Six A*-A essays for Paper 1 comparative component: Anthology and the Great Gatsby. They are written under times conditions and marked by the teacher (band 5).
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The Great Gatsby: Notes, Discussion, and Socratic Seminar Prep
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Alevel english literature
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Separation
Selfishness
Desire
Passion
Loss
Explore how the writers of two texts that you studied present ideas about
separation.
Separation could produce many effects on lovers: denial, acceptance, rage or madness.
However, Wyatt and Burns depict the speakers who are ‘weried’ from losing their love and
suffer from it. On the other hand, Fitzgerald creates a character to remains struggling for his
love even after separating with her. Furthermore, while Burns and Fitzgerald describe the
intensification of love after separation which either contributes to the speaker’s suffering in
Ae Fond, or nurtures Gatsby’s desire to continue his pursuit of Daisy, Wyatt intensifies the
speaker’s suffering and tiredness from the separation.
In Whoso and Ae Fond Wyatt and Burns depict speakers who give up on pursuing their love
after separating with it. In Whoso the falling meter of the poem highlights the depressive
tone of the speaker, demonstrating their resolution to stop following ‘an hynde’ -a symbol
of their love object. Speaker’s observation that ‘faynting I follow’ conveys their weariness
from the separation through the alliteration of fricative sounds, which implies their
tiredness and breathlessness. Furthermore, their decisive resolution to ‘leve of therefore’ is
emphasizes by caesuras, which demonstrates the finality of speaker’s giving up on pursuing
their love after separating with her. This is also emphasized by the metaphor of ‘hold[ing]
the wynd’ ‘in a net’ as it implies that the speaker cannot hold something non-material which
his love is, and so the further pursuit of her is pointless. Similarly Burns demonstrates the
weariness of the speaker from the separation through the employment a semantic field of
emotional turmoil with characteristic sounds when the speaker describes their ‘tears’ ‘sights
and groans’ which are onomatopoeias and thus convey the depressive mood and physical
suffering of the speaker. As a Romantic, Burns focuses on the presentation of the feelings of
an individual by employing the first person in his song, which adds prominence to the
speaker’s sadness after the saying ‘fareweel’ to their love. The form of the song, however,
could be interpreted as challenging the sincerity of the speaker’s suffering, as it means that
their feeling sand emotions are structured and constructed, rather than expressed freely.
On the other hand, Fitzgerald depicts a character who does not give up on pursuing their
love or does not outwardly demonstrate their suffering after the separation. Narrator Nick
describes Gatsby as ‘clutching at some last hope’, which conveys the associations with “the
last straw” which is given to a person to save them, thus highlighting Gatsby’s hope to
pursue Daisy even after they separated in the hotel room which could be his last chance to
remain with her. Furthermore, Fitzgerald employs a poignant metaphor of Gatsby
committing himself to ‘the following of a grail’ which emphasizes his continuous attempts to
win Daisy’s love by alluding to a legend about a sacred cup from which Jesus had drunk and
, which was later searched by the knights. A historical analogy of a dedicated search
contributes to the presentation of Gatsby as ready to face many challenges in the pursuit of
his love even after the separation with her.
While Burns and Fitzgerald depict intensification of love in their texts, Wyatt focuses on the
description of the speaker’s loss of hope for the reunion after the separation by highlighting
their depressive mood. Wyatt employs the first-person pronoun to give prominence to the
speaker’s suffering from the separation, while the semantic field of weariness in the
speaker’s description of being ‘wearied … so sore’ emphasizes how tired they are after a
separation. The employment of the motif of hunting to symbolize the pursuit of love, could
be interpreted as Wyatt’s simple attempt to appeal to the court audience where this activity
was highly valued as it demonstrated the status of a man. However, another reading could
be that Wyatt’s depiction of the speaker following ‘the Deere’ and being ‘farthest cometh
behinde’ conveys the idea of love being a game, a pursuit, where the separation means the
loss of the game, which the modern readers could interpret as a hint on the superficiality of
the speaker’s emotions, as they objectify their love to ‘an hynde’ rather than considering as
a person whose consent they need to establish a relationship. In the light of this
interpretation, it could be that the speaker in Who so plays a one-sided game of love, where
the separation from his love is only his decision, which suggest the egoism and selfishness of
his suffering.
On the other hand, Burns demonstrate the intensification of the speaker’s love after [they]
sever’, employing the structure of a song where a speaker addresses a silent addressee,
which conveys romantism of their separation, as love songs are usually associated with
troubadours who depicted unobtainable love. The employment of superlative cause to
depict the speaker’s love as ‘first and fairest’ and ‘best and dearest’ demonstrates the
speaker love her to the highest extent possible, while alliteration of ‘f’ sound conveys the
tenderness of their feelings. Furthermore, the capitalization of ‘Peace, Enjoyment, Love and
Pleasure’ which the speaker wishes to their love, suggests their immense love for her by
wishing her to experience the best version of the mentioned emotions. While Fitzgerald
similarly to Burns depict the intensification of Gatsby’s love to Daisy after their separation
when Gatsby was sent to the war, Gatsby’s love remains unspoken as only we interpret it
from his body language. Nick’s portrayal of Gatsby’s who ‘stretched out his arms towards …
the green light’ in Chapter 1, could leave us perplexed at first, but with the development of
the text we realize that Fitzgerald uses a modernist technique of symbolism to focalize
Gatsby’s love for Daisy in ‘the green light’ which symbolizes his dream of her. Also, the
association of the green colour with the American dream highlights Gatsby’s continuous
pursuit of Daisy, as many Americans in the 1920s believed in the idea that their hard work
and dedication could help them to achieve anything they wish for. Therefore, Nick’s
comment that in the last chapter that ‘Gatsby believed in the green light’ implies that
Gatsby remained faithful to the idea of loving Daisy even after their final separation – his
death.
In conclusion, separation can make someone suffer and feel wearied, as the speakers in
Who so and Ae fond, or empower to fight for love until the end as Gatsby does. The feeling
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