Love and Commitment in The Great Gatsby and Sonnet 116 Anonymous 12th Grade

Sonnet 116 and the Great Gatsby both present love and commitment as inextricably linked, with commitment seen as an integral part of true love. Contrastingly, The Scrutiny gives a humorous take on the idea of committed relationships, and presents them as a restriction to the physical love that a person could better enjoy with many different partners.

Gatsby’s commitment to Daisy is steadfast and a product of his love for her. His commitment is presented as borderline obsessive, shown in statements such as “he’s read a Chicago paper for years just on the chance of catching a glimpse of Daisy’s name”, and “Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay”. His love for her is so great that he commits his entire being to reinventing himself to fit her needs, changing his entire lifestyle and personality to be closer to her. Lovelace shows an understanding of the need for commitment as he admits “thine I vowed to be”, but this need is limited to the fact that his lover would refuse to sleep with him without that empty vow. Where Gatsby makes a vow that he will become a person Daisy could acceptably have a relationship with and sticks to it religiously until he dies, Lovelace mocks his own vow with the feeble...