Essay | The Great Gatsby and Pleasantville: Compare and Contrast

"If we hope for what we are not likely to possess, we act and think in vain, and make life a greater dream and shadow than it really is." this quote by Joseph Addison further exemplifies the message that F. Scott Fitzgerald's book The Great Gatsby and Gary Ross's movie Pleasantville strive to convey. Both authors illustrate that when people become obsessed on a certain object, or dream in this instance, it can become a blinding fixation that does not always have a positive outcome. Both of these accounts take place in an earlier point in time, which helps the settings and plots of both stories. In these stories, the main characters become frustrated with their current lives and begin endeavors to change their stars.

The setting for Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby takes place in 1923-4 in a wealthy region of New York separated by...
(read more)