Comparing The Great Gatsby And Their Eyes Were Watching God

The main character of this novel (although the narrator is Nick) is Jay Gatsby. Some of his most distinctive character traits are that he is an optimist that chooses to live in the past. His main goal throughout the novel is to win back Daisy from Tom by “any means necessary,” he does not take into account that Daisy might not feel the same thing for him that he feels for her, choosing to live in a “perfect” world. He is a wealthy man living in a mansion in West Egg (based on Long Island, where F. Scott Fitzgerald had lived before). In contrast to the quote in the beginning of Their Eyes Were Watching God, I believe that the most distinctive trait about Gatsby is that he worked for his dreams to come true. Although he did questionable work, …show more content…
If held onto, we become enveloped within it and cannot change. I believe this theme applies to many characters throughout the novel such as Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby. The theme applies to Daisy in the fact that even after she married Tom, she still remembered Gatsby after years of not seeing him. Personally, I would like to say that I would remember someone I met for a short period of time and “fell in love” with, but I most likely wouldn’t. As for Gatsby, I have ranted about him throughout numerous questions, but I just think of the quote, “if you love someone, let them go… If they return to you, it was meant to be. If they don’t their love was never yours to begin with.” Gatsby lets the past define who he is as a person. Although he is able to climb from the depths of poverty and become a wealthy man, he doesn’t change because he clings onto the past. While his outside appearance may have changed, the “internal Gatsby” is forced to stay the same because of Gatsby’s want for his dream of a perfect relationship with Daisy to come …show more content…
Scott Fitzgerald would probably be the extremely tragic but understandable ending. My first reaction to the ending was that “there was no justice for Gatsby,” but the sad ending makes the novel (as a whole) more memorable for me. When I look back on the novel now, I understand why Fitzgerald wrote the ending the way he did. If Gatsby “got the girl” in the end, the novel would fall under every other cheesy being a nobody to being rich with the girl story. I also understand why Gatsby “needed to die” as although he was not guilty of being Myrtle’s lover (the reason he died), he was guilty for many other things, and “what goes around comes