Wuthering Heights(WH) vs The Great Gatsby(TGG)
I would like to point out here that I am no literary critic nor am in any position to comment on these two great books ,WH and TGG nor on these authors , Emily Bronte and Scott Fitzgerald.
Having said that I see some commonalities in the two books which stuck me all of a sudden while I was driving to work today.
Both these books have as their basis the men, Gatsby in TGG and Heathcliff in WH, who couldnt get their women, Catherine in WH and Daisy in TGG. Circumstances force these women to take a different path. Gatsby went to war for 5 years and Heathcliff ran away from WH after over-hearing part of Catherine’s story. Both the women considered that riches will give them all the happiness and get married to richer men. Gatsby and Heathcliff now come back after their women are married probably as rich or richer than the men that their women married . The men in the both the stories considered that wealth will get their women back into their lives. The women still love their men, with or without the knowledge of their husbands. No moral lectures are given by any of the authors on the way these women behave, although Scott Fitzgerald(TGG) may have tried to justify it by showing Tom as a womanizer. The women in the two stories wanted their men and their husbands to fight over them , very interesting women to say the least. Coming to symbolism , Gatsby looking at the green light at the end of Daisys dock and Catherine keeping her windows open so as to see Wuthering Heights are symbolism of hope .
Both the men , Gatsby and Heathcliff die a very lonely death. Its revenge that kept Heathcliff alive after Catherines death whereas it was hope in Gatsbys case . Both these men have hardly had one person to mourn their death . Nick in case of Gatsby and Hareton in Heathcliff’s case.
Both these books, although set almost more than a century apart, show men as having succumbed to the charms of their women and unable to escape it. These men go to great lengths to get their women. One can argue that Heathcliff wanted revenge and it was directed at Catherine too, but the author has had so many narrations that it can be very difficult to distinguish the real motive. Both the authors used their narrators, Nelly in WH and Nick in TGG, as essential part of the whole story
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Comment by jordan mcleod — January 24, 2006 @ 11:54 am