Essay Completo Great Gatsby

In “The Great Gatsby” by Scott Fitzgerald and “All my sons” by Arthur Miller, the death of important characters, such as Jay Gatsby and Joe Keller respectively, is used as a tool to convey the main themes. Both texts show symbolic meanings of death, which coincide in some aspects. These meanings of death are going to be developed in this essay.
In the first place, we can take the death of JayGatsby in “The Great Gatsby” as a way of showing that the American Dream was corrupted, and that there is no longer an honest way of achieving it like there was before. Jay Gatsby becomes rich and in a way fulfills the American Dream, which in his case was earning money but for a noble purpose: winning Daisy Buchanan’s love back. However, his ways of reaching this goal are morally questionable,since he does it through bootlegging in the context of USA in the 1920s, during prohibition. This shows that the decent ways of achieving the American Dream were no longer available and that it had to be pursued through illegal methods.
Moreover, the American Dream is now pursued just because of money: Americans look for money just for the sake of it. This contrasts with Gatsby’s reasons, whichwere noble and resemble the ones of chivalry, in which knights would involve themselves into adventures so as to conquer their love’s heart, often platonic. This is why Gatsby is great, because he had a purpose or a dream to fight for, and needed money because of this, but not because of the value of money in itself. This difference between Gatsby’s more decent moral values and the rest of society’sis the one that shows the corruption of the American Dream, since it is no longer pursued for noble purposes.
This whole idea is represented by Gatsby’s death: not only his methods to achieve the American Dream were not socially acceptable, but also the purpose to achieve it was no longer noble, (in contrast to Gatsby’s) since money was looked for just for the sake of it. Gatsby’s deathsymbolizes the death of the original American Dream, where money was earned decently and for reasons or purposes instead of unjustified wealth.
On the other hand, in “All my sons” we also see the death of Joe Keller as a way to show that the American Dream has been corrupted. Joe Keller has made money from the sales of faulty aircraft parts, being aware of the defects, and making many planes during thewar crash. This shows that the American Dream was achieved through dishonest methods, being money more important than moral values. However, there is still a social condemn for this, and when Joe Keller finally realizes about the social consequences of what he has done (he has to go to jail), he decides to kill himself. This points out the flaw of capitalism, especially in a man like Keller who isuneducated and therefore has not cultural or moral background: an ordinary man like him gave up human decency for money. His death can represent the death of an honest way to get to the American Dream, the death of human values in a capitalist system.
Another way in which the meaning of death coincides in both texts is that it is presented as an unavoidable consequence of not being able toescape from the past. In the case of Gatsby, the character was not able to accept that Daisy had moved on, and pretended to go back in time and make her change her mind. He didn’t realize that she had already chosen, and that she was no longer willing to repeat her past, even though she had an affair with him. Gatsby’s inability to assume this is what takes him to his death, because his romantic andchivalric behavior towards the woman he loved were no longer suitable in the 1920s society. Therefore, his death could symbolize that in the Roaring 20s, moral values had died: it was not important to be a “knight” like Gatsby and fight for a noble purpose like love, but to be in a high social status, have old money and be married to someone rich, like Daisy, even though this implies a moral...