Hamlet & Great Gatsby comparrison essay

People strive to live a fulfilling life. To accomplish this, people try to live righteously by developing and maintaining strong admirable traits. Qualities that make a person admirable are often desired and well respected. However, in the works, Hamlet, The Englishman’s Boy and The Great Gatsby, it is demonstrated that admirable qualities can lead to suffering or destruction. Hamlet, Shorty McAdoo and Jay Gatsby respectively possess inspiring traits such as loyalty, morals and innocence which ultimately lead to their pain and/or death. Loyalty is admirable because it shows commitment within a character or person; however in the works studied this semester, loyalty causes much suffering. In the play Hamlet, the main character Hamlet is extremely loyal to his father. This leads to his depression expressed in many of his soliloquies throughout the play as he contemplates suicide as an easier way of dealing with the loss of his father. Due to the loyalty to his father, Hamlet suffers after learning of his father’s murder. Similar to Hamlet, in The Englishman Boy, Shorty McAdoo is also loyal. In the beginning of the story, the Englishman becomes very sick when they arrive on the boat.

Throughout the Englishman’s illness, Shorty remains by his side until the Englishman dies. This causes Shorty to miss the boat that would have taken him home. Shorty’s loyalty to the Englishman eventually forces him into a journey with the Wolfers and he becomes tapped in a world that he does not agree with. This loyalty leads to Shorty’s suffering as he experienced and witnessed traumatizing events such as his friend Ed Grace being killed as well as the Indian girl being raped and murdered. Likewise, Jay Gatsby was also a loyal character. Throughout The Great Gatsby, it is learned that Gatsby and Daisy had a relationship in the past but became separated when Gatsby had to go overseas for war. Daisy promised she would wait for him but was married when Gatsby returned. For five years, Gatsby remained loyal in his love to Daisy.

This causes him pain as he is unable to be with her because she is married and has a family. All three characters share a worthy trait of loyalty but it is shown to cause great suffering. Having morals allows one to live righteously even when it defies majority opinion-(what others or most people believe is right). Although morals are admirable, they also cause great suffering and/or destruction to the characters that possess this trait. After Hamlet confirms that Claudius killed his father, he is ready to seek revenge. Hamlet has the perfect opportunity to kill Claudius but he is unable to because he perceives him to be praying. Due to Hamlets morals of justice he does not kill him because he believes that killing someone while praying would send them to heaven.

Because of Hamlets need for a fair death, it delays his revenge and allows Claudius to plan Hamlets murder. In the end, Hamlets views cause his destruction because he misses an opportunity which allows Claudius time to act. In The Englishman’s Boy, after he stabs a man in the saloon, Shorty does not have much choice than to ride along with the Wolfers because he is unfamiliar with the town and is sure the man would come looking for revenge. While traveling with the Wolfers, Shorty witnesses terrible things that he does not agree with such as the Indian girl being raped and burned. Shorty views these actions as dehumanizing and