Similarities Between Little Miss Sunshine And The Great Gatsby

Within both the film Little Miss Sunshine, and the novel, The Great Gatsby, the idea that ‘obsession leads to failure’ is thoroughly explored. This is accomplished using a variety of complex literary and film devices including characterisation, dialogue, imagery, symbolism, intertextuality, costuming and acting. There are copious examples throughout both texts of how this focal idea is explored and is tremendously evident when Myrtle becomes obsessively infatuated with Tom, when Dwayne becomes obsessed with joining the air force and leaving his family, through Olive’s fixation with beauty pageants and Daisy’s engrossment with a materialistic lifestyle and husband, Gatsby’s obsession with Daisy and Richard’s obsessive preoccupation with his