Comparative Study dy dy


Leaving Certificate Ordinary Level – Excellence in English Language and Literature


the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool’. However, she elects to stay with Tom, despite his cheating ways. Daisy may resent the gender inequality she is forced to live with, but she does nothing to try to change it.


than Daisy in that she decides to reject her restrictive gender role and to strike out on her own. She tells Torvald, ‘I must stand quite alone, if I am to understand myself and everything about me’. Although this is a diffi cult decision to make, Nora’s courage is admirable.


The three texts


present us with different views of love and marriage.


The central love affair is that between Gatsby and Daisy but it is never an equal or healthy relationship. Gatsby clings to the dream of Daisy as the beautiful young girl he fell for before he went away to war, and he believes them to be married in all but name because they slept together. He cannot fully accept that Daisy is married to Tom and has a child. Gatsby’s love is not based on reality and is therefore hopeless. Daisy, for her part, is not honest with Gatsby. She is angry with Tom for having affairs, but she never truly intends to leave him. She strings Gatsby along and he is convinced that she loves and has only ever loved him. When Gatsby has a showdown with Tom in the New York hotel suite, he is crushed to hear Daisy admit, ‘I can’t say I never loved Tom’. He also has to watch Daisy withdraw from him on learning of his shady business


Like the relationship between Gatsby and Daisy, the relationship between Torvald and Nora is an unequal one in which one partner holds all the cards.


Gatsby and Torvald are similar in that they both seem to believe that their loved one’s life outside of the relationship is unimportant.While Gatsby does not fully accept that Daisy has a husband and a child, Torvald also appears to believe that Nora’s life should centre around him. He resents Nora talking about the days before they met and has never even heard of Mrs Linde, although she and Nora were childhood friends. Torvald’s selfi shness means that he treats Nora like a plaything rather than a partner, making her dance in a way that sexually excites him and then


drive and ambition. Both Tom Buchanan and Torvald Helmer want to control their wives, but it is clear that Tony will not expect to control Eilis simply because she is a woman. Eilis is in a more fortunate position than Daisy or Nora because she is free to live the life she wants and is not restricted by her gender.


The view of love and marriage in Brooklyn is far more positive than that in the other two texts. Eilis and Tony’s love is based on mutual trust, respect and understanding. Unlike the love affairs in The Great Gatsby and A Doll’s House, neither Eilis nor Tony is in love with a dream rather than reality. Tony adores Eilis and supports her efforts to better herself, and Eilis loves Tony for his kindness and his unwavering support of everything she does. The course of true love does not run completely smoothly, however, and Eilis is faced with a similar dilemma to Daisy’s in that she is torn between two men she loves. Eilis falls for the kind and eligible Jim Farrell when she returns to Ireland after her sister’s death. She keeps this secret from Tony and, as in the other two texts, keeping secrets proves hugely


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