, Research Paper

Ben Carr

Contrast and Compare Black Boy and the Great Gatsby

The difference between the white Anglo Saxon, freewheeling, Charleston-dancing life of the flush Northerners is so crisp a contrast between the fright, development and general hopelessness of southern African Americans you should maintain it off from little kids. An illustration: In Black Boy about every other paragraph is marred by a smack in the face towards person less than 20 old ages of age. In Gatsby every other paragraph seems to incorporate a batch julep. However, the similarities between Nick Carraway and Richard Wright are striking and emotional. Both seem to be looking through field glassess even during conversation. Both seem to be dissecting the universe around them. They besides seem to hold moral strong beliefs that no 1 about them has and they don t feel is their responsibility to implement on others. These similarities aside, Richard looks at a universe that beats him, cons him and suffocates him. The worst Nick Carraway is subjected to is being dragged around town, playing Cameron Frye to Gatsby or Tom s Ferris Bueller. Socially, both novels profess the closed mindedness of coteries in society. In kernel, despite differences in location and race both narratives show that disunion occurs within minority groups.

Richard s experiences with other kids, whether in the acceptance clinic or in the barrooms seemed to hold made him slightly calloused. He did non hold a group to travel to in school. He was ever ready for a speedy epigram but as he said I was non genuinely among them. In faith he was non needfully a skeptic but non in a haste to fall in an organisation promising emotions that seemed to be prevarications. His abstention from Sunday School marked his nonsubjective personality. He was told he was supposed to experience something after his baptism and yet like most of his friends wound up experiencing shortchanged. The promise of being portion of the community didn T entreaty to him.

Richard was besides able to be slightly stoic in race dealingss. By adhering to his specific moral codification, he was called a sap. Yet he still criticized his equals for conforming. He observed the race war with a sort of scientific naivety. He would sit with white people, where most African Americans wouldn T and got beaten for non naming one sir.

The moral codification of Richard s wasn T from faith. When he was forced to steal he felt bad about it and when asked about it by an employer he thought he was being insulted. These intuitions where seen as nescient and redundant in the African American universe.

Nick Carraway is non an influential portion of the group because of his category and occupation. While he isn t hapless Nick s position leaves him a

face in the crowd who happens to go friends with a million dollar man-about-town. In the group of Tom, Daisy, Jordan and Jay Nick is the tourer. He is watching the events of lacerate relationships and lip service unfold and he has the best place in the house. Unlike Richard, who is more like a witness in a association football public violence, Nick truly sympathizes for a clip Jay and temporarily loves Jordan. But because he is non portion of the film he has to go forth them all finally. While Nick does acquire involved, like when Jordan is driving, and is eventful in reuniting Daisy and Jay he evidently merely pushes the proverbial sled down the hill.

I was within and without, at the same time enchanted and repelled by! the unlimited assortment of life. Nick hung about falseness. His moral point of view was that of a go-between. He was both disgusted by Gatsby s criminalism and by Tom and Daisy s pitiless practicality. He believes in altruism, in the ideals of his male parent to retrieve the advantages he s had before he criticizes others, which may be why he criticizes those who have more advantages than he. But the snobbism around him overshadows his opinions 10 crease.

Gatsby, the tragic figure can non purchase his manner into the heirlooms of society. Richard Wright must forge religion in order to go portion of a church society. Both finally fail. Gatsby s dreams shatter because he was ne’er good plenty for Daisy or her society, and was seen as expendable by Tom. Richard Wright finally wins over it by merely traveling and acquiring new friends. He was merely unable to work in that environment.

Even in the upper category and lower category minorities lie infighting. In Gatsby this is seen by the competition between Oxford and Yale grads and old wart and new wart. This intense competition represented slightly by Tom and Jay makes small sense. After all Tom is bedding person of lower category stature, is it so incorrect that a former keeper can now populate in a sign of the zodiac?

African American infighting is signified viciously when Richard and his friend are finally drawn into a battle with each other. Out of fright of Whites, Richard is besides viciously pummeled by his relations out of fright of Whites. The craze caused by a male child who refuses to be molded is extraordinary so.

The creative activity of rifts between people in groups show s passage. In Gatsby it showed how inexorable about maintaining the new affluent out of society the old wealthy were. In Black Boy, in order to protect themselves and each other the African Americans had to contend the independency out of Richard. This tough love helped really small. Nature, society, and equality fluctuated in the 1920 & # 8217 ; s, meeting in certain musca volitanss merely to rapidly going nothings.