The Great Gatsby and Ethan Frome are two novels that are both set in the early 20th century. The Great Gatsby is set in 1922, while Ethan Frome is set in 1911. Both novels explore the themes of love, betrayal, and class. The Great Gatsby is a tragedy, while Ethan Frome is a drama.
The Great Gatsby tells the story of Jay Gatsby, a wealthy man who is in love with the beautiful Daisy Buchanan. However, Daisy is married to Tom Buchanan, a man who is also wealthy. Jay Gatsby tries to win Daisy over by throwing lavish parties and showing her his wealth. Ultimately, though, Daisy chooses Tom over Jay, leading to Jay’s downfall.
Ethan Frome tells the story of Ethan, a man who is in love with his wife Zeena. However, Zeena is cold and domineering, and Ethan finds himself drawn to her cousin Mattie. One day, Zeena falls ill and is confined to bed. Ethan and Mattie end up having an affair, which leads to tragedy.
The attempt to grasp the American dream appears in many novels, and it is no exception when it comes to The Great Gatsby and Ethan Frome. Jay Gatsby, the protagonist of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, sought to achieve happiness through wealth and power. Zeena, the wife of Ethan Frome, is a woman who aspires to happiness from her marriage with him. Ethan Frome and Jay Gatsbe are both characters who experience fated events at a later point in the narrative. In several ways, these two novels are very comparable.
The two novels are similar in that they are both about people who are trying to escape their current lives. The main characters in each novel are looking for a way to get out of their current lives. The Great Gatsby is set in the 1920s, and Ethan Frome is set in the early 1900s. The setting is very important in both novels because it helps to create the atmosphere that the author is trying to portray. The setting also plays a role in the characters’ lives.
The characters in each novel are shaped by their surroundings. The Great Gatsby is a novel that is set in New York City, and Ethan Frome is a novel that is set in the town of Starkfield, Massachusetts. The two novels are also similar because they both have tragic endings. Jay Gatsby and Ethan Frome are both looking for happiness, but in the end, they both end up alone.
In both novels, Jay Gatsby and Ethan Frome dwell in a world of silence. Daisy was Jay’s lover at one time. He recognized that due to their social status, he would not be able to marry her. To get money, he moves away from Daisy, then later purchases a home near to Daisy. Jay throws huge parties in the hopes that she will attend them. However, since he is too ashamed to go himself, Jay watches the parties from afar in his own world of silence.
Ethan Frome is married to a sickly woman, Zeena. He meets a young woman named Mattie Silver, who comes to live with them as a hired girl. Ethan and Mattie have an affair, but they too are in separate worlds – his of silence with Zeena and hers of dreams for the future. The men’s silence represents their longing for the women they cannot have.
Both novels also end tragically. In The Great Gatsby, Jay is killed by George Wilson, who mistakes him for the man who was having an affair with his wife, Myrtle. George shoots at Jay’s car, thinking he is in it. When he realizes his mistake, he kills himself as well. In Ethan Frome, Ethan and Mattie crash into a stone wall while sledding. Mattie is paralyzed and Ethan is badly injured. Zeena comes home and finds them there. She does not help them, but coldly goes about her business. The novel ends with Ethan’s thoughts of suicide.
Both The Great Gatsby and Ethan Frome are tragic stories of love and loss. The men in both novels are in love with women they cannot have. They live in separate worlds, either by choice or circumstances, and their silence represents their longing for the women they cannot have. The novels end tragically, with the death of one man and the paralysis of another. The theme of unrequited love is evident in both The Great Gatsby and Ethan Frome.
In Wharton’s Ethan Frome is a guy who lives in Starkfield, Massachusetts. The winter in this book represents loneliness and bitterness, which is what Ethan Frome’s existence symbolizes. Because he was afraid of being alone, Mr. Frome married Zeena in order to avoid becoming lonely. Only Zeena brought misery and solitude to Mr. Frome’s life. Zeena did not make Ethan happy when she was around. Both Gatsby and Ethan Frome experience parallels in these two works.
The characters suffer because they want what they cannot have. The two novels show that money does not always bring happiness. Gatsby and Frome also both die in the end, further emphasizing their loneliness. In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby’s parties are a symbol of his hollowness. He throws these parties to try and attract Daisy’s attention, but she does not even come to most of them. The people who do come to his parties do not even know him, they are just there for the free alcohol.
The only person who does know him is Nick Carraway, and he is not even really a friend, more of an acquaintance. When Gatsby dies, no one comes to his funeral, emphasizing his loneliness. In Ethan Frome, Ethan is also lonely because he cannot be with the person he loves. Mattie is married to another man, so Ethan can never really be with her. The only time they are able to spend together is when they are sledding, and even then they are not really alone because Zeena is always watching them.
When Ethan crashes his sled, Zeena blames Mattie and sends her away, which leaves Ethan completely alone. Both The Great Gatsby and Ethan Frome are novels about loneliness and how it affects people. The characters in these novels want what they cannot have, and because of that, they suffer. These novels also show that money does not always bring happiness.
