The
novel The Great Gatsby can connect to
many different movies and books, one in particular, oddly enough, the movie: Sweet Home Alabama. In the movie Melanie
Carmichael marries a man named Jake Perry in a small city in Alabama. Realizing
that she was destined for bigger and better things, she moves to New York in
hopes to live a lavish lifestyle. While in New York she becomes engaged to the
mayor’s son Andrew, a rich and successful man, destined for presidency. What
Melanie does not know though, is that Jake Perry has been spending this time
while she was in New York trying to build himself up to a successful man who
can support the life style Melanie longs for. The characters in Sweet Home Alabama resemble closely to
those of The Great Gatsby. Melanie
resembles Daisy, a woman who longs for a lavish lifestyle. Andrew resembles
Tom, a successful man that can support the life style Melanie and Daisy longs
for. And Jake resembles Gatsby, a man who will stop at nothing to make himself
into a man that Melanie and Daisy can be proud of and overall support her
lifestyle. The only difference between these two stories is that at the end of Sweet Home Alabama Jake gets the girl
and Gatsby sadly does not.
Another text connection can be seen between The Great Gatsby and The Notebook. In The Notebook Ally and Noah are together for the summer just like Gatsby and Daisy are. Both couples fall in love until they are separated. Six years after their romance Ally becomes engaged to another man, Lon Hammond. Lon is a successful war hero who Ally falls in love with. During those six years Noah builds a huge house; the largest in the city. He paints the shutters blue and builds a wrap-around porch just like Ally had aspired for. Eventually Ally sees a picture of Noah and his house in a newspaper, she is reminded of the love affair she had forgotten and runs back to him. The similarities in The Great Gatsby and The Notebook are apparent through the connections of the huge house being the focal point of success in both stories. The characters The Notebook also resemble those of The Great Gatsby. Ally resembles Daisy, a woman from a wealthy family who soon marries a successful man. Lon represents Tom, the successful man that marries Ally. And Noah resembles Gatsby, a man who even after years after his romance still attempts to chase the woman of his dreams. Although some differences can be seen such as Daisy marrying Tom and Ally only being engaged, overall the novels can be connected quite well. Another difference can be seen because In The Notebook Noah does get the girl, but Nicholas Sparks would not be considered the romantic of the decade if Noah died like Gatsby.
Another text connection can be seen between The Great Gatsby and The Notebook. In The Notebook Ally and Noah are together for the summer just like Gatsby and Daisy are. Both couples fall in love until they are separated. Six years after their romance Ally becomes engaged to another man, Lon Hammond. Lon is a successful war hero who Ally falls in love with. During those six years Noah builds a huge house; the largest in the city. He paints the shutters blue and builds a wrap-around porch just like Ally had aspired for. Eventually Ally sees a picture of Noah and his house in a newspaper, she is reminded of the love affair she had forgotten and runs back to him. The similarities in The Great Gatsby and The Notebook are apparent through the connections of the huge house being the focal point of success in both stories. The characters The Notebook also resemble those of The Great Gatsby. Ally resembles Daisy, a woman from a wealthy family who soon marries a successful man. Lon represents Tom, the successful man that marries Ally. And Noah resembles Gatsby, a man who even after years after his romance still attempts to chase the woman of his dreams. Although some differences can be seen such as Daisy marrying Tom and Ally only being engaged, overall the novels can be connected quite well. Another difference can be seen because In The Notebook Noah does get the girl, but Nicholas Sparks would not be considered the romantic of the decade if Noah died like Gatsby.
I cannot necessarily asses your comparison of The Great Gatsby to Sweet Home Alabama simply due to the fact that I am yet to see this movie. Despite this mild impediment, from your assessment I am still able to agree with the fact that these two works both have very similar story lines. What I found quite interesting was the fact that in both The Great Gatsby and Sweet Home Alabama it is the women who want only a lavish life style, and one man represents a man who can support a women and another who aspires to only be what the love of his life is looking for in a man. It's strange yet predictable that females and males always seem to play very similar roles in movies and novels.
ReplyDeleteI was very surprised with your comparison of The Great Gatsby to The Notebook. This is not because I disagree with them being dissimilar, but simply because I find it very absurd that a overly romantic, over played movie and novel, is so similar to such a classic book. From my perspective The Great Gatsby is a very unique novel with story line that I have not witnessed before, while The Notebook has a very predictable and common take a romance; yet both are so incredibly similar to one another. I agree with your comparison of The Great Gatsby and The Notebook simply because of the story line, but I do not necessarily believe that this is all that The Great Gatsby is about. The Notebook is merely a love story, and that is all that it has to it. The Great Gatsby is so many things within it self. Yes, it is a love story, but it is also a novel that teaches you about history and how terrible people can be. Overall I found your comparisons to be wonderful.