Comparing Fitzgeralds Great Gatsby and Eliots The Love Song of J. Alf

The Great Gatsby and Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock So often, it seems, life can seem like a "patient etherized on the table" (Eliot, 3). Be it the apparent futility of existence as a whole, or the insecurity of those single moments of doubt; life is often fleeting. I believe life is best described as a fickle beast, always elusive; always turning down some new and unexpected road. This fleeting life is what both Jay Gatsby of The Great Gatsby and Alfred J. Prufrock of "Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock" experience. These two men experiences move down remarkably similar paths as they quest for love and life. Yet each has sealed their shared fate in a different manner. As they head toward the seeming abyss of death, both remiss on all they wish they had done during their lives. By the time each man meets his end they both feel they have failed themselves and life as a whole. While sporting similar fates, Prufrock and Gatsby, boast a seemingly opposed beginning. Prufrock is best describe in his love song as a passenger on the road of life. He speaks of his...