Compare and contrast the ways in which love is presented in The Great Gatsby and The Whitsun Weddings

In The Great Gatsby, love is presented as an unattainable ideal which the eponymous character fruitlessly chases in his pursuit of Daisy. He romanticises his past with her without realising that the past is irretrievable. Similarly, in the poem "Sunny Prestatyn", Larkin highlights the unrealistic expectations love can give us by describing the poster girl as the 'perfect' woman until she is graffitied on and the poster is taken down, emphasising how mortality is the only thing in life which is certain.

AC

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