Moby Dick and the Great Gatsby

The two books that have the most in common out of the books we have read so far would have to be The Great Gatsby and Moby Dick. These two pieces of literature both deal with the same things such as characters having a single goal and would do anything to achieve it, they both will do whatever it takes to get to the goal, and in the end the thing they want the most ends up destroying them. In the Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway is the narrator. He moves from Minnesota to New York in the summer of 1922 and rents a house in the wealthy neighborhood of West Egg. Nick’s neighbor Is a strange and somewhat mysterious man by the name of Jay Gatsby. Jay lives in a lavish and extravagant mansion and throws annual parties every Saturday night. Nick meets up with his cousin Daisy Buchanan and her husband Tom who happens to be a classmate of Nicks at Yale.They introduce Nick to a woman named Jordan Baker, now Jordan tells Nick about Tom’s secret lover, Myrtle Wilson. Eventually Nick receives an invitation to one of Jay’s legendary parties where he learns more about this mysterious man. He learns that Gatsby is madly in love with Daisy and deep down the reason why he throws these extreme parties and lives the lavish lifestyle is his attempt to impress her. Shorty after Gatsby and Daisy reestablish their love affair and begin rekindling their relationship. Soon after their love affair begins, Daisy learns that Jay is a criminal and got his money from bootlegging alcohol and such activities. When they return home, they discovery that Gatsby’s car has crashed in the valley of ashes. They realize that the car had crashed into Myrtle. When Tom learns this he tells Myrtle’s husband George and he ultimately blames Gatsby. George drives over to Jay’s house and shoots him as Jay is in his pool. Nick throws Gatsby a small funeral, he also moves back home when he realizes that the American dream and individualism has turned into nothing but the pursuit of wealth and the life of……. Ishmael, at the beginning of the novel, boards the whaling boat with no experience as a whaler. At the beginning of the voyage they travel to an inn in New Bedford where Ishmael has to share a bed with a harpooner named Queequeq. Queequeq is a native from the South Pacific who has strange habits and is covered with tattoos. They soon put aside their differences and decide to work together on the Pequod. The Pequod’s captain is a mysterious man by the name of Ahab who is still getting over the loss of his leg on his last voyage to capture Moby Dick. They depart from Nantucket on Christmas Day with a diverse crew. Soon after they get into warmer waters, Ahab appears on the deck for the first time and reveals his desire to kill Moby Dick. He also states that he sees the whale as the epitome of all evil. Ahab wants this whale so bad he fascines a gold doubloon to the mast as a prize for the first crew member to sight the whale. As the Pequod reaches the southern tip of Africa, Fedallah and a collective group of stowaways emerge from hold. Fedallah pledges his loyality to Ahab as his private harpooner. When the Pequod reaches the Indian Ocean they encounter other whaling vessels and demands information on the omnipresent Moby Dick. Aboard one of these ships, the Jeroboam, Ahab meets Gabriel, a “prophet”who warns everyone that doom shall come to whoever threatens Moby Dick. Gabriel’s predictions seem to hold some water as soon after Tashtego, one of the Pequod’s harpooners, falls overboard but is saved by Queequeg. During another one of the whale hunts Pip falls overboard and is stranded in the middle of the ocean and goes insane. The Pequod reached the equator when they encounter the great whale and the final battle ensues. On the first day they sent out the harpoon boats, but tragically they were destroyed by Moby Dick. Again the next day he is spotted and this time harpooned, but again he attacks the boat. During this time Fedallah got caught on the harpoon line and shot overboard to his death. On the third day Moby Dick rams the Pequod and sinks it. As the boat slowly goes down, Ahab got attachet to the harpoon line and is hurled out to his death. All that remain is the vortex created by the sinking Pequod and Ishmael, who managed to get far enough away so that the vortex does not pull him in. Some of the most obvious similarities between the two books are between the two characters Jay Gatsby and Ahab. They both have one goal in mind and will do whatever it takes to get that goal done. Jay goes after Daisy and Ahab has Moby Dick. These ambitions lead them to do things that are out of the ordinary such as the lavish lifestyles or the harsh sea. They both have had recent tragedies in their life. In the end of the books they two characters in question lose everything including their life due directly or indirectly to the things they lust after. Daisy indirectly kills Gatsby through a chain of events and Ahab is directly killed by Moby Dick. Daisy and the whale also have a few things in common. They both lead a skewed life. Daisy seems to come off as a charmer, sophisticated aristocrat but deep down she is a fickle, shallow sardonic, who runs back to her money when times get tough. Moby Dick seems to portray a demonic whale to the crew of the Pequod, but in all reality is just a common whale that is enraged by the infinite number of attacks he has to go through on a daily basis. The narrators also have one common factor, they both seek a simple life. Nick, by the end of the story, moves back to Minnesota because he seeks a simpler, quiet life. Ishmael is just your run-of-the-mill sailor who has not a care in the world but to sail the seas and live his live on the water. They both also seemed to get sucked into a wild adventure that leads to death. The American dream also comes into play with these characters. Now the “American dream” states that the harder you work at something, the more payoffs it will have in the end. Jay Gatsby works extremely hard to get Daisy back and through the process it kills him. Ahab does everything in his power to get to Moby Dick and through the American dream he should have gotten this evil whale, but this does not happen which leads to the theory that the American dream is more like the American lie. It led these two men to risk it all only to fall on the faces and give up their lives. Through the American dream the similar characters gave it all up for the one thing they wanted most in the world. They risked it all and ultimately failed due to several factors, one being the misconception of being raised on a lie. Having a single goal in life, going all out to get it, dying over what they want are just a few of the common ideals that these books have. The Great Gatsby and Moby Dick are two books who challenge the ideals of the American public and the grounds we grew up on to prove the point that we do not always get what we want in the end. Bibliography Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. Richard Bentley, 1851. Fitzgerald, Francis S. The Great Gatsby. Charles Scribner 's Sons, 1925. 22 Apr. 2008 .

Bibliography: Melville, Herman. Moby Dick. Richard Bentley, 1851. Fitzgerald, Francis S. The Great Gatsby. Charles Scribner 's Sons, 1925. 22 Apr. 2008 .