Comparing The Great Gatsby And A Raisin In The Sun

1331 Words6 Pages
“All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreams of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible” –T.E. Lawrence. Mr. Jay Gatsby is a dreamer of the day. He constantly pursued dreams of which he never fulfilled and constantly faced disasters in money, his love life, and his social relations. Mr. Gatsby was unable to set a goal based on his surroundings and was unable to achieve his goals. As a result, Mr. Gatsby became a pariah in the community of the Egg Islands. Unlike Mr. Gatsby, some members of the Younger family realized their surroundings and set realistic, achievable goals…show more content…
Whether the dream is achieving love, having financial success, or buying a house, the characters in the novel, The Great Gatsby, and the play, “A Raisin in the Sun”, pursue these dreams for different…show more content…
Gatsby’s plan of making a fortune is born when he is an assistant to a ship captain. He experienced the life of luxury and makes a pledge to himself that his life goal is to become elite and wealthy. Walter Younger’s inspiration to become rich was rooted from his current financial situation, “I’m thirty-five years old; I been married eleven years and I got a boy who sleeps in the living room … and all I got to give him is stories about how rich white people live” (I.ii.22). Walter’s frustration stimulates an interest in becoming wealthy to impress his family. He experiences vexation because he is unable to provide his family with basic living essentials, like a bed. Both Gatsby and Walter make sacrifices to impress their loved ones, however. Although Gatsby’s business venture was a success and Walter’s was a complete failure, both involved illegal dealings and were not allowed in that current era. For example, Gatsby made a living by bootlegging alcohol, “He [Gatsby] and this Wolfshiem bought up a lot of side-street drug stores here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol ... I picked him for a bootlegger … and I wasn’t far wrong” (Fitzgerald, 141). Walter’s plan to become wealthy also involves alcohol, but since “A Raisin in the Sun” takes place in the 1950s, selling alcohol is
Open Document