Compare and Contrast Essay on The Great Gatsby Novel and Movie

Introduction

The movie entitled "The Great Gatsby" as directed by Baz Luhrmann is quite entertaining. The leading actor in the film is Nick Carraway who is a 30 years old, unreliable narrator. He gains accommodation near Gatsby mansion with the intention of establishing his ideal career path as a stockbroker. Fortunately, Gatsby ceases the opportunity to get close to Daisy because he still loved her. He had the intentions of re-engaging her, even though he knew that she was married.

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Lurmann uses noise and overstatements both aurally and visually to enhance entertainment feel for the movie. The movie represented just but a glimpse of a great deal of culture found in the novel. Maybe there seem to be challenged in portraying cultural heritage while acting. With the influence of the director the film, which depicted from a sad story becomes transformed objectively to joyous celebrations.

Social Stratification and the Pursuit of Wealth

Nonetheless, conversations in the movie stick close to the novel because most of them are lifted directly from the text. However, Luhrmann's rendition partly differs from the story and become aligned to his sensibilities. The movie also used numerous themes in different settings that include the American Dream, love, betrayal, greed and social stratification. Nonetheless, the idea of social stratification significantly takes center stage just as is illustrated by the novel.

In the theme of social stratification, persons gain acceptance because of their wealth. Moreover, they can do whatever they see fit without getting any objections because money status attracts favor from other persons in the society. On the other hand, sick persons have no choice but to bear with harsh realities of life. Sometimes they miss out opportunities merely because they lack wealth.

Love, Marriage, and Social Class

There existed love between Daisy and Gatsby when they were younger. Nonetheless, their romance ended up in failure because Gatsby belonged to the no money persons. However, Tom was attractive because he had riches. He represents the old money persons that are born in wealth. Because of social stratification by wealth, Tom successfully courted Daisy, and later they ended up getting married. However, Daisy was not happy in the marriage because she got married for wrong reasons of social class.

Jay Gatsby represents the new money persons who are self-made millionaires. As the second egg, he lives in West Egg and owns a mansion on Long Island Sound, which is an ideal place for him to live beside other new money people. Initially, Gatsby courted Daisy however they never ended up together because Daisy envisioned herself with a wealthy husband. Once Gatsby became wealthy, he went after Daisy because he felt the sense of social stratification. Persons stratified one another by wealth, and thus it was natural that Daisy could not resist him. Hence, because he managed to acquire money, nothing could deter him from attaining whatever he wanted, even the love of his life Daisy.

The Portrayal of Social Classes in the 1920s

The novel has quite some vivid illustrations about how life used to be in the 1920s. Fitzgerald used different groups to illustrate their problems and hence leaving readers with the dilemma regarding the precarious nature of life. The stratified social classes include the new money, the old money and no money classes just like in the movie.

First, he attacks the rich and elaborates on how money cannot bring all rich people together because within them there are differences. There are two contrasting groups of wealthy people in the world. The first group comprises of those that were born within wealthy families. In this group, their families always had money generation after generation and hence the name "old money" (Fitzgerald, 3). In this group, persons have no working obligations. They never get involved in businesses even in just making business arrangements. Mostly, they spend time amusing themselves in whichever way they please.

The Characters and their Representation

On the flip side, the "new money" group who represent the group of persons concerned with where the acquired money came from and what times persons attained wealth. The old money group disliked the new money group in the 1920s. Therefore, it was not strange that tom to dislike Gatsby. Discords between the two groups lie in their differences with regards to their sensibility, taste, and refinement.

New money group always work for a living and predominantly have the low-class background. Gatsby, Nick, and Daisy belong to the New Class group. They are thus somewhat humbled by their interactions. Nonetheless, they are also ill-mannered and spend most of their time drinking and partying away (Fitzgerald, 3). Moreover, they never show curtsey when meeting their hosts by just show up unannounced. Nonetheless, the old money persons always live in ways to demonstrate the superiority of their social stature through their superficial and judgmental attitudes. Hence they fail to recognize essential things in their lives and for the people around them.

Decaprio part as Gatsby in the movie is a success. He adequately represents a confident man because of belonging to the acceptable social class of the wealthy. He is always pre-occupied with the intentions of carrying out his suave worldly roles as a man. However, from time to time he reveals deeply sited decency, which he only gets in touch with on very few occasions. Most times he gets involved in criminal activities and often becomes involved in destructions to attain riches. Gatsby is thus an elusive upholder of the American dream. True to this, Nick makes the final address as one amongst the wrong crowd. Caret Mulligan takes up the role of a characterless, weak and sad wife from the south. Her character fits well as Daisy, and she adequately portrays aspects of the south. The movie and novel are closely intertwined even though there are numerous additions to the film with the intentions of entertaining the audience.

Works Cited

Fitzgerald, Francis. The Great Gatsby. Ohaio, Aegitus, 1925

Fitzgerald, Francis. "The Great Gatsby." Directed by Baz Luhrmann. May 8, 2013. YouTube URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhALMDzhOtk