Comparison of Jay Gatsby in the Great Gatsby and Amory Blaine in This Side of Paradise - Research Paper Example

Comparison of Jay Gatsby in the Great Gatsby and Amory Blaine in This Side of Paradise The novel The Great Gatsby tells a story about the history and passions of an idealistic character called Jay Gatsby. Jay views the world from a perspective that makes him believe and maintain throughout that anything he thinks or desires is possible (Bruccoli, 71). Centering his life on this philosophy, Jay Gatsby sets out to pursue his ambitious but idealistic goals. At no point during the story of his life does he consider that his aspirations are not possibly achievable and that are farfetched. Nonetheless, his optimistic nature and persistence gives him the power to test his ideals and experience the real worth they hold for him. On the other hand, the novel This Side of Paradise narrates a story about Amory Blaine, a young man raised by Beatrice, his mother, in Minneapolis. Beatrice was married to a wealthy man. Amory found a father figure in his mother’s old time suitor, Monsignor, who was a priest (West, 2). Amory’s attitude is greatly shaped by his mother. During his days in elementary and preparatory schools, Amory was reportedly arrogant, which made him disliked by the other boys in his class. Even then, Amory lived with an ambition to make it big in life: to be rich and popular (Fitzgerald, 41). However, the illusion he created in his mind about life destroyed him and prevented him from realizing his dreams. He was egocentric and knew himself to be extraordinarily handsome. James Gatz was a young man from a poor family that lived in North Dakota. He was bright and despised imprecations brought by poverty, so much that he decided to drop out of College a short time after joining due to the shame he felt when working as a janitor. Amory, on the other hand, was born from a relatively well up family economically. He was, however, not as bright as Gatsby; he was lazy and had an inappropriate attitude towards life. For instance, before he joined preparatory school, Amory expressed his dissatisfaction with Harvard to Monsignor, saying that all men in Harvard were sissies just like he used to be. He wanted to go to Princeton which he thought to be good-looking, aristocratic and as lazy as he was (West, 11). Having dropped out of school, James Gatz later works for Dan Cody, a copper tycoon, where he got to learn about the ways of the wealthy. He became so taken away that he changed his name to Jay Gatsby, a name he considered much more romantic than his original name (Fitzgerald, 63). The change of name was also a way of denying his birth from a common family and the first step to pursue a rich businessman status with an equally rich ancestry. While working for Cody, Gatsby began to associate himself with great wealth and worked hard to attain a notable position in which he could enjoy Cody’s wealth much better (Prigozy, 43). Meanwhile, Amory Blaine grew in a traditional upbringing; attending school like any other child elsewhere. He proceeded to Princeton for preparatory education, self-conscious about his appearance and made friends with a few boys with whom they shared taste in life, philosophy and literature. Later, he attended Princeton University where he fell in love with a few women. Amory enjoyed idling with friends, half-heartedly pursued literary ambitions and achieved a level of self-knowledge (Prigozy, 77). He, however, lost many friends and money due to his weaknesses in personality. As he worked for Dan Cody, Gatsby no longer considered himself a salmon fisher or the roaming clam digger he was before, but rather a business executive. He falsely convinces himself that by changing his location, he could change his entire history. Gatsby was a proud person who was well aware of the lifestyle he wanted to lead. He was determined to realize his ambitions and kept his hopes alive taking advantage of any opportunity that came his way. Unlike Gatsby, Amory Blaine was a less focused person who lived with an arrogant attitude making few friends and creating many more enemies. Despite keeping his dreams alive throughout his life, he did little towards realizing them. Upon the death of Cody, Gatsby’s employer, Cody’s mistress cheated him out of a bequest worth $25000. Gatsby was left without anything and it is only until after he joined the army and fought in the First World War, that he achieved something worth his long pursued stature. During the war, his hard work and brightness enabled him to rise in rank to Major, commanded his regiment’s heavy machine guns, and participated in the much bloody battles of Argonne and Marne, where he was much decorated for valor. Jay Gatsby lied that his status as a military officer afforded him an opportunity to attend Oxford