A Comparison Of Biographic Features In The Sun Also Rises And The Great Gatsby Essay Example For Students

A Comparison Of Biographic Features In The Sun Also Rises And The Great Gatsby Essay The writers F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway included biographical information in their novels The Great Gatsby and The Sun Also Rises that illuminated the meaning of the work. Although The Sun Also Rises is more closely related to actual events in Hemingways life than The Great Gatsby was to events in Fitzgeralds life, they both take the same approach. They both make use of non-judgemental narrators to comment on the lost generation. This narrator allows Fitzgerlald and Hemingway to write about their own society. Fitzgerlald comments on the jaded old-wealth society of the Eastern United States and the corruption of the American Dream. Hemingway comments on the effects of World War I on the lost generation and the hope for the future in the next generation. By adding biographical features into their novels both Fitzgerald and Hemingway are able to give their novels that extra depth because the plot of the novels are more realistic and accurately reflect the society of the times. The story in Fitzgeralds book contains basic ideas from his life, not nessesarily actual events. Several characters have biographical characterization and the novel reflects his own experiences. Hemingways novel, however, is almost entirely based on actual events that happened to Hemingway and a group of his friends. This enhances the realism of The Sun Also Rises. Fitzgerald and The Great Gatsby In his novel, The Great Gatsby Francis Scott Fitzgerald includes many autobiographical features to enhance and illuminate the themes of the work. Certain main characters like Daisy Buchannon, Jay Gatsby, and the narrator Nick Carraway are representations of actual people from Fitzgeralds life. Fitzgerald makes use of a non-judgemental narrator to simply give the details and leave the anylasis to the reader. However, based on the details, the narrators conclusions are relatively evident. In this novel, Fitzgerald is able to write about his experiences from a different perspective and include his self in both the characters of Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway. As in many of Fitzgeralds works, he writes about a golden girl1, the desire of every man that he couldnt have. In the case of The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald creates the character of Daisy to fit this discription. In actuality the motivation for Fitzgeralds writing about the golden girl came from real events. Ginevra King was the love of young life.2 In Ginevras eyes, however, Fitzgerald was simply one of the many men in her young life and when it came time she dropped him.3Most importantly, however, his rejection by Ginevra motivated much of his fiction.4 In The Great Gatsby, Daisy is shown by the end to be a very careless and confused who smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness and let other people clean up the mess they had made. This statement from the novel relates to Fitzgeralds own fealings for Ginevra who used him, then dropped him when it came time leaving Francis devastated.6 This rejection shaped Fitzgeralds view of  women in general and thus affected his characterization of women. The romance between Fitzgerald and Ginevra King is also given meaning in The Great Gatsby as Ginevra King and Fitzgerald himself came from different social worlds just as Daisy and young poor Gatsby did. In both situations, the woman came from the aristocratic old money rich and the guys were respectivly poor in comparison. Fitzgerald, later in life, was from the middle class and in this way can be compared to the narrator, Nick Carraway. His social situation was the same and this perspective of the relationships between the rich and poor allowed Fitzgerald to write of his own experiences with Ginevra King. As Fitzgerald himself puts it, The whole idea of Gatsby is the unfairness of a poor young man not being able to marry a girl with money.1 An independent percpective of the relationship from the middle class allows Fitzgerald to accomplish this. Nick Carraway is the voice of Fitzgeralds rational self.2 In expressions in the novel, Fitzgerald gives light to his rational self. Thats my Middle West not the wheat or the prairies or the lost Swede towns, but the thrilling returning trains of my youth, and the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark and shadows of holly wreaths thrown by lighted windows on the snow. I am part of that, a little solemn with the feel of those long winters . . . I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life.3 Fitzgerald himself took trains back to the Mid-West at christmas time to celebrate