The Great Gatsby and Ebb
- Submitted by: nicoleflai
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- Category: English
- Date Submitted: 02/28/2011 02:35 AM
- Pages: 4
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A comparative study of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s sonnets and Fitzgerald’s ‘The Great Gatsby’ explores the ideas of aspirations and the values of idealism, faith, hope, love and promise. Both texts, in varying contexts, reveal a change in the society’s view on gender roles and changing perspectives. In sonnets 1, 14, 22 and 43, EBB employs the art of her sonnets and her imaginative powers to transcend reality. Fitzgerald and Elizabeth Barrett Browning discuss the common themes of changing views in love, dreams, time and hope.
EBB’s Sonnets from the Portuguese is an amatory sequence which traces the growing confidence and jubilation of the female persona who ultimately achieves a mutual love which is both physical and spiritual. In her sonnets, it shows an intense voice which was unusual in its era. The traditional 19th century view was that it was a woman’s role to receive expressions of love, however EBB differs in that she portrays herself as an active instead of a passive recipient of love. The first sonnet in the series introduces the narrative, the courtship and love affair. She is the silent love object of worship in a traditional sonnet, which acknowledges the passive role of the Victorian female. The repeated use of the word ‘love’ is ironic because it has implications of submissiveness and passivity in a patriarchal world. EBB makes a shift in `emphasizing the idea of platonic love and the meeting of minds. ‘Do not say I love her for her smile…her love’ indicates that EBB yearns for love beyond superficiality that reflects the Victorian notion of marriage as alliance. The final two lines of Sonnet 14, ‘love me for love’s sake’ and ‘through love’s eternity’ demand that love is based on its necessary evolution. EBB wants complete, unconditional love but not based on certain qualities, physical attributes or intellectual compatibility. The voice in the sonnets is an empowered one, asserting the right of a woman to be passionate and ironic. She is no...
EBB’s Sonnets from the Portuguese is an amatory sequence which traces the growing confidence and jubilation of the female persona who ultimately achieves a mutual love which is both physical and spiritual. In her sonnets, it shows an intense voice which was unusual in its era. The traditional 19th century view was that it was a woman’s role to receive expressions of love, however EBB differs in that she portrays herself as an active instead of a passive recipient of love. The first sonnet in the series introduces the narrative, the courtship and love affair. She is the silent love object of worship in a traditional sonnet, which acknowledges the passive role of the Victorian female. The repeated use of the word ‘love’ is ironic because it has implications of submissiveness and passivity in a patriarchal world. EBB makes a shift in `emphasizing the idea of platonic love and the meeting of minds. ‘Do not say I love her for her smile…her love’ indicates that EBB yearns for love beyond superficiality that reflects the Victorian notion of marriage as alliance. The final two lines of Sonnet 14, ‘love me for love’s sake’ and ‘through love’s eternity’ demand that love is based on its necessary evolution. EBB wants complete, unconditional love but not based on certain qualities, physical attributes or intellectual compatibility. The voice in the sonnets is an empowered one, asserting the right of a woman to be passionate and ironic. She is no...