Topic > A Love Theme in The Lady with the Dog and The Great Gatsby

In both The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald and The Lady with the Dog by Anton Chekhov the authors use, among many others, the significant theme of love. In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby fell in love with Daisy for everything she represented. In The Lady with the Dog, Gurov fell in love with Anna because he was dissatisfied with his wife. Both men court a woman they initially do not intend to love due to dissatisfaction with their lives. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Love in The Great Gatsby is driven by the American Dream, wealth, and insecurity. Gatsby loves Daisy not for who she is but for what she has. He sees her lifestyle and sees that she has things that he doesn't have, and his life has exemplified everything that he has wanted in life. He was the picture of wealth, coming from a family of rich old men. Gatsby was new money, meaning he was new to wealth, while Daisy and her husband Tom both had wealth in their families for a long time. Bunce says, “Tom is everything Gatsby is not. Tom is a powerful old-time sportsman while Gatsby is a poor military man with devious business deals. Gatsby believes that having Daisy, and thus becoming respectable with his old money, will solve all his problems and put him above those "hot struggles of the poor." Gatsby is envious of Tom and Daisy and struggles with the insecurity of coming from a poorer family. His natural discomfort with his own family is what makes Gatsby falsely confident and insecure. The author even states in the book that Gatsby never truly accepted his parents due to their social standing. Fitzgerald declared: "His parents were inept and unsuccessful farmers: his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents." Gatsby's life revolved around wealth and self-improvement and this is where Daisy comes into the picture. It could help him achieve his goals by making him feel complete and successful. Daisy is absolutely passive just like Anna Sergeevna in The Lady with the Dog, they accept and allow what is happening even though they know it is morally wrong. Both Daisy and Anna are married but still in a relationship. Gatsby is so driven by wealth and the American dream that he fails to see Daisy for who she is as a person, but often defines her by her wealth. It's hard to know if he's in love with Daisy or in love with wealth and status. Bunce says, "Gatsby was keenly aware of the youth and mystery which wealth imprisons and preserves, of the freshness of many clothes, and of Daisy, shining as silver, confident and proud above the fiery struggles of the poor" (Fitzgerald 150). As readers, we clearly see that Gatsby is constantly thinking about the lavish and glamorous life he would have with Daisy. Gatsby, struggling with his own identity, finds it difficult to love anyone other than Daisy because he loved what she represented and has a history with her. At the end of the book Gatsby is not reunited with Daisy and is defeated. Sutton says, "With Gatsby now defeated, the final image of the sequence finds him in essentially the same position as the first image: physically separated from Daisy and searching for a light that he associates with her." This love that Daisy and Gatsby discovered soon crumbled. We learn that Gatsby's love for Daisy is more about wanting a better life rather than the woman and Daisy realizes that she truly loves Tom. This search for love and happiness ended with Gatsby's death. Just like in The Great Gatsby, Gurov's love for Anna in The Lady with the Dog began, 2015.