Similarities Between The Great Gatsby And Hemingway

Humans have always relied on their senses for description and imagery, that is why authors F. Scott Fitzgerald of The Great Gatsby and Ernest Hemmingway of The Old Man and the Sea rely on the imagistic writing style in their books. The authors of both these books bring readers into their stories and connect the emotions in the book with the senses. The senses that have the strongest imagery and connections are touch, sight, and sound. These are the strongest for the descriptions of each of the settings, and are used fantastically in each of the respective books. Ordinarily, people may not think of touch as the most important sense, but it is imperative to understand the emotion portrayed in the scenes of The Great Gatsby and The Old Man and
These books enhance imagery and emotion in a scene through their use of sight, The Old Man and the Sea does this exceptionally well. In one scene when the boy finds Santiago sleeping, he puts a blanket over his shoulders and notices that “they were strange shoulders, still powerful although very old, and the neck was still strong too and the creases did not show so much when the old man was asleep and his head fallen forward,” (Hemingway 18). In this quote, it is easy to see that the age has withered the old man. Readers understand how much the boy admires the old man to still be caring for him, and sets the gentle tone of the scene. Another amazing sight quote from Hemingway is when Santiago is watching the shark, which he identified by “the second fin now coming up behind the first and had identified the as shovel-nosed sharks by the brown, triangular fin and the sweeping movements of the tail,” (Hemingway 107). As well as The Old Man and the Sea, The Great Gatsby also promotes great imagery. The best example of this is when Nick walks into the room with Tom, and Nick looks around and sees that “the windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding-cake of the ceiling, and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea,” (Fitzgerald 8).This quote shows how elegant and expensive looking the entire room is, and sets the tone of the scene to be more sophisticated and formal. These books develop the emotion and imagery with the use of sight to help readers delve into the book with the