The Universality In Pursuit Of Dream And The Inevitability Of Its Disillusion

Great Expectations written by the great English writer Charles Dickens and The Great Gatsby written by the well-known American writer F. Scott Fitzgerald are the two masterpieces reflecting people's pursuit of dreams.Though written by the writers of different countries and different ages, both of the two works take "dream" as their main thread. They highlight a common social phenomenon:When capitalism is on the rise, the poor people are always universally dreaming of money and love, and their fantasy dream is inevitably destined to disillusionment.This thesis attempts to compare the two works in similarities as well as differences. Pip and Gatsby, the protagonists of the two novels, born into poor families, hoping to change their fates and climb to the upper class, struggle hard for the desire of money and love. However, their efforts end up in failure, and both of them fail to meet their lofty expectations and aspirations. The same pursuit along with the same result for Pip and Gatsby reflects the humble people's common eagerness in wealth and marriage as a result of the powerful functions of money and the specific social background. However, no matter which country they come from, achieving their ends is a quite difficult thing, even impossible for the poor, due to the existence of social hierarchy, the cruelty of upper class as well as their own distorted nature.On the other hand, the same disillusionment brings different endings of the two novels and different fates of the two protagonists. Finally, Pip has gone out of Satis House with Estella hand in hand, but Gatsby died, which embody the distinctions between Great Expectations and The Great Gatsby in themes, the authors'ideological tendencies and the protagonists'characters.Though Dickens and Fitzgerald have explored the unfairness and hypocrisy of the capitalist society, yet, compared with Fitzgerald, Dickens strongly expresses his humanity and his hope for social progress in his novel. From Fitzgerald's novel, what we can realize is the total corruption of the American dream.This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter One makes a brief introduction to the two authors and their two works. Chapter Two discusses the process of dream-seeking as well as the universality in pursuit of dreams and its causes. Chapter Three, focusing on the inevitability of their dreams'disillusionment, gives a full analysis of the three causes which contribute to the failure. Chapter Four turns to emphasizing the distinctions reflected through the different endings of the two works. Chapter Five makes a conclusion.