The Parallels between Fitzgerald’s "The Great Gatsby" and Jack Kerouac’s "On the Road"

Sahar Jaafar

• Publisher: GRIN Verlag
• Year: 2015
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9783668008038
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: North American Literary Collections
• Index: Literature

Literature Review from the year 2015 in the subject American Studies - Literature, Old Dominion University, language: English, abstract: The concept of the American dream was a topic of interest for many writers in the mid of the twentieth century. Jack Kerouac's "On the Road" is a novel that discusses the idea of the American Dream and how it was corrupted after the end of World War II and the Cold War. During this time, the economic life in American is flourished and people began to move from the towns to the cities searching for a better life and future and pursing after wealth and money. "On the Road" seems a perfect example of embodying the reality of practicingthe American Dream after the two wars. This novel is similar to F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" in many themes that are related to the corruption of the American Dream such as the American's ambition of getting married or having a relationship with a blonde girl so he can achieve the social success. Also, there is the concept of representing womenas a marginal part or a sexual object for the men. In addition, the concerns and the racialt here is the racial worries that prevailed the American society and from people of color and their anxiety for becoming competitive for the whites in the cities. There is also the presence of the jazz music as a reflection of the African-American background for both Jack Kerouac and Jay Gatsby and how they show it by representing for Jazz music. Not only this but alsothe different ways that the writers use to depict the west. This paper will discuss the parallel and the similarity between the two novels' on the American Dream.