Ty - Final Thoughts

For my final paper I decided to look at the connection between Norwegian Wood and The Great Gatsby in more detail.  In class we were only able to bring up a vague memory of what Gatsby was like, but after rereading most of the book it quickly became clear to me how much these novels are connected.  Toru mentions The Great Gatsby  multiple times throughout the novel and the reasons behind it were made much clearer to me after I reread some of the scenes.  The argument in the hotel between Tom and Gatsby stood out to me as very similar to Nagasawa and Hatsumi's argument at the restaurant.  The topic of this argument, the fact that those not closely involved were not allowed to leave, and that the characters were stuck in a car with one of the arguing people afterwards all stood out to me.  I'm glad I was able to look at The Great Gatsby again since the first time I read it I did not pick up on as many themes and key lines as I did this time.  Comparing authors and how they influenced other people was a really interesting part of the course and I'm glad that we did it.  I had never compared how works influenced each other in a class so it was a new experience.  I'm glad I took the class.