This document provides information about two works - William Shakespeare's Macbeth and F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby. It discusses how both works deal with themes of alterity and tragic sensation. Macbeth struggles with his imagined future and manipulating time, while Gatsby is preoccupied with his lost past. Both works immortalize their tragic anti-heroes, Macbeth and Gatsby, as they struggle with how others impact their goals and desires. The works similarly give these characters life through their exploration of alterity and tragic endings.

1. Prepared by : Latta Baraiya
Sem : 2 (M.A.)
Enrollment no. : 3069206420200003
Topic : Alterity and Tragic Sensation :
Macbeth to The Great Gatsby
Paper : 21st century literature 1
Email id : lattabaraiya1204@gmail.com
Submitted to : S. B. Gardi Department of
English Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji
Bhavnagar University

2. Macbeth
● Tragedy in 5 acts
● Written by William Shakespeare
in 1606
● Published in the First Folio of
1623 from a playbook
● Tragic hero Macbeth
(Tragic heroes start off nice, then a
bad part of their personality kicks in
(a fatal flaw) to make them not so
nice.)

3. The Great Gatsby
● Tragedy in 9 chapters
● Written by F. Scott Fitzgerald
● Published in April 10, 1925 by
Charles Scribner’s son
● Tragic hero Jay Gatsby
(Who portrays the corruption of the
American dream through his Tragic
flaw.)

4. “may have been compared to works by Edith Wharton,
Henry James, and Joseph Conrad, but it was not felt
necessary to draw in Goethe, Milton, and Shakespeare”
(Bloom 77).
According to Harold Bloom, the Great Gatsby (1925)
Yet the significant similarities to
Shakespearean themes seems to be
certainly revealing, in the greatest work of
Fitzgerald interestingly shares a high
tragic sensation with Shakespeare's
Macbeth.

5. ● Shakespeare's Macbeth is said to be struggling with
time as a metaphor of Alterity and in a totalizing
attempt, he creat imaginative space to manipulate
and shape his future and reduce it to his version of
the witches prediction.
● The great gatsby novel is also
concerned with time and it's
inexorability is preoccupied with the
past and what time irrevocably takes
away such as youth, opportunities
and love ones.

6. ● Macbeth tries to remove/eliminate the
other(Duncan, Banquo, Banquo’s son), while
Gatsby tries to (re)capture her(Daisy).
● Macbeth is preoccupied with his imagined future,
Gatsby is mainly preoccupied with his imagined-
but lost - past.
● Shakespeare and Fitzgerald similarly
immortalize these tragic anti heroes
and their painfully tragic struggles
with Alterity through giving them a
“local habitation” in their artwork.

7. ● Alterity in Macbeth (soliloquy of lady Macbeth,
Macbeth and Mecduff battle)
● Alterity in The Great Gatsby (Plaza Hotel
meeting)
● Tragic end of both characters
● Tragic sensation in Macbeth
(Ghost of Banquo)
● Tragic sensation in The Great
Gatsby (Nick Carraway)

8. Citation
❏ Bidgoli, Mehrdad. Royanian, Shamsoddin. “A
Struggle with Alterity: A Levinasian Reading of
Macbeth.” arcadia: International Journal of
Literary Culture, Vol. 55, Issue. 1, 2020, pp. 1-
24.
❏ Bloom, Harold. Bloom’s Guides: F.
Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby.
NY: Infobase Publishing, 2006.

9. ❏ Booth, Wayne C “Macbeth as The Tragic
Hero”. The Journal of General Education, Vol.
6, No. 1, 1951, pp. 17-25.

10. Thank you