Hope In The Great Gatsby And Death Of A Salesman

The theme of hope is present in a plethora of American literature. Hope can be both a positive and negative quality. Hope is threaded into the following three pieces of literature: I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou, The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller. In the preceding literature hope plays a strong role in improving characters’ lives. Hope helps some people and is useless to others. Langston Hughes writes, “Hold fast to dreams,/ For if dreams die,/ Life is a broken-winged bird,/ That cannot fly.” This quote best reflects, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Bailey and Marguerite Johnson hold to their dream of a good life with their Vivian. They go to live with her and soon realize they want to go back to Stamps. Angelou writes, “ The barrenness of Stamps was exactly what I wanted, without will or consciousness” (87). Maya holds her hope once she returns to her mother’s home. Her hope pushes her to get a job, and make a better life for herself. Angelou writes, “ I WOULD HAVE THE JOB. I WOULD BE A CONDUCTORETTE AND SLING A FULL MONEY CHANGER FROM MY BELT I WOULD” (263). Maya’s hope pushes her to achieve her dream of becoming a conductor.
Listen to the don’ts. Listen to the shouldn’ts, the impossibles, the won’ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me...Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.” This quote best reflects The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald writes, “ So he invented the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent” (98). James Gatz invents Jay Gatsby in the hope to one day become him. “The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself” (98). Jay Gatsby had so much hope that he took initiative to reinvent