to stray away from traditional writing styles. A commonality seen in Modernists’ works is the desire for characters to fit into societies that they believe to be more substantial or well off than their own. In the novels The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Passing by Nella Larsen, the characters Jay Gatsby and Clare Kendry use social environments and interactions with others in attempt to reject their pasts and gain acceptance. Jay Gatsby longs to forget his past and focus on the present and future in hopes
Themes of hope, success, and wealth overpower The Great Gatsby, leaving the reader with a new way to look at the roaring twenties, showing that not everything was good in this era. F. Scott Fitzgerald creates the characters in this book to live and recreate past memories and relationships. This was evident with Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship, Tom and Daisy’s struggling marriage, and Gatsby expecting so much of Daisy and wanting her to be the person she once was. The theme of this novel is to acknowledge the past, but do not recreate and live in the past because then you will not be living in the present, taking advantage of new opportunities.
The Effects of Changing Technology on Shopping Trends and Social Behavior of Customers 1.1 Application Area Retail 1.2 PESTLE Perspective Social 1.3 Research Topic Question How has technology changed and affected shopping trends and the social behaviour of customers? 2.0 Preface/Abstract The purpose of this report is to analysis the PESTLE analysis; this report will contain one context of an Application Area, and then choose a research question based on both. In this case am talking about the social aspect and the retailing area. I will also being looking at how IT technology has changed shopping trends and how its affects the social behavior of customers.
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