Boasting conspicuous consumption to the less fortunate is like rubbing salt on a wound. In contrast, salt creates an anti-bacterial environment that allows the wound to heal even faster, like materialism motivates technological advances for long-term growth. However, sacrifices must be made to fuel the idea of commodification for it promotes selfishness, lust, and jealousy. The idea of obtaining rewards intended for selfish needs and wants forces humans to compete for female sexual objectification. This process has consequences, for the power of jealousy exchanges morality with ignorance. Although Lawson’s The Other Side of the Bridge and Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby came to different conclusions about future ideals, they both share the idea that to compete for materialism reveals how friendships cannot exist. …show more content…
Females are like tools that are subjected to the single purpose men deem women are valued for, sexual intercourse. In The Other Side of the Bridge, Arthur Dunn’s younger brother Jake is irresistible, handsome, but dangerous to know for his manipulative and cunning behavior. He is known to actively seduce women regardless of the cost, to the point where he chooses to manipulate his brother’s crush, Laura. In Arthur’s mind, he imagined Jake saying “Bet you I can take her away from you. Bet you I’m better than you at this, like I’m better than you at everything,” (Lawson 298). This phrase ‘bet you’ commonly used by Jake reveals how easily women are objectified by staking an object or idea to prove a point. It is almost as if Jake views his world as a sandbox that allows him to choose which toy to play with. Seeing that he takes pleasure in knowing that he is able to, he lets others deal with his consequences, inevitably destroying the friendship with his brother. Whereas in The Great Gatsby, Tom Buchanan is discovered to take advantage of two girls at
Alienation can be defined as a state of being cut off or separate from a person or group of people. There are many factors that cause people to become alienated: race, political views, social status, etc. The texts “The Great Gatsby”, “The Catcher in the Rye”, and the play “Death of a Salesman” all portray characters who are cut off from the rest society. Despite the character's best effort to fit in, they ultimately fail. The authors argue that one's ideology can cause them to be alienated.
Both "The Boundary" and The Great Gatsby display that a perfect future is not always guaranteed because of perfect memories made. In "The Boundary," each family expresses their different experiences of city life and its overall impacts. Despite this, with these experiences, the reader understands that the perfect future was not built for the protagonist's father. Thus, the daughter explained, "We eat the cake while the guests talk about politics, trips, and life in the city. Someone asks the mother where she got the cake.
Nick and a dog, Uggy, both play same roles in “The Artist” and “The Great Gatsby”. Both of them exist as loyal guards of main heroes; they both have good qualities, such as honesty and loyalty. Beside their virtues, the most importance is that they help main characters in need. In “The Great Gatsby”, Nick is one of guests in Gatsby’s big party, but he is only one to join his funeral. “In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars” (41). This sentence presents the most spectacular settings of Gatsby’s party with lots of guests. It also shows that Gatsby should recognize many upper-class people from his party; these guests join his party that means they get benefits from him,
“You are all a lost generation…” Ernest Hemingway writes in his book The Sun Also Rises. The lost generation often refers to a group of writers during the 1920’s; it consisted of many writers such as Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald and Hemingway were two of many great literary writers who attempted to change the world in a post World War 1 era. Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises and Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby both impacted the 1920’s world with their common themes and beliefs portrayed through their literary works. A similar theme between the two works was the impact the war had on the people of the world.
Greed is a common flaw in all human beings, coaxing individuals to pour in all their effort without ever being satisfied. The ultimate goal for greed is generally achieving affluence. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s insightful novel, The Great Gatsby, wealth is portrayed as the key factor in determining whether one is successful or not. Most people value prosperity over morals and ethics during the heat of pursuing their own ambitions; yet all unscrupulous behaviors do not escape God’s eyes. By utilizing eye motif, repetitions of sight words, and tone changes, F. Scott Fitzgerald justifies that avarice will always end in vain and amoral decisions will always end in regrets.
The Facade of Happiness Lost amongst the crowd, a heart longs for the comfort of company. The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, follows the thoughts of Nick Carraway as he navigates through society. His interactions mainly revolve around the millionaire Jay Gatsby and his pursuit of heiress Daisy Buchanan. “On Broadway,” written by Claude McKay, describes the feeling of loneliness in a busy setting. The narrator is set on the streets of Broadway with melancholy feelings when he realizes that he is surrounded by people with experience but no real connections.
Fitzgerald depicts 1920’s America as an age of decline in traditional social and moral values; primarily evidenced by the cynicism, greed and the relentless yet empty pursuit of prosperity and pleasure that various characters in The Great Gatsby exhibit. He presents a society in which uninhibited consumerism, materialism and an all-pervading desire for wealth have perverted the previously righteous qualities of the American Dream, corrupting it in the process.
Similarly, in the 1920s flourishing American economy of flashy cars and ostentatious mansions and extravagant parties and overpriced attire, there are those who believe money is the key to glee. Gatsby, born into a family of “unsuccessful farm people” trades in his “torn green jersey” for a “shirt of sheer linen” and dedicates his life to amassing the fortune he believes will help him accomplish his dream (Fitzgerald 5.92 & 6.98). Deceit becomes his best friend as corruption murders his once innocent dream and meretricious promises replace his morals. He, to rise to the top and near his dream, cheats the poor, the people that are so much like his own family.