University, a prestigious university in England (Bruccoli, 83). On the other hand, while still studying at the University, Amory went back to Minneapolis where he met Isabelle, a young lady he had earlier met as a little girl, with whom he started a love relationship. However, Amory got disillusioned by Isabelle and returned to Princeton. Later on, Amory went to serve in the army, overseas, during the First World War just like Gatsby. He served in the army as a Bayonet Instructor (Fitzgerald, 91). After the war, Amory returned home poor, where he met and loved a wealthy girl from New York named Rosalind. It is, therefore, imperative that they both came from the war with little wealth, if any. By the time Gatsby supposedly left the University in England penniless, he met a gambler and gangster named Wolfsheim who introduced him to bootlegging from which he made the money he had been dreaming of for the whole of his life. Gatsby reinvented his flamboyant lifestyle with a matching autobiography in which his parents were wealthy; he was a hero of the world war and a graduate from Oxford (Prigozy, 48). Gatsby then set out to relive a past love story. In 1917, while training to join the army and fight in the world war, Jay Gatsby had met and promptly fell in love with Daisy, a beautiful lady, whose life represented everything that Gatsby was not: She was rich and came from a patrician family from the East Coast. However, daisy could not love Gatsby because he came from a lower social class. For them to have ever married, Gatsby was to be wealthy and an aristocrat. The relationship between Gatsby and Daisy had ended before he went overseas to fight in the world war. During the time Gatsby was supposedly attending his studies in Oxford, he received a letter from Daisy with the information that she had met and married Tom Buchanan, an aristocratic man in her social class. However, Gatsby did not give up in his quest for her love. He denied defeat and committed his life to becoming the sort of man in wealth and stature that he imagined would win Daisy’s love (Fitzgerald, 102). Amory and Rosalind loved each other. However, Rosalind left Amory for a wealthier gentleman whom she married, just like Gatsby was left by Daisy for a wealthier man. The incident awakened Amory’s realization of how powerful money actually was. Unable to maintain his composure, Amory took to alcohol drinking and was only brought back to reality by his mother’s death, after which he went back home in Lake Geneva, Minneapolis. Meanwhile, Jay Gatsby, with his newly found riches, built himself a mansion in a fictional location in West Egg, across an inlet on the other side of East Egg, where Tom Buchanan and Daisy were living. Despite the bootlegging he was into, Gatsby abstained from alcohol. Gatsby hosted parties every weekend, in which everyone was welcome, in the hope that his long time love, Daisy, would attend and, therefore, give him a chance to win her love (Bruccoli, 89). When Nick, his friend told him that he would not succeed to relive the past days of his relationship with Daisy, Gatsby retorted with affirmation that he could (Fitzgerald, 128). He ideally believed that he would use his rich status to woo daisy away from Tom Buchanan. Again, a sharp contrast between the characters of Jay Gatsby and Amory Blaine is revealed in the way the two handle their failed relationships. Even though Daisy is married, Gatsby remains optimistic that he would one day win her heart and sets out to pursue her with determination; not even his friend can dissuade him from the goal he sets for himself. On the other hand, after Amory’s girlfriend left him for a rich man, he shows an attitude of defeat by resigning his life to fate and, therefore, engaged in drinking to forget his misery. He made little effort to make himself the kind of man that Rosalind desired unlike Gatsby who made himself the man Daisy would probably desire. Eventually, Gatsby in his quest caught up with Daisy but was unable to win her heart and convince her to divorce Tom Buchanan so that he could marry her. His failure to change Daisy’s mind was clear to everyone else except him. He kept persisting. One day, as Daisy drove him in his car; she hit and killed Myrtle in an accident that was hit-and-run. Myrtle was a lover to Daisy’s husband, Tom. The husband to Myrtle, a jealous man named Wilson, tracked the car to Daisy’s home where Tom informed him that the car belonged to Gatsby. Wilson went to Gatsby’s house and murdered him before taking his own life (Prigozy, 53). Meanwhile, in Minneapolis, Amory met another girl, Eleanor, whom he believed was the answer to all his unanswered questions (West, 33). Later on, Amory moved to Princeton after breaking up with Eleanor. He realized he had wasted his youth and achieved none of his dreams. At the end of the