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Being Modern In The Great Gatsby

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Being Modern What does it mean to be modern? Being modern means to be updated with the times. People will always want to fit in and keeping up with the times is part of that. Things like clothing, technology, and beliefs all affect the meaning of “modern”. Long ago, being modern involved having a horse-drawn carriage or women wearing Crinolines (poofy dresses). Now, it would be to have a touchscreen phone or an Xbox. Being modern has a vast amount of meanings, but, at one point things were modern in the past. As talked about in The Great Gatsby, everyone wanted to have fame and money. Ambition was what made the world go round. “Their house was even more elaborate than I expected, a cheerful red and white Georgian Colonial mansion …show more content…

One of her husband’s, the mayor always wanted her to dress in the best clothes. Janie always had to cater to his needs as that that’s the only thing women were “good for” back in those times. Joe forced Janie to wear a wrap on her head to hide her beauty. “Whut make her keep her head tied up lak some ole ’oman round de store? Nobody couldn’t git me tuh tie no rag on mah head if Ah had hair lak dat” (Hurston, 47). Now, wearing hats and such are apart of fashion instead of making you less admirable. Technology changes are also a big part of being modern. As said in The Coming Merging of Mind and Machine, “Ultimately, nonbiological entities will master not only the sum total of their own knowledge but all of ours as well” (Kurzweil). It explains that eventually robots will be smarter than humans in the future. This will change what being modern means. The world being taken over by robots would revolutionize everything. Or technology now would look ancient to them. Even though some people still live in the past they still physically live in the present. Women being able to vote could also be what makes you modern. Following the laws we have now would also do the same. As I said before, being modern has a various amount of

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Social Economic Lens In The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald the effect of different social classes and the influential ways of the viewed higher classes demonstrates how hollow and ignorant having money and being perceived as wealthy can make a person. Compared to how the lower-class characters are viewed and treated by the upper class. The Great Gatsby is a good representation of seeing literature through a social-economic lens, this is shown in many different ways in the story. The reader is shown the ignorance of the upper class, the things that the characters do not know they have compared to the lower classes, and the opportunities they do not have, the little things that the rich take advantage of.

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Modernization of technology limited the freedom to think for one’s self. It has caused the people of the world to rely solely on orders and rules without thinking of the consequences of those actions. The technology once used to enhance your daily life, now runs it. All people who have succumbed to the advancement of technology have given up their freedom to think, and their ability to live life like it was meant to be lived.

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Yack defines it as “focusing our attention on what it means to live with the consequences of distinctly modern ideas and practices” (Yack 1997:26). This definition of the modern age doesn’t have the clear starting point of the temporal definition, but it gives a sense of the importance of the types of ideas and practices that make the modern age important. These definitions of the modern age are also problematic, as was the term modernity. For while the modern age may be delineated as occurring after a specific date, not all things that happen after that date are substantively modern.

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Everyone wishes for the white picket fence fantasy which is the idea that has accompanied many Americans and non-Americans for generations. They longed for the American dream, which has come to represent the ideal life's ambition in the minds of numerous individuals. The American Dream has become a benchmark for many people around the world, empowering them to pursue their version of the popular and influential dream. Individuals began to come up with their versions of the "American Dream" that accommodate their point of view, such as Fitzgerald's vision of the "American Dream" in The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald's American Dream in The Great Gatsby is similar to today's daydream as times change, but

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Romanticizing the Past Do not allow romanticizing the past to ruin the life you have now (Bernard). To romanticize the past means to be in love with objects or people from the past. Jay Gatsby spends his post-war life romanticizing about the relationship he had with Daisy Buchanan before he left for war. He remained in love with Daisy, or at least the Daisy he originally knew, even after she had moved on with life and married Tom Buchanan. Gatsby’s obsession with Daisy was so powerful that it influenced and took over his life.

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The Great Gatsby, by a F. Scott Fitzgerald, is a novel that goes way back to the roaring twenties in New York right before The Great Depression. The roaring twenties was a time of much excitement and much fun as America was leaning toward becoming even greater. Those days were so much different compared to today because of what was going on and how people were able to live. The concept of “The American Dream” has always been around as citizens who were born on U.S. soil and immigrants from other nations coming to the U.S. looking for a fresh start and a better life with more opportunities. Everybody wanted “The American Dream” so that his or her families would be able to pass it on to future generations.

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How Modern is Our Society Is our society today what we would call modern? It seems like it hasn’t really changed that much. Well it changed types of clothing, music, and other stuff like electronics, but is it really more what everyone would call modern. If a person were to go back in time from today to twenty, thirty, even maybe forty years ago would it seem just as modern as it is today. Some evidence for that question could be answered in the books, the Great Gatsby, the Glass Menagerie, and a more futuristic book called Harrison Bergeron.

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The Great Gatsby GEOGRAPHY Throughout the novel, places and settings symbolize the various aspects of the 1920s American society that Fitzgerald depicts. East Egg represents the old aristocracy, West Egg the newly rich, the valley of ashes the moral and social decay of America, and New York City the dissolute, amoral quest for money and pleasure. Additionally, the East is connected to the moral decay and social cynicism of New York, while the West is connected to more traditional social values and ideals. Themes: The American Dream "Whereas the American Dream was once equated with certain principles of freedom, it is now equated with things.

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Realizing is to understand, while denying is to contradict. We as people understand that there is more to any relationship than the just the surface. The Great Gatsby, a mysterious but intense novel, is based off of the ideas of denying but realizing, leaving the story intriguing to readers. Not only does one of the most important characters in this novel, Daisy Buchanan, realize what is going on in her reality but she also chooses to deny it. In this case, her convenience is more important than the truth.

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In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, social class is a key theme, as seen by every character having their own distinct class. Tom, Daisy, Jordan, and even Nick are old money, Gatsby is new money, and the Wilson 's are no money. In short, the more money you have, the better off you will be. In the epigraph of the novel, there is a poem by Thomas Parke D 'Invilliers, who is a fictional character created by Fitzgerald himself. This poem is about using materialism to win over the affection of someone, which is exactly what Gatsby tries to do.

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In our world today, we see progress everywhere we go. We see new innovations, we think of new ideas, and we hear all kinds of improvements in our current technology. Every day, people are coming up with ways on how to make life easier or how to communicate with each other faster. “Modernization theory emphasizes the process of increasing social integration and its economic, social, and cultural ramifications” (Linder and Strulik, 2011). But the question is, how do people come up with all these designs?

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1. Society and Class The Great Gatsby is offering a peek into American social life in the roaring 20s. The 1920s is a time of economic growth since the World War One had just ended. Fitzgerald presents a picture of America he observes around him.

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