Bodega Dreams And The Great Gatsby Analysis

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Over the years, many authors have gotten ideas from works previously written. A few elements are used here and there, but most of the plot and characters are the author 's own. However, in Bodega Dreams by Ernesto Quiñonez, most of the book contains more than just elements from The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. At the beginning of Bodega Dreams, a reader may begin to believe the characters and the plot are taken directly from The Great Gatsby as there are connections linking the plots, Chino and Nick and Bodega and Gatsby together. Even as the story progresses, the reader sees these connections and even a few lines from Fitzgerald 's novel. Yet there is a division. As Dwyer says, the book isn 't plagiarism rather “imitation”, which is …show more content…
They both are unreliable narratives because they have their story to tell about people who made a big impact on their life. With only one viewpoint, the reader can only make limited deductions about who all the characters are. For example, the women in both books are lacking a little in character development. In Bodega Dreams, the women have minor roles and are rather flat in comparison to the guys. While Chino says that he doesn 't stereotype women in his book. He states, “the Latin woman needing to be saved from her sexist man is not entirely true” (38). Instead, he uses another stereotype a reader may be familiar with, which is that of a Latin American woman who is strong, possible too strong for the men. On more than one occasion, I 've seen in books and on television shows the scary and rough Latino women. The ones who keep their men “on a leash” and if a man was to his hit a woman, he would “wake up with scissors in [his] back” (38). But besides this stereotype and Blanca being religious, none of the other women have any other defining characteristics. For Nick in The Great Gatsby, the women are more like the first stereotype. Even Jordan, who is a professional golfer, is introduced by her looks rather than her personality. When Nick enters the Buchanan living room, he is taken off guard as Jordan renders him speechless, a type of thing readers usually associate with beauty. Daisy, his cousin, is also described as beautiful, which she uses as a weapon on men. As a female reader, I can 't help but roll my eyes at the descriptions of these two ladies. If they aren 't strong, they 're feminine to the point men can 't control how they

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