book, Amory laments, “I know myself, but that is all.” The two characters, Gatsby and Amory, have a single similarity in that their lives presented almost similar opportunities to each one of them. They both fought in the First World War and had the ambition of succeeding and making it big in life. Even then, Amory had a background that put him at an advantage over Gatsby. He gets good education and has a father figure to mentor him. However, the character and value systems for the two characters contrast sharply. Despite having similar ambitions, Gatsby is focused and determined to achieve his dreams. He achieves some of them and dies in the pursuit of another. On the other hand, Amory is lazy, arrogant and completely unfocussed. He kept pursuing his ambitions half-heartedly and lost interest quite fast. This made him waste his youth and achieve none of his dreams in life. He admitted defeat in the end by acknowledging that he knew what he wanted but could not go beyond the words. Works Cited Bruccoli, Matthew. Some Sort of Epic Grandeur: The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald (2nd rev. Ed.). Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2002. Print. Fitzgerald, Scott. The Great Gatsby. St. North, SD: Nu Vision Publications, LLC, 2008. Print. Fitzgerald, Scott. This Side of Paradise. New York: Plain Label Books, 1948. Print. Prigozy, Ruth. The Cambridge Companion to F. Scott Fitzgerald. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Print. West, James. The question of vocation in This Side of Paradise and the Beautiful and Damned. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania. Print. Annotated Bibliography Bruccoli, Matthew. Some Sort of Epic Grandeur: The Life of F. Scott Fitzgerald (2nd rev. Ed.). Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 2002 This is a book that is written on the life of F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author of the two books from which the two characters in this analysis are taken. Bruccoli examines the life of Fitzgerald in relation to the books he has written. He reveals that Fitzgerald wrote real life stories most of which depicted his own life. Bruccoli particularly compares the life of Fitzgerald to the life of Jay Gatsby, in one of his novels, The Great Gatsby. Bruccoli also examines various characters from the books authored by Fitzgerald and tries to bring out either the similarities of a character with that of Fitzgerald or gives a likely reason as to why Fitzgerald chose to use the character. Fitzgerald, Scott. The Great Gatsby. The great Gatsby is a novel that explains the life of a young man, James Gatz, who sets out in his life to look for high ideals. The young man is so determined to attain his dream of getting rich and marrying a young woman called Daisy, no matter what comes his way. Gatz disowns his poor background and sets out to attain his dreams. He works in the army during the First World War, fakes a university education and returns to America where he becomes rich due to gambling and bootlegging. Not even Daisy’s married status dissuades him from his pursuit for love. He meets his death in his pursuit. Fitzgerald, Scott. This Side of Paradise. This Side Of Paradise in a novel that explains the lives of various characters even as they go on with life meeting frustrations, partial success and demise. Of particular interest is a boy named Amory Blaine, who grows up with great ambitions of becoming wealth and pursuing love. He is, however, arrogant and vain, qualities that contribute to his failure to achieve what he seeks to. Amory is depicted as a lazy young man who gets well educated, serves in the army but wastes his youth due to lack of a clear objective for his life. He pursues love in several occasions without success and ends up poor and frustrated. Prigozy, Ruth. The Cambridge Companion to F. Scott Fitzgerald. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002 The book is a guide to various literary works of Fitzgerald. It explains the plot to the books, and analyses the various literary aspects that may be of great interest to students studying the works of Fitzgerald. The book also examines the life of Fitzgerald and the contexts in which he wrote his books. It gives a clear picture of the intentions behind the various works and projects a deeper understanding of themes and characters in the books. West, James. The question of vocation in This Side of Paradise and the Beautiful and Damned. In 2002, pp. 48–56 This is a book that examines the theme of vocation in two books written by Fitzgerald. It examines missions that various characters in the books set out to pursue in their life and the extent of success achieved by each. It is also written in such a way that it reviews the entire texts in the books unearthing the theme of vocation. Read More