and party.4 In this passage Fitzgerald also tells the truth about his views of Eastern rich society, where he didnt fit in. Everyday Use Walker EssayAnother scene in The Sun Also Rises is the scene at the Hotel Montoya run by a Mr. Juanito Montoya. His hotel is where the bull-fighters stay and Montoya is describes as an aficianado with photographs all over his room: The photographs of bull-fighters Montoya had really believed in were framed. Photographs of bull-fighters who had been without aficion Montoya kept in a drawer of his desk One day Montoya took them all out and dropped them in the waste-basket.1 This shows how Juanito Montoya was an aficianado who believed in the real old-style bullfighters. During Hemingways third trip to Pamplona his company would stay at Juanito Quinatas Hotel Quinatana. Juanito was a veteran aficionado and matadors often stayed there.2 The similarities in name are unmistakable and the character in the novel is a veteran aficianado as well. Pedro Romero was developed as one of the main characters in The Sun Also Rises. Interestingly, Pedro was named after the famous eighteenth-century matador Pedro Romero.3 The Pedro from the novel fights in the old manner just as the real Pedro Romero would. His character however, was not based on the real Pedro, but instead a nineteen-year-old matador named Cayetano Ordonez, described as being slim and straight as an arrow.4 More importantly Ordonez, like both the Pedro from the novel and the real Pedro Romero, fought in the old manner and on several bulls he killed recibiendo and was hailed as the Messiah who had come to save bullfighting.5 Pedro Romero was an important symbol of hope in the novel. Ordonez, thinly disquized as Pedro Romero, was beginning to dominate the book6 Another important character in the book, Brett, was based on a real life participant in Hemingways Pamplona, Duff Twysden. Brett and Robert Cohn go on a trip together where they romanced together unknown to anyone else. Similarly, Harold Loeb Robert Cohn told Ernest that he wanted to relax by the sea at St. Jean-de-Luz before joining the others at Burgette. What he did not reveal was that he had persuaded  Duff Twysden to spend a week with him in consummation of their romance.1 He didnt tell Ernest because he was afraid that Ernest might be jealous of learning that Harold had spent a week with Duff. Brett is similar physically to Duff as well. Like Brett, she wore a mans felt hat.2 The scene where Brett recieved the bulls ear from Pedro actually happened, just not to her parallel Duff Twysden. Ordonez gave the ear to Hemingways wife Hadley. She wraped it up in a handkerchief of Don Stewarts, and stored it in a bureau drawer at the pension. As it gradually ripened in the heat of July, Ernest argued that she must either throw it away or cut it up to send in letters to her friends in St. Louis.3 This same event happens in the novel to Brett, who is picked from the crowd by Pedro and presented with the ear as a prize. Similarly as his counterpart Robert Cohn in the novel, Harold Loeb was treated as an outcast due to his relationship with Duff and his constant following her around. In the novel, Mike constantly brandishes Robert with remarks about how he is not wanted and how can he not see that. In Hemingways actual trip, Harold Loeb and Duff slipped away for a drink in one of the small cafes and ended up in a Spanish clubroom where she refused to leave and Harold was forced to leave alone. The next day over the brandy that night, Guthrie suddenly told Harold to get out: he was not wanted.4 Ernest also exploded on him, You lousy bastard, running to a woman. Even while in Spain, Ernest Hemingway began writing The Sun Also Rises, at that time entitled, Fiesta.5 Originally the story was started in Pamplona at the Hotel Montoya, where the characters Jake Barnes and Bill meet Pedro Romero. Later, Hemingway changed the introduction to a start with Paris to provide biographical backgrounds for Brett Ashley, Mike Campbell, and Robert Cohn.1 There is no mistaking that the novel was based on Ernests third trip to Pamplona with a company of his friends and his wife. Conclusion By providing biographical information in their novels The Great Gatsby and The Sun Also Rises, both F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway are able to enhance the meaning of their work and provide extra credibility and realism into their plot. Fitzzgerald takes a rejection from his life and uses that idea to expand off from to write a social commentary on the corruption of the American Dream by the old-rich of the Eastern United States. Hemingway takes actual events from his life and used that as a basis for the plot of his novel. This enhanced the theme by describing the effect of World War I on Hemingways generation.