Monday, 10 December 2012

The Great Gatsby



Gossip Girl, the recent television series, depicts the daily life occurrences of the upper class in New York City, and all the scandalous and eventful aspects of their melodramatic lives. Not only is there an obvious comparison between this show and the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, due to the setting of the series being in New York City and many instances in the novel occurring in the eventful city, but, also due to many of the characters in each of the examples. The character Dan Humphrey in Gossip Girl is a naïve and struggling writer and entrepreneur who is determined, yet, hesitant to become a part of the elite class and is eventually misled by it, reflecting the innocent and exploited Nick Carraway. The relationship between two of the lead characters Chuck Bass and Blair Waldorf somewhat mirrors the relationship between Jay Gatsby and Daisy Buchanan. Chuck and Blair have a complicated relationship and are both aware of one another’s love for the other, but, are unable to officially be together due to complications and interferences. Like Gatsby, Chuck is obsessed with his female counterpart and is consumed by the idea of their future together. Although never represented by an actual character like most TV shows, the narrator is an important character, similarly Nick Carraway plays an important role as the narrator and acts as both the informer of many events that are not played out in the novel properly and the voice of reason in many instances, which often occurs in Gossip Girl as well. Both Gossip Girl and The Great Gatsby reveal the glamorous and evil side to the upper class in the north east and how it can devastate and amaze its victims. 

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