The Poetics of Space in Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925) and Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968)

Abstract

This research work compares two representative examples of modern African and American Literatures which are Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925) and Ayi Kwei Armah’s The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born (1968). My major interest is to analyze and compare the way the two authors represent space in their novels. One of the main arguments is that the two novels constitute a site for the interplay of space and place. I take my theoretical bearings in this comparative study from Leonard Lutwack’s The Role of Place in Literature. In the first chapter of my analysis, I contend that The Great Gatsby and The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born preoccupied with space in relation to the theme of fragmentation and disillusionment. In the second chapter, I develop further the analysis to illustrate how the poetics of space in the two novels participates in their main plot. I have tried to demonstrate that space in the two novels is poetic since it is used on purpose and structured in a manner that could follow the plot of the novel.