Tuesday, August 14, 2018

How do the themes of strangeness and strangers appear in The Great Gatsby and Antigone?

Both The Great Gatsby and Antigone feature characters who are outsiders or strangers in a society.
Nick and Gatsby could both be seen as strangers in The Great Gatsby. Nick is from the Midwest and is an alien to the East Coast culture. He is initially fascinated by the lifestyles of the wealthy easterners but eventually becomes disenchanted. Gatsby is a newly rich, self-made man in a world of old money. He has "friends" who regularly attend his parties, but they know nothing about him as a person and often gossip about what backstories he might have.
In Antigone, the titular character finds herself a stranger in her own city. She is the only one willing to break an unjust law for the sake of love. By burying her brother so he can have peace in the afterlife, she is made a criminal in the eyes of the law. She goes as far as to claim that she has "no home on the earth or in the shades, no home with the living or with the dead," emphasizing her feelings of alienation.

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