Great Gatsby vs. The Catcher in the Rye

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, Gatsby, the mysterious yet extremely wealthy neighbour of Nick Carraway, is unhealthily obsessed with the past. similarly, Holden Caulfield, the protagonist in J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye, cannot move forward in his life because he is equally as caught up in what used to be. In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby is obsessed with the idea that Daisy “never loved Tom—“ Gatsby has spent the last eight years gaining wealth, building a beautiful house, living minutes away from Daisy—all to make up for the time that he was too far away and too poor to be with Daisy. When he reunites with Daisy, Gatsby foolishly believes they can instantly go back to the time when they were young and in love. When Daisy is talking about Tom, Gatsby tells her “That’s all over now. It doesn’t matter anymore. Just tell him the truth—that you never loved him—and it’s all wiped out forever”. When Tom tells Gatsby “There are things between Daisy and me, that you will never know, things that neither of us can forget”. Tom’s words destroy Gatsby’s wishful dreams. Gatsby’s obsession with Daisy is identical to Holden’s desire to keep his first love, Jane Gallagher kept in the past. Just like Gatsby wants to “wipe it all away” Holden confesses that, “Certain things should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick them in one of those big glass cases and just leave them alone” Holden is afraid of the effects of the real world on the things he loves—Gatsby is trying to “wipe away” the negatives effects of reality on Daisy and go back to where they were, to the “glass case” that Holden longs for. Holden Caulfield and Jay Gatsby are just two of many “Boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past”