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Dylan Deardurff
Ms. Von Holst
English 3
25 November 2014
Compare/Contrast Essay
The American Dream usually deals with hard work and determination in order to make
someones own life better without putting a certain limit on it. Two such texts that discuss the
American Dream are The Great Gatsby and Death of a Salesman. The Great Gatsby describes
the journey of a poor man named Gatsby who falls in love with a rich girl named Daisy and
spends his whole life trying to impress her with eventually his riches, parties, but eventually ends
up dying alone. Death of a Salesman describes the journey of a struggling salesman named Willy
Loman trying to provide for his family but ultimately kills himself in a car accident. Despite the
difference in the journeys of these characters, the two texts have a similar ending theme. Even
though both Arthur Miller and F. Scott Fitzgerald both utilize the tragic ending of death to show
how someone can fail at pursuing the American Dream, they differ in how they create each
characters lifestyles, journeys, and the obstacles they face.
The two texts have many things in common such as their ending climaxes of the main
character dying tragically. In Death of a Salesman Willy kills himself in a car accident on
purpose taking his own life carelessly. In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby ends getting correctly
framed and killed by a mad man. In this the text says So we drove on toward death through the
cooling twilight (Fitzgerald 129). This quote foreshadows what is going to happing next with
the evidence of Gatsby death. Another similarity between the two texts is the main characters
(Willy and Gatsby) facing dramatics before their deaths. In Death of a Salesman, one example is

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I dont want you to represent us. Ive been meaning to tell you for a long time now (Miller 83).
This example is from when Howard fired the struggling salesman Willy Loman when he was
barely making it by as it was with that job. After that incident in the play even more pressure was
put on Willy to provide and even tell his wife Linda what had happened which led to him killing
himself. In The Great Gatsby the hottest day of the year was the biggest turning point in the
novel with the highest amount of drama including the hotel scene where the truth was revealed to
Daisy about Gatsbys illegal riches he claimed. And that scene ultimately changed the course of
the entire novel with Daisy staying with Tom and leading to Gatsby death. Both the texts have
huge events in the lead up to the deaths of one another and also their failure at the American
Dream. Lastly both texts with death of the main characters leaves the other characters in
disbelief. In Death of a Salesman Willy leaves his family in shock after killing himself and the
most shock to his wife Linda who really believed in him. In The Great Gatsby, Gatsbys death
leaves other characters in disbelief because he was a nice guy, but mostly his dear friend Nick
was the one to stick up for him in the end.
The two texts also have some differences in their stories. Death of a Salesman had Willy
purposely taking his life in careless car accident while The Great Gatsby had Gatsbys murder
setup by a side character. A text example of Willy taking his life is There is the sound of a car
starting and moving away at full speed (Miller 136). Main difference between the two texts is
Willy wanted to take his life because of his failure and Gatsby still had something to live for.
Gatsby states Cant repeat the past? He cried incredulously. Why of course you can (Fitzgerald
116) pretty much explaining that was his goal in his situation. And lastly Gatsby had the riches
as the main character but Willy was poor setting up two completely different lifestyles and
problems the two faced throughout their journeys.

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Even though both Arthur Miller and F. Scott Fitzgerald both utilize the tragic ending of
death to show how someone can fail at pursuing the American Dream, they differ in how they
create each characters lifestyles, journeys, and the obstacles they face. Both texts have multiple
comparisons and differences but major ones such as both characters dying ultimately making
them fail at following their American Dream. But the way they live their life differently and with
different luxuries or not is evident too. Therefore this makes these texts comparable and
contrastable.

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Works Cited
Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman; Certain Private Conversations in Two Acts and a Requiem.
New York: Viking Penguin, 1949. Print.

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York, NY: Scribner, 1996. Print.