The Great Gatsby and Short Sto

A detailed Summary of The Great Gatsby and Short Sto

The Great Gatsby and Short Story Comparative Analysis Essay

Certain novels and short stories written between the two world wars express common traits that equate to a story commonly labeled Modern American literature. The authors expressed a need through writing of peace and search for values in an unstable world. By careful examination and comparative analysis of the novel The Great Gatsby and other short stories of the Modern Era, one could find the similarities in point of view, conflict, theme, and setting.

The role of the narrator and point of view in the aforementioned stories all commonly consist of a first person point of view, and an involved narrator. In The Great Gatsby, the novel's narrator is Nick Carraway. He is a young man who moves to the East to learn the bond business. Honest, tolerant, and inclined to reserve judgment, Nick often becomes a confidant for those with troubling secrets and problems. The Great Gatsby is told entirely through Nick's eyes, and his thoughts and perceptions shape the story. As Nick says, "I'm inclined to reserve all judgments...the abnormal mind is quick to detect and attach itself to this quality"(Fitzgerald 1). In the short story by Catherine Anne Porter, The Jilting of Gra

In novels of the Modern Period themes of a search for personal value is popular. In The Great Gatsby, one of the major themes of the novel Fitzgerald wished to express was that of corruption of values and a decline of spiritual life. The characters have a yearning for hope and dreams to give meaning to their lives in their wealthy insignificant community. In the short story The Life You Save May Be Your Own a prevalent theme stresses the value of life, even in harsh conditions. Mr. Shiftlet points out this point.

" 'I suppose Daisy will call too' he looked on anxiously, as if he hoped I'd corroborate this"(Fitzgerald 103). In the story The Jilting of Granny Weatherall, Granny's internal conflict regards her being left at the alter. She is still angry and haunted by the fact she was left on her wedding day by her fiance. Although her life was filled with many wonderful memories, the jilting remains the most vivid. "Since the day the wedding cake was not cut, but thrown out and wasted. The whole bottom dropped out of the world, and there she was blind and sweating with nothing under her feet and the walls falling away"(Porter 587). In the short story entitled The Far and the Near, an engineer faces an internal conflict which he does not realize until he is confronted with it. He became dependant on the familiarity of a small house with a woman and her child, as well as their friendly smiles and waves. When he decides to visit the house he had passed so many times before, that he had built up in his mind, he is confronted by the sharp realization that it was just and idealistic dream concocted in his mind. "He felt for them and for the little house in which they lived with such tenderness as a man might feel for his own children"(Wolfe 602). Then sees "the affection he had read into her gesture, vanished in the moment he saw her..."(Wolfe 603). The short story A Rose For Miss Emily focuses on Miss Emily's internal conflict with an ideal world and the reality she does not want to accept. She finds her love has found another. She resolves if she is unable to have him, no one will. She murders Homer, and creates a perfect life for them together in a tomb-like bedroom. "She could not have him for herself, so in order to maintain her romance, she poisoned him and fashioned him in the perfect room"(Faulkner 599).

Some common words found in the essay are:
Weatherall Granny's, Modern Era, Salinas Valley, Modern American, Granny Weatherall, Leader People, Gatsby Gatsby, East Eggs, Modern Period, Save Own, short story, comparative analysis, modern literature, modern era, internal conflict, american literature, modern american, short stories, salinas valley, gatsby short, modern era similarities, short stories modern, era similarities view, gatsby short stories, stories modern era,

Approximate Word count = 1579
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Novels