Wealth isn’t all
Most people believe that money doesn’t buy happiness or do something that makes you happy. In the time of the 1920’s money and material wealth are all anybody cared about. In his book The Great Gatsby author F. Scott Fitzgerald illustrates that in spite of this popular belief, money and material wealth won’t buy long-term happiness.
One of the ways people seek happiness is through the belief that being wealthy g or having power allows one to have multiple sexual partners. Kings had wealth, and power so they had multiple partners. There are no records of a king not having multiple sexual partners (Quora). This is what happened in the book. The character Tom had his wife and another woman. Wherever he went it was a different
…show more content…
woman (77). Tom is incredibly wealthy not only with money but with material goods. He also has a family and a very beautiful wife. This should all qualify him to be exceedingly happy, but he isn’t. Yes he is happy, but the happiness is not long term shown by the fact that he does have a sexual relationship with Myrtle. It isn’t just Tom.
Myrtle too has money. Even though it is from Tom, it doesn't change the fact that she still has wealth. Tom is not her only source of wealth as she also has access to Wilson’s wealth. She tries to use Tom to get more money so that she can become happier. But this does not last long. Her apartment is filled with anything she can buy (29). And she proceeds to buy anything she can see like the puppy on the street (27). She is not fulfilled with the money she has. She always wants more. A synonym for happiness is contentment which means a state of satisfaction. The definition of satisfactory is to be fulfilled (Dictionary.com). Because she is not fulfilled with what she has, she is not satisfied which means she is not …show more content…
happy. Daisy, Tom’s wife, to does this just like Tom and Myrtle. She goes with Gatsby because of the riches he has. Her affair is from the boredom she has with Tom. She also has not only her own fortune but Tom’s too. She isn’t as unhappy as Tom because he started cheating much earlier than her. Her unhappiness starts to show the minute Gatsby shows her his shirts (92). She begins to cry because it appears she only finds happiness in the material wealth that isn’t long term at all. Another sign of this is illustrated by the people who attend Gatsby’s parties.
These people attend to show off how much wealth and popularity they have . They go to be seen and admired. These characters are static characters just being present there to show how much they thrive on being known thus trying to find happiness. Gatsby portrays this outer happiness which is what the public is observing believing that through money and material wealth they can find happiness. This same thing is repeated now. People want to take from the rich so that they to can be “happy”. Research by Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed that in modern America the average income required to be happy day-to-day, to experience “emotional well being” is about $75,000 a year. According to the researchers, past that point adding more to your income “does nothing for happiness, enjoyment, sadness, or stress.”(Alternet). The public in the twenties, and now, believe in the appearance that people like Daisy, Tom, and Gatsby
illustrate. The biggest example of this is with Gatsby. He puts parties on and buys fancy clothes. He doesn’t find happiness in his money or material wealth. He has it to feed Daisy’s want for it. She feeds on it while all he wants is her. He lives a life of wealth and popularity and of riches while on the inside not truly wanting any of it. Even with all this he is not happy. He is still lonely in his big expensive house with his luscious parties and expensive wine and cars. He has no friends. His happiness does not exist. A person can not find complete happiness in just wealth and material goods as shown with the characters Daisy, Tom, and Gatsby. Even though some people look extremely happy with their money and material wealth. That is not their only source of happiness. Most people have a front that makes them appear to be happiest because of the wealth and glory of living an upper class life style.
The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald relates to the current event video in a few ways. It applies to the reading of Great Gatsby because of the idea of affluenza; which is a way of saying that somebody was raised wealthy and with privilege, and had no consequences for bad behavior, so they do not know how to act or make the best decisions in the real world. Daisy specifically relates to this because she was raised very wealthy and even married wealthy to keep living her luxurious and privilege filled life. “For Daisy was young and her artificial world was redolent of orchids and pleasant, cheerful snobbery and orchestras…” (151). She even got away with killing Myrtle because her and Tom were wealthy enough to just disappear, and
Money is something that can either be used for the greater good of society, or it can be contorted into something that is detrimental to society, it all depends on whose hands that money happens to fall into. Human tendencies begin to change once people come to have money, the lavish and selfish lifestyle begins. Entitlement comes with having money because money gives people what they want which makes people think they are entitled to get everything they want. In The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald portrays that money is the root of all problems with can ultimately lead to loneliness and careless behavior.
Through his vivid depiction of the valley of the ashes in the acclaimed novel The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald unveils the truth about 1920s America: economic prosperity did not guarantee happiness and resulted in depreciating conditions for those that were not able to connive their way to the top.
Thesis: Through the flawed characteristics of Tom and Daisy as well as the irresponsible actions of Jordan in F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, it is evident that the theme “wealth can breed carelessness” causes certain characters to forget about their responsibilities and minimizes any potential forethought.
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, Gatsby’s obsessive pursuit of goals suggest that Fitzgerald believe that obsessiveness and constant desires often lead to a wrong psychological impact, destructive of one’s traditions, morals, and would have an unplanned end of the lesson or life.
