The Great Gatsby And The Handmaid s Tale Crushing Dreams

Rilye Fries Mrs. Tucker English 12 hour 3 13 March 2015 The Great Gatsby and The Handmaid’s Tale: Crushing Dreams The Great Gatsby is regarded as a classic novel for its sad and hopeful story of Jay Gatsby and his quest to obtain Daisy Buchanan, his first love. Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid s Tale is regarded as a more modern day classic, taking place in a dystopian society where women are regarded as sex slaves and the Bible is law. Both F. Scott Fitzgerald and Margaret Atwood, despite having different writing styles, show the corruption and falsehood of the American Dream. The authors show this through characterization, setting, symbolism, and dreams. The characters in both novels play a drastic role in showing the corruption in the American Dream. In Gatsby, Fitzgerald characterizes women as prizes and as being irresponsible, while men are power hungry and will do anything to buy the females, although all of them are bored with their riches. One character, Daisy, is an icon for desire and damnation, and men, in particular Gatsby, love this. They are willing to do anything, willing to pay and pay twice (Wershoven 143). Men want her and she is never fully satisfied (Wershoven 143). She is always looking for new amusement and new fantasies. Men take on the position of caring for a spoiled little girl. In Gatsby, there is both a shooting and a car accident that was indirectly caused by the heroine or affected a female, and in both cases society did its best to cover up