a) In chapter IV, section IV, the author compared the words of someone who speak knowingly about buying or selling stocks to that of an oracle. Because of the overwhelmingly positive outlook of the market, brokers and investment counselors were aware of the possibilities, and people were eager to profit from a growing market, these men’s advices were treated with importance as their words “became golden”. The author uses religious metaphors to compare the confidence of the American people have for these stock buying advices to the that of a believer to an oracle; a sense of confidence that lacks sufficient justification or evidence.
b) In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, which was set in the 1920s, people lived in a state