Preview

Masculinity In Winter Dreams And Babylon Revisited

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
126 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Masculinity In Winter Dreams And Babylon Revisited
F. Scott Fitzgerald is renowned for his literary works and capturing the spirit of America during 1920s and 1930s. While he captures the essence of the time, he also records the change and development of gender roles in his times. Interestingly, in his stories, he explores the problems concerning masculinity and manliness of his time, which always become ambivalent ideas in the end. In “Winter Dreams” and “Babylon Revisited” Fitzgerald explores the concept masculinity through the lives Dexter Green and Charlie Wales, exposing the sort of dangers that occur when one conforms to masculinity. By exposing how the culture of masculinity creates vulnerable men, and how strict the structure of gender is when proposing a challenge to change it from
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Better Essays

    Gatsby vs. Winter Dreams Essay Example
    • 1449 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Gatsby vs. Winter Dreams Essay Example

    Often times fictional writing can be interpreted as commentary on the condition of humans and society. The work of F. Scott Fitzgerald is no exception to this principle. His most renowned novel, The Great Gatsby, is known for it’s demonstration of a society dictated by money, idealism, and love. Fewer know, however, about Fitzgerald’s earlier work named Winter Dreams. This short story about the life of an ambitious man named Dexter Green shares strong thematic topics with the tragic story of Jay Gatsby. Although the fatal flaws of Dexter Green and Jay Gatsby differ, the derived themes of perception versus reality and the corruption of the American Dream make it evident that F. Scott Fitgerald in fact intended Winter Dreams to be the prototype of The Great Gatsby.…

    • 1449 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    The Duality of Masculinity Between Augustus Freeman IV and Icon
    • 1102 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The Duality of Masculinity Between Augustus Freeman IV and Icon

    In the article “Comic Book Masculinity,” Jeffrey Brown highlights the prominent differences regarding the masculinity of black vs. white superheroes, and he reflects on why Milestone comics are different from other black superhero comics. Comic book superheroes and the black male body are each viewed as models of hypermasculinity, so when combining the two, to make black male superheroes, there is a significant risk of being far too hypermasculine. Outside of Milestone’s comics, black male superheroes were often viewed in more of a comical sense because of the Blaxploitation era. Milestone is different because it counteracts the possibility of overly hypermasculnity by emphasizing its characters’ intellect. However, Milestone does not abandon all ideas of masculinity.…

    • 1102 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Disenchanted Research Paper
    • 3443 Words
    • 14 Pages

    The Disenchanted Research Paper

    F. Scott Fitzgerald’s life and work were in a knot from the start; his profession spanned one of the most tumultuous eras of the century, and from the very start he was the creator and the victim of the new culture of celebrity which accompanied the rise of modern technology. Budd Schulberg masterfully created a character that closely and in many ways represents Fitzgerald in his later years; Manley Halliday is that character. “His mind’s eye, incurably bifocal, could never stop searching for the fairy-tale maiden who made his young manhood a time of bewitchment, when springtime was the only season and the days revolved on a lovers’ spectrum of sunlight, twilight, candlelight and dawn.”[Ch.10]. Fitzgerald had an interesting relationship with his beautiful wife Zelda Fitzgerald, in the novel Halliday’s was a flapper named Jere. Much of the novel’s center core is an up and close view covering the couple’s interactions, behavior, parties, and a lot of screw ups that do not shy away from Fitzgerads’ very own. Not only is there a connection between Halliday’s Jere but The Disenchanted introduced the subject of glamorized failure, in the scene when Manley Halliday is dying and thinks, “Take it from me, baby, in America nothing fails like success” [Ch. Slow Dissolve] he indeed, is the American failure.…

    • 3443 Words
    • 14 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Rhetorical Devices in Great Gatsby
    • 584 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Rhetorical Devices in Great Gatsby

    Prior to the Jazz Age, growing up was associated with a loss of happiness and hope. During the 20’s, however, this standard seemed to change, pushing the perception of adulthood into something magical and frivolous. Fitzgerald reflects this in the archetypal portrayal of a city, describing it as “in white heaps and sugar lumps”. White is an archetype for purity, innocence, and hope. It illuminates the hope that the young adults living in the 1920’s felt, as well as the innocent parties they danced at, innocent not because of what took place in them, but because they were blissfully unaware of the harsh realities that existed elsewhere in the world. Happiness is also communicated in the use of the word “sunlight”, because the sun is an archetype for energy and hope. Through the personification of the city “rising up”, it is illuminated that the roaring twenties came from seemingly nowhere, almost like a fairytale. The magic of the upper classes’ world was also portrayed in the hyperbole, “all built with a wish.” In reality, the city merely began as a wish, but Fitzgerald portrays it as something that sprung up from a thought. Potentially the most illuminatory literary device is the imagery in the sentence “its wild promise of all the mystery and the beauty in the world.” The picture painted is one of excitement, hope, and perhaps most importantly, the creation of a wonderful world borne from fancy.…

