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Similarities Between The Great Gatsby And Atonement

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This essay looks at The Great Gatsby written by F.Scott Fitzgerald and Atonement written by Ian McEwan, and their film adaptations, The Great Gatsby directed by Baz Luhrman and Atonement directed by Joe Wright. Many film directors that decide to adapt a novel to a film often change the essence and core message of the original work of the author. According to Paulo Coelho, the reader has a certain perception about the characters, scenes, and details of the novel. But when the reader goes to watch the film adaptation, all these perceptions and views are ruined and the reader often ends up leaving the film feeling disappointed. However, I do not agree that Joe Wright and Baz Luhrman changed the message of the two novels. To a large extent, I was not ‘disappointed’ by the film adaptations of The Great Gatsby and Atonement. I believe that both film directors have stayed loyal and faithful to the novel, they did not change my opinion on how I viewed the …show more content…

The valley of Ashes is a piece of wasteland with ashes of the train that carries the wealthy and upper class to New York. F.Scott Fitzgerald describes the people as ‘of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air’ he gives us an image of the poor people – the people are stuck in the failure of the American dream. They are like the waste of America, and they cannot move forward. We also get an image of an area filled with dirt, thick air and poverty. In the film, we see details of this unpleasant place, and we get an image of the type of people who live there. In the film we immediately see that this ‘farm’ is a symbol of the failure of the American dream. Baz Luhrman displays this farmland exactly or even better than what one would imagine. I was not disappointed and in fact, I got a bigger understanding of what the failure of the American Dream

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