Consider The Significance Of Endings In The Great Gatsby

B) Consider the significance of endings in three narrative texts you have studied
When writing a novel, the ending is most important. It is what ties everything together and helps the reader to understand what has happened throughout the story completely. The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and Cousin Kate by Christina Rossetti have endings which are made significant through their resolutions. Coleridge and Fitzgerald have created stories which conclude with partial resolution, whereas Rossetti has created a story of total resolution, although other readers may disagree.
F. Scott Fitzgerald concludes the Great Gatsby with the death of Gatsby himself. The ambitions and aims of Gatsby had been to live the American dream which to him was to get rich, to relive the past he had with Daisy Buchannan and to fall back in love with her but he does not achieve this because he is shot at the end by George Wilson. Nick’s narration ends with him moving back to the Midwest after the shocking events that had happened in New York. “Tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further”. Here Nick experiences his bildungsroman. Therefore, the Great Gatsby has partial resolution
because Nick goes through a phase of maturing and developing as a person. However, because Gatsby dies and fails to fulfil his ‘American Dream’, so there is no resolution for him.
Gatsby’s death is a tragedy and a failure of the ‘American dream’ which leads readers to question America itself.
Was America really the place where all dreams could/can come true? Behind the superficial façade of thriving, fascinating and rich America lays the reality of the broken rich who are superficial, idle and materialistic. In the 1920’s, America was a place where any person could achieve anything they wanted because they had the ‘American dream’, but because Gatsby does not win back the total love and affection of Daisy and ends up being shot by Wilson, his ‘American dream is shattered and it has failed him. Therefore, Fitzgerald has created an ending which holds moral suggestions on how to live, which in turn is
significant.
The conclusion of ‘Cousin Kate’ by Christina Rossetti is a dramatic surprise and significant because it reveals that the narrator, who has been treated badly and discarded by society, finally has the upper hand over her cousin Kate and the Lord. In the last stanza of this 6 stanza ballad the narrator reveals she has a son, a boy, her ‘fair-haired son’ who is her ‘shame and pride’. ‘Yet I’ve a gift you have not got, and seem not like to get’. This is a triumphant resolution to the poem on the narrator’s behalf because she is mother to the heir of the Lords estate and fortunes, therefore she and her son will get what they are entitled too.
Throughout the ballad, the narrator explains how she had been mistreated and punished for her love affair with the Lord, but because the Lord must have a son to inherit his wealth etc, the narrator finally has what the Lord wants, which can therefore be seen as an act of revenge toward the Lord and her cousin Kate. The conclusion is significant because her triumph over her cousin is assured and creates a total resolution. Moreover, there is a moral message in the poem which is to respect the ones you encounter in your life. The Lord used the narrator to his advantage and moved on to another woman. Rossetti is essentially supporting women whom are used and treated badly by men. Therefore, the poem is of great significance because it promotes the idea of respect and equality.

I still have two paragraphs for the Rime of the Ancient Mariner but I am stuck on what to say. I understand that the whole poem allows the wedding guest to become a wiser man, I am just struggling how to put it into words.