    • 584 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Female Characters In The Great Gatsby
    • 156 Words
    • 1 Page

    Female Characters In The Great Gatsby

    By transfusing his life story of an American dreamer into a quest of becoming someone, first in “Winter Dreams” and later in The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald provoked a continuous incarnation of the American Dream and poles apart in attitude towards his female characters. By being debutantes, popular daughters and a Golden girls, female characters in Fitzgerald’s fiction are always higher in a social ladder than the male characters. However, this does not give the female characters the main role in Fitzgerald’s fiction, but instead, the female higher position is used as the mean of achieving the male hero’s Dream. Therefore, the value of female characters in Fitzgerald’s fiction can be measured in the amount of dollars that they hold. By being…

    • 156 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Ridge Scholarship Essay
    • 819 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Ridge Scholarship Essay

    Upon rereading Fitzgerald’s novel I was intrigued by the themes and motifs that kept cropping up throughout the story—the decline of the American dream and the spirit of the 1920’s, the role of symbols in the human conception of meaning, and the role of the past in dreams of the future. Strangely, many of these themes related to me and made me analyze and view myself, and the world, in ways I never imagined.…

    • 819 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Similarities Between Winter Dreams And The Great Gatsby
    • 464 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Similarities Between Winter Dreams And The Great Gatsby

    During the roaring 1920’s, after the devastations of World War I and 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, people in America began to change their American dreams. They started to rebel against social traditions, lose self-control, and party like never before. F. Scott Fitzgerald dubs the era the Jazz Age, as he reflects on the ambiguities of the American Dream. In Fitzgerald’s short story “Winter Dreams” and the novel The Great Gatsby, there are many similarities between the two main characters, Dexter and Gatsby. Dexter Green and Jay Gatsby epitomize the self-reliant individual; therefore, they are very successful financially; however, they fall short of attaining their full dream for they never get the girl.…

    • 464 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Repressed Women In The Great Gatsby
    • 969 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Repressed Women In The Great Gatsby

    Some women during the 1920s lived the life with the role of a repressed woman. Repressed women did not make decisions for themselves; they relied solely on their husbands. Their husbands treated them as if they were objects without any feelings whatsoever. Repressed women showed no self respect, and they did not live their life in reality. These women's emotions were suppressed as they appeared as if they had no care in the world. In Fitzgerald's, The Great Gatsby, Daisy Buchanan represents the repressed role of women in the American Dream.…

    • 969 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    OfMiceandMenEssay
    • 1820 Words
    • 5 Pages

    OfMiceandMenEssay

    In the novel ‘Of Mice and Men’, Curley’s Wife is one of the many microcosms of American Society represented in the 1930s. In the award-winning book, John Steinbeck provides many different aspects to the world he was living in at the time he wrote the novel: dreams, hopes and loneliness to name a few, all channelled through different negative mentalities: prejudice, racism and sexism. Curley’s Wife was the one character Steinbeck used to get his point across about sexism with. She is not a complex character, however a ‘significant figure’ may be a better fitting word for the cause. In my essay, I will be giving my opinion on Curley’s Wife’s presentation by Steinbeck; if it presents dislike and/or sympathy, and if so, with how much.…

    • 1820 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    "Jay Gatsby" The American Dream and the Agrarian myth
    • 666 Words
    • 2 Pages

    "Jay Gatsby" The American Dream and the Agrarian myth

    David Trask once said, commenting on F. Scott Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby that "The Great Gatsby is about many things, but it is inescapably a general critique of the 'American Dream' and also of the 'agrarian myth' - a powerful demonstration of their invalidity for Americans of Fitzgerald's generation and after." Fitzgerald defiantly breaks down the societal boundaries of the 1920's and creates a new societal example.…

    • 666 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Comparing The Great Gatsby And The Jelly Bean
    • 1332 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Comparing The Great Gatsby And The Jelly Bean

