The themes in 'The Great Gatsby' and 'Tender is the night'

A detailed Summary of The themes in 'The Great Gatsby' and 'Tender is the night'

'The Great Gatsby' and 'Tender is the Night'

Different books, despite different storylines, may still address similar themes. What similarities of themes did you find in your paired texts, and how are they obvious in the character's behaviour?

Throughout two of F Scott Fitzgerald's books, 'The Great Gatsby' and 'Tender is the Night', comparisons can be made between the themes that are dealt with in each book.

These themes that are portrayed, include materialism, the corruption of dreams and idealism, which all come under the larger theme of searching for human fulfilment.

Materialism is a theme that is very common through both of the books. In 'The Great Gatsby' we are constantly seeing characters living a hedonistic lifestyle, where the importance of reaching their full potential is over-shadowed by the trend to live life to the fullest by the partying constantly and having fun.

Many character's in 'The Great Gatsby could be labelled as being materialistic. Tom, Daisy, Jordan and Myrtle all seem to value materialistic possessions. They all believe that success comes from the way you appear to others and how much money you have in you wallet.

An example of when a character does something solel

y to keep up appearances, is when Myrtle says to Tom as they are driving past a man selling dogs 'I want one of those dogs', she says "I want one of those for the apartment'. This comment shows her irresponsible behaviour towards possessions as well as her need to give a certain image to others.

Nicole, although beautiful and elegant, was flawed. Described by Dick as a 'beautiful empty shell', she was the object of Dick Diver's romantic imagination. He took it upon himself, to obtain this 'beautiful shell', despite the obvious problems and warnings from his associates. Looking at his 'need' for her, it wasn't just love; it was also the need for a challenge and he put his entire effort into proving that Nicole could be changed. When he met Rosemary, things started to look up. Finally he had met a woman, although not as beautiful as Nicole, that was stable and independent. He took advantage of her love for him to experience what a relationship with two equal participants would be like. After he had tasted what a relationship like this was like, his dream became more and more clearer to him. The reality of what Nicole was really like suddenly dawned on him, and he realised that the dream that he had been striving for so long was impossible to achieve. It is at this point that his dream started to die and so did he.

Dick's ideal, was to marry the perfect woman, Nicole, write his fantastic book 'psychology for psychiatrists' and be the best psychiatrist in the world. At the beginning of his career all of these things were attainable, but slowly each one of these things slipped away to falter his life. These things were not only just an ideal or a plan in life, they were a necessity for Dick. He dreamed of them all and it was from then on that it became an obsession. This lead to Dick's belief that his life couldn't be fulfilled unless all of these things were obtained.

Another theme that is dealt

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Approximate Word count = 1295
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English