Conclude ideas that are related between the great Gatsby & modern society and say how things have changed over time
Wealth can be a noble thing or a dangerous thing, depending on who does what with it. In The Great Gatsby, the wealth of Jay Gatsby was used for a multitude of reasons, the main one being to get the attention of Daisy. In contrast, the Joad family’s wealth, in The Grapes of Wrath, was staying together throughout the loses and hardships. One of the aims of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby was to show how money and materialism could change a person again and again until they were hardly the same person anymore. In comparing their work it is clear that Fitzgerald and Steinbeck felt that materialism changed people for the worse. While both of their novels deal with wealth and poverty, each novel conveys its message from a very different perspective-
The Great Gatsby set in the glistening and glittering world of wealth and glamour of 1920s Jazz Age in America. However, the story of the poor boy who tried to fulfill the American Dream of living a richer and fuller life ends in Gatsby’s demise. One of the reasons for the tragedy is the corrupting influence of greed on Gatsby. As soon as Gatsby starts to see money as means of transforming his fantasy of winning Daisy’s love into reality, his dream turns into illusion. However, other characters of the novel are also affected by greed. On closer inspection it turns out that almost every individual in the novel is covetous of something other people have. In this view, the meaning of greed in the novel may be varied The greed is universally seen as desire for material things. However, in recent studies the definition of “greed” has come to include sexual greed and greed as idolatry, understood as fascination with a deity or a certain image (Rosner 2007, p. 7). The extended definition of greed provides valuable framework for research on The Great Gatsby because the objects of characters’ desires can be material, such as money and possessions, or less tangible, such as love or relationship.
In ‘The Great Gatsby’ Fitzgerald criticises the increase of consumerism in the 1920s and the abandonment of the original American Dream , highlighting that the increased focus on wealth and the social class associated with it has negative effects on relationships and the poorest sections of society. The concept of wealth being used as a measure of success and worth is also explored by Plath in ‘The Bell Jar’. Similarly, she draws attention to the superficial nature of this material American Dream which has extended into the 1960s, but highlights that gender determines people’s worth in society as well as class.
In conclusion the theme, that many people believe that money can buy you happiness and love, is clearly signified in The Great Gatsby. Not only was Nick shown the differences between those born rich and those who worked hard for their money but he was also shown the value of love. With all that money and no love (besides the love for Daisy) Gatsby lived a lonely and empty life. Not near as empty as Tom and Daisy who both fled the scene of the crime to escape from their mistakes leaving Nick to clean up the mess they had made. Also we are able to see that while Myrtle was trying to substitute the love of her husband with the money of Tom she went to far and ended up ending her life. Myrtle and Gatsby lives both had tragic endings, which show that when there is money involved you, can not buy happiness.
Money may be able to buy ones happiness but not necessarily satisfaction in life. Fitzgerald's characters in “Winter Dreams” and Great Gatsby had money, but not satisfaction throughout their life. One can have satisfying materials, do satisfying things, and obtain satisfying qualities. Characters in “Winter Dreams” and
This demonstrates that in order to become truly happy, society must take into consideration one’s emotions and not simply what the rest of the world expects. Similarly, money can also lead to the misunderstanding that purchasing materialistic items is a method to make life happier. This can be seen in Gatsby character and leads to his destruction, as all Gatsby ever receives in the end is isolation and loneliness from the community. This is evident when Nick expresses “His household never seemed so enormous to me as it did that night when we hunted through the great rooms for cigarettes” (Fitzgerald.147).
There is an impression that has been built over the years that poor people do nothing but sit around and feel bad about themselves. Gina Rinehart, one of the world’s wealthiest women, tells the poor not to “‘just sit there and complain,’ [and] spend less time drinking or smoking and socializing, and more time working’” (Ellin). These impressions on the poor do not reflect on the actual reason as to why many are failing to find success. Underprivileged individuals are very capable of accomplishing their goals, it is just that they do not “have the repertoire of necessary responses. It is as though their brains' ‘emotional keyboards’ play only a few notes” (Jensen). The unfortunate disability poverty stresses on an individual does not come by
“Money is the root of all evil”(Levit). Man and his love of money has destroyed lives since the beginning of time. Men have fought in wars over money, given up family relationships for money and done things they would have never thought that they would be capable of doing because of money. In the movie, based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, the author demonstrates how the love and worship of money and all of the trappings that come with it can destroy lives. In the novel Jay Gatsby has lavish parties, wears expensive gaudy clothes, drives fancy cars and tries to show his former love how important and wealthy he has become. He believes a lie, that by achieving the status that most Americans, in th...
The word rich has different meanings for different people. Many people associate rich by the amount of money someone has, but, someone can also be rich in happiness love, and kindness. There are several characters in The Great Gatsby that are rich in money such as Tom, Daisy, Jordan, and Gatsby. The character I believe is rich in both money and kindness is Gatsby. Gatsby seems to have an endless supply of money.