    Scott Fitzgerald outlined the events and lifestyles of the roaring 20s through his writings “The Great Gatsby” and “The Jelly Bean”, readers learn that wealth and class effected all the decisions and events that occurred. Jim and Gatsby, from the two works, had drastically different lives but had a lot in common when it came to people and how their story ended. Both used wealth and status as a way of gauging someone’s worth, both of them saw wealth and property as a way to get the girl and both ended up losing it all together. By using foreshadowing, irony and symbolism, F. Scott Fitzgerald captures the way of life during the 1920’s and the importance of…

    • 1332 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    The Great Gatsby & Enduring Love Comparative Essay ‘Obsessive Love Has the Capacity to Drive a Person to Insanity, Leading to Irrational Behaviour, Alienation and Despair’ Compare and Contrast the Ways Mcewan and
    • 3069 Words
    • 13 Pages

    The Great Gatsby & Enduring Love Comparative Essay ‘Obsessive Love Has the Capacity to Drive a Person to Insanity, Leading to Irrational Behaviour, Alienation and Despair’ Compare and Contrast the Ways Mcewan and

    F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ian McEwanpresent obsessive Idealised love as deranged and harmful.Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’, published in 1925,epitomises the euphoric atmosphere which permeated consumerist attitudes after WW1, during the period known as the ‘Roaring Twenties’ a revolutionary time associated with breaking tradition, Modernism, rapid technological change andnew definitions of the ‘modern’ woman. Fitzgerald’sfictional characters can be understood asvictims of a Capitalist culture which valued materialism over personal integrity. Complexities of love and lust co-exist with cultural conflict andmoral blindness in adecade dubbed by the French as ‘l’années folles’; (the crazy years1.) McEwan’s Post-modern novel ‘Enduring Love’, published and set in 1990's, also explores the damaging and potentially destructive consequences of intense and passionate desire. Both authors convey the complexion of human emotionand explore how obsessive love differs from the conventional view of romantic love. Sharing the theme ofidealised love, presented as unwavering loyalty and passion, the authors take these traits to extremes. McEwan questions what we think we understand and making the reader uncomfortable; pastiche of narrative style catches the reader off guard, especially when the novel switches abruptly from being a philosophical exploration of ideas to a thriller style, metafiction which challenges the suspension of disbelief by being self referential. McEwan, strongly influenced by E.O. Wilson’s critical scientific development of socio-biology and uses the narrative to explore aspects of human love and the evolutionary mechanics behind behaviours such as altruism and aggression. Both novels…

    • 3069 Words
    • 13 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Great Gatsby Deterioration Analysis
    • 973 Words
    • 4 Pages

    The Great Gatsby Deterioration Analysis

    An author can create criticism and comment on injustice by examining the society of the time. F. Scott Fitzgerald uses an insightful perspective in the novel The Great Gatsby to illustrate the faults within society and perhaps bring awareness to the audience that there is a need for change. The words “American Dream” offer hope for a life filled with possibilities, including fulfillment and meaningful relationships. Fitzgerald, however, shows how the deterioration of American values leads to the failure of the American Dream. While everyone is so interested in drifting through life accumulating material possessions, they fail to see how the chase has a negative effect on…

    • 973 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Great Gatsby V. Winter Dreams
    • 810 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Great Gatsby V. Winter Dreams

    In F. Scotts Fitzgerald’s works, “Winter Dreams” and The Great Gatsby the reader cannot help but to notice how alike the characters. From desire starting at a young age for fabulous things to the extravagant women they will never possess, Jay Gatsby and Dexter Green, are modeled right after one another. The women they have an undying love for are also alike. The reader can pick up on the many similarities the minor characters of GG have with the main characters of “WD.”…

    • 810 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Mistreatment Of Women In The Great Gatsby
    • 758 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Mistreatment Of Women In The Great Gatsby

    In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, the changing and conflicting roles of women and their persistent mistreatment by males emphasizes the struggle for women’s equality in the 1920s. Fitzgerald uses the differences between Daisy and Jordan’s lifestyles to highlight the changing roles of women at the time. Although the female characters in the novel appear to progress toward independence, the persistent mistreatment by male characters stresses the lack of acceptance for women within upper-class society. The lack of strong, independent female characters shows the absence of progression and the mindset that “the best thing a girl can be [is] … a beautiful little fool.” (17). The lack of strong, female viewpoints portray the gender…

    • 758 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More

Related Topics