Comparitive Essay
In the stories The Sun Also Rises, The Great Gatsby, "Snows on Kilomanjaro," and "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz" there are distinct connections that can be drawn among the characters that lived during the Lost Generation. This era describes the generation which died, fought, or worked during the war as they passed through the threshold of their adult lives. The war had a haunting effect on the lives of each individual who experienced the violence, and people had their own unique way of coping with the pain and cruelty of the war. In each work, the reader can interpret the different and alike characteristics between the distraught characters. There are clear relations among the stories due to their similar time period. In both works, the author portrays their own ideas of alcohol, love, and life during the Lost Generation. The general lifestyles of the characters drastically change after the war. The characters in The Sun Also Rises are reckless, aimless, and pleasure-seeking crowd. They wander through an endless, drunken procession of parties, cafes, and sexual affairs in a desperate search for meaning in their lives. All of the characters belong to the crowd that travels through Europe trying to find importance in their liv
es through artistic expression. They are attempting to escape their devastated lives, but Jake confronts this issue when he says, "Listen Robert, going to another country doesn't make any difference. I've tried all that. You can't get away from yourself by moving from one place to another. There's nothing to that" (Hemingway 11). Due to the war, these lost souls are prisoners of their own attempts to escape the war that wounded them physically and psychologically. In contrast to the characters in The Sun Also Rises, the individuals in The Great Gatsby lead their lives in a rather different manner. Instead of traveling around the world, they seclude themselves to only the most wealthy and luxurious people. They rely on materialistic objects and extravagant parties to fill the lonesome hole in their lives, and the characters try to uphold a perfect white image of themselves by condemning only the most influential and prosperous individuals. This snobby attitude is obvious when Tom says, "Well, it's a fine book and everybody ought to read it. The idea is if we don't look out the white race will be- will be utterly submerged. It's all scientific stuff; it's been proved" (Fitzgerald 17). Although these lifestyles are different, they are both struggling to compensate for the unbearable pain the Great War caused. In A Diamond as Big as the Ritz, the family secludes themselves to only their "mountain" in the secluded hills of the Midwest. Their reasons are much different than those in Gatsby. It is for the protection of their wealth of diamonds which forces them not interact with outsiders. Since alcohol is a common way of dealing with grief, pain, and to use as an
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Approximate Word count = 1126
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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