F. Scott Fitzgerald would be opposed to the redevelopment of Willets Point due to his belief that classism and the pursuit of the American Dream hurts those who are not apart of that affluence. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Myrtle is a woman married to Mr. Wilson who is the owner of an auto shop in the valley of ashes which is a very poor industrial area in the book. Myrtle marries Mr. Wilson believing he was a well off business owner who would be able to support her, however, she finds out otherwise: “I married him because I thought he was a gentleman… I thought he knew something about breeding, but he wasn’t fit to lick my shoes” (Fitzgerald 34). In Myrtle’s hasty pursuit of the American Dream she marries Mr. Wilson to use him to achieve the
Many people in todays society think that in order to be considered “wealthy” they have to have the newest of everything so that people will think their family has money. People will spend fifty to one hundred dollars on something just to have the Buckle logo, or under armour logo, or Nike logo, or American Eagle logo. If you wear something that is not name brand, people think that one can not afford the nice new clothes. Teens today consider someone cool if they have nice clothes and have good fashion, if one does not have a certain logo they are considered to be lame and
Many people in the society are materialistic and too wrapped up in all of their stuff. They use materials, and want more and more in order to have the items replace something less physical and more valuable. They have even sugar coated the perception
Looking Through the Glass Many people have an object that they cannot let go of. Sometimes these objects are valuable; other times, they are not. To most, however, their favorite item can be something of use to them in ways others will never see.
Similarly, my mother Mary Balcazar grew up that values come over money, “For me, society portrays the American Dream as having the nicest car, the nicest house, and nicest clothes. It's all about having materialistic things and I wish it was different”(Balcazar). Mary Balcazar grew up in an old-fashioned home where traditional family values come first over materials. For her, it was important that she passed on this to her kids and she continued to live this way.
Bradstreet explains that opinions aren’t everything, that what truly matters is their character, their personality, not their opinions. Not only do people of today's society struggle to acknowledge and accept differing ideas, but they also have trouble with letting go of materialistic things. In today's culture, materialistic items mean everything, from your social status to how happy you are. Bradstreet explains through Here Follow Some Verses Upon the Burning of Our House, July 10th, 1666, that materialistic are not everything, there is more to life than what you own or don’t own. “Yet by His gift is made thine own; there’s wealth enough, I need no more,
How does having money lead to material gain? In the Roaring Twenties, people from all social classes suddenly became aware of the class differences. This awareness is a result of the jump on the Stock Market and the World War1. There were clear distinctions among social classes according to location, amount of material possessions and the way one acted. Fitzgerald explains these differences by giving the characters in his novel the Great Gatsby different social classes and he also shows these social divisions in the way the characters behave.
F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby describes the life of Jay Gatsby in the 1920’s. The novel shares his love story and his loneliness. A major question the author raises is how does wealth impact class structure and society? Fitzgerald answers this question through the distinction between “New rich” and “Old rich” and the significance of East and West Egg.
In Anna Quindlen’s essay, Stuff is Not Salvation, she argues that one cannot determine how “better off” they are, by the amount of belongings they possess. Quindlen states that Americans have, “an addiction to consumption, so out of control that it qualifies as a sickness.” However, she is not just referring to an addiction to buying meaningless items, but the idea that people are purchasing items when they have no money. Quindlen validates her argument with the tragedy of a walmart employee that as trampled to death on Black Friday, and the concept that many people have lost their sense of appreciation and gratefulness. She also argues that there are indeed things we need, however, a large majority of people’s perception of want and need are obscured.
One’s lifespan is limited on Earth, so one should take care and value what they have. The book, The Outsiders, written by S.E Hinton, demonstrates this idea through the use of author’s craft. Hinton uses symbolism, foreshadowing, and flashbacks to show that one should value what they have before it is gone. She uses symbols of sunsets, Gone With the Wind, and the idea of “staying gold.” If one does
Another modernist writer portrays the same ideas in his work, The Great Gatsby. In it, the characters lack a relationship with nature, leading to immense emptiness. Fitzgerald uses Nick Caraway to describe the society. Their society does not grow fresh produce or life like typical grasslands or farms do, it grows ashes and death: This is a valley of ashes – a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens, where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and finally, with a transcendent effort, of men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air.
Does anyone ever think to themselves that people in America have too much stuff? In my opinion I think that Americans have too much stuff and take that for granted. Unlike other people Americans have always had too much stuff more than most who aren’t American some Americans don’t have as much as others. But what’s a lot of stuff to them? Stuff to Americans is shoes, clothes, money, houses, food, anything in the world that Americans have they have a lot of it.
All our lives we are busy to gain things, whether it’s money, fame, or love. We don’t look at things we already have, and we are always lustful of things we don’t have. In my opinion we don’t value things we easily achieve and we show more concern towards the things which are hard to get and that is not the right way to precieve things. As the assignment asks, do we value what we struggle for?
Objects, things and even places become precious as a way to hold on to identity that has been there for quite some
Jay Gatsby, one of the main characters in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, is a wealthy man with dubious sources of money; Gatsby is renowned in New York due to the lavish parties he holds every friday in his mansion. These are spectacles that fully embody the wealth and glamour of the roaring twenties, and are narrated through the eyes of another character Nick Carraway, an ambitious 29 year old man that recently moved back to a corrupt new york in a cramped cottage next to Gatsby’s palace. After admiring the careless behaviour of the parties from a distance, Nick gets a personal invitation to Gatsby’s next party, he promptly becomes infatuated by the extravagant and frivolous lifestyle the parties portray, along with the superficial