After a time of prosperity, the roaring 1920’s became a decade of social decay and declining moral values. The forces this erosion of ethics can be explained by a variety of theories. However, F. Scott Fitzgerald paints a convincing portrait of waning social virtue in his novel, The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald portrays the nefarious effects of materialism created by the wealth-driven culture of the time. This was an era where societal values made wealth and material possessions a defining element of one’s character. The implications of the wealthy mindset and its effects on humanity are at the source of the conflict in The Great Gatsby, offering a glimpse into the despair of the 20’s. During a time
Gatsby believed wholeheartedly that his happiness lay in the chance of reuniting with Daisy, but she was unfortunately unable to live up to his obsessive and arguably overwhelming dream. In fact, Gatsby himself becomes so engrossed in his “American Dream”, that when Daisy’s rejection comes, his life seems to lose all its purpose in the absence of his obsession. Perhaps even his former warm view of the world was lost as he lay in the pool, waiting for Daisy’s phone call, and “looked up at an unfamiliar sky.” This shows us how obsession can take over one’s life, wielding a complete unhealthy control over our emotions and actions. On the critical side, it is also showing us that the American Dream, which was once a genuine, pure aspiration for advancement, has, for many people, turned into a greedy desire and obsession for wealth and material goods. As well as the unrealistic notion of equal opportunity for all, Fitzgerald is suggesting that what was once “a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable”- as coined by U.S writer James Truslow Adams- has evolved into a dense objective of achieving personal material comfort. Although Gatsby claims that he did everything for Daisy, there is the underlying question; was his bootlegging really all for Daisy’s love, or was it for his own ideal life that he dreamed of- a life of luxury, aesthetic appeal and a beautiful woman? Fitzgerald is criticising the corruption of what was idealised to be a world of freedom, equality and opportunity. Instead of striving for an improved, richer and fuller life for the country as a whole, society has turned into a battle between individuals to get to the top and appear the most
During the decade of the 1920's, America was going through many changes, evolving from the Victorian Period to the Jazz Age. Changing with the times, the young adults of the 1920's were considered the "Lost Generation". The Great War was over in 1918. Men who returned from the war had the scars of war imprinted in their minds. The eighteenth amendment was ratified in 1919 which prohibited the manufacture, sale, or transportation of liquor in the United States. Despite the eighteenth amendment, most people think of large, lavish parties when thinking about the 1920's. The nineteenth amendment was passed in 1920 which gave women
In his song “All Falls Down,” mildly talented musician Kanye West emotionally raps, “We buy our way out of jail, but we can’t buy freedom.” Criticizing how those that are wealthy are able to control the world around them with their money, able to use it to get even “out of jail,” West asserts that such a reliance on wealth is ultimately restricting, as it cannot buy intangible things such as “freedom.” In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the titular character, Jay Gatsby surrounds himself with wealth and extravagance in order to leave his previous life of dullness and banality and pursue an unrealistic and fragile love with Daisy. Though he is able to assume a new, affluent identity, he is ultimately unsuccessful in love, as his wealth disconnects him from reality, preventing him from realizing the impossibility of his goal. Nick Carraway, the narrator of the novel, maintains a sort of obsession with Gatsby, becoming sucked into his extravagant and wealthy lifestyle. However, by doing so, he begins to see the world in a new yet almost fantastical light, where even he is unable to comprehend the consequences of his actions and mannerisms. Under this, Fitzgerald contends that wealth and materialism are crutches that ultimately serve to skew and misrepresent surrounding reality.
“Greed is a bottomless pit which exhausts the person in an endless effort to satisfy the need without ever reaching satisfaction”. This quote by Erich Fromm perfectly embodies the story of The Great Gatsby .This book, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald, is considered by many to be one of the best American literary pieces of all time. This famous novel has been interpreted in many ways over the several film adaptations and decades since being published. The book pushes forward many motifs while employing several symbols, most of which are trying to make us look within ourselves. As a result of the ideas in the book, I say that the theme is A thirst for wealth and power can corrupt a person’s true character.
Looking good and thinking well is something everyone wants to do everyday in their life. However it doesn't come easily for anyone. You need to go through obstacles in order to get what you want in the end. Just like in Cormac McCarthy’s book titled The Road and Baz Luhrmann’s The Great Gatsby both are able to show how hard physical and psychological needs truly are. We as humans have physiological and psychological needs in order to reach our goals. Throughout The Road there are many times where the boy and man struggle to survive without their basic needs and what they see in person does not fulfil what they expected. While in The Great Gatsby there are strong examples of who Mr. Gatsby really is and how one green light can have such a big
During F. Scott Fitzgerald's short story "Babylon Revisited" and his novel The Great Gatsby, he writes many similarities between the two characters Jay Gatsby and Charlie Wales. Both characters are known for their lavish lifestyles as well as their lack of appreciation for money. Jay Gatsby describes feeling ashamed of himself and his past, due to growing up poor. Charlie Wales also felt a sense of shame due to being an alcoholic, losing his wife and eventually giving up custody of his daughter. F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays the characters to be quite persistent as well. With Jay Gatsby, he tries to rekindle his relationship with a woman named Daisy, while Charles Wales seeks custody of his daughter; these two also share a very similar drive when it comes to the ones they love. With the equivalence of these two characters being their lavish lifestyles, feeling ashamed and having a very persistent attitude, F. Scott Fitzgerald allows these two characters to develop a very deep connection .