Unreal cities and valleys of ashes in post-Great War European and American society: a comparative examination of T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby

Abstract

Considering that F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925) and T. S. Eliot’s The Waste Land (1922) were released in a time that is now referred to as the Jazz Age, it can be said that these two works have various shared characteristics. This study aims to draw comparisons between the two works in terms of the respective authors’ views of the Great War as well as the overlapping characters and scenery in both works. It also aims to compare both authors’ views of the cityscapes of The Great Gatsby and The Waste Land, respectively, and their reverse trajectories in terms of notions of “hope” and “hopelessness”. Chapter one offers a detailed comparison of images and characters used in both the poem and the novel. This chapter discusses and compares the similar images and scenes in both texts (which shows The Waste Land’s influence on Gatsby). This chapter therefore concludes that the novel’s characters are, in fact, scarred post-war waste land-dwellers in their own right. The second chapter broadens the previous chapter’s comparisons of scenery and imagery. However, the focus is more specific: New York and “the valley of ashes” as mentioned in Gatsby is compared to Eliot’s view of London – which also shows how Eliot’s description of London in The Waste Land reflects his personal feelings about being an outsider in this city. The final chapter highlights the reverse trajectories of The Waste Land and Gatsby. Where The Waste Land takes a more positive turn (and, in its criticism, still shows a sense of hope), Gatsby’s conclusions are far less positive. This chapter discusses the yearning for hope in both works, and how the realisation thereof is only truly possible in The Waste Land.