Success

Success can come in many various ways. Many men and women generally interpret success as being affluent in life. The meaning of success is clear, but complex because many people define success differently. The poor, the unpopular, and the popular people have their ways of being successful, while the rich have their own ways of being successful as well. People who are successful in life have a strong passion for their work. According to Oxford Dictionary, success is defined as the accomplishment of an aim or purpose. In Tom Perrotta’s novel Election, the two main characters, Tracy Flick and Paul Warren, illustrate their differences in their motivation and work ethic when running for student body president. Tracy’s disadvantage makes it harder for her to run for student body president against Paul, who is privileged, for success.

In order to be successful, Tracy has to be self-motivated. Motivation is defined as the act or process of giving someone a reason for doing something. In the beginning of chapter one, Tracy explains her qualifications when running for president. Her qualifications were listed as, “President of the Junior Class, Treasurer of the SGA, Assistant Editor of The Watchdog, statistician for the basketball team, and star of last year’s musical (Oklahoma!, in case you’re wondering) (Perrotta 8-9). Tracy’s achievements made her qualified to run for student body president as well as portrays her as a great academic student represent of her high school. From what she has achieved, Tracy shows that she is super-involved in school, which builds her motivation to participate in the campaign. It takes a lot of motivation to keep Tracy going with her overwhelming schedule and responsibilities, even after her affair with her English teacher. When people found out about Tracy’s scandal, they tried to make her life harder, but because of her determination and motivation, Tracy kept moving on. In fact, she used the scholarship she received as an inspiration to keep going and run for president. Tracy’s motivation demonstrated her success in running for president.

Compare Tracy to Paul Warren (her campaign competitor), their motivation to reach success are different. Paul’s motivation to run for student body president was different than Tracy’s motivation. He realized that he would become a better person and would end up successful if he runs for president. As a result, Paul changes himself from a sixteen-year nap when he meets Mr. McAllister. At the end of the chapter, Paul says, “But I’m eternally grateful to him for recognizing the change in me and encouraging me to act on it. The day he asked me to run for President was one of the proudest in my life.” (Perrotta 7). Paul explains in this quote that he is grateful to have Mr. McAllister’s support and see Paul’s progression. When Mr. McAllister asked Paul to run for student body president, Paul agreed and was proud of himself. Mr. McAllister was Paul’s inspiration to run for president and that was successful. Besides being grateful and proud of Mr. McAllister and himself, Paul is also described by Mr. McAllister, a “varsity fullback, National Merit semifinalist, good-looking, genuinely nice kid without an ounce arrogance or calculation” (Perrotta 7). In Mr. McAllister’s opinion, Paul is the best candidate for the presidential campaign and he believes that Paul is motivated and will strive for more success in the futurebecause he is privileged, likeable, popular, and rich. Mr. McAllister thinks that Paul’s motivation for success could also bring revenge onto Tracy, for what she has done to Mr. McAllister’s best friend, Jack. With Paul’s motivation, he can reach success for himself, as well as for Mr. McAllister.

In order to win the presidential campaign and be successful, each candidate has to be self-indulgenthard-working. In this case, Tracy displays that she is very self-indulgent. Tracy’s work ethic is outstanding and is one of many traits that can lead to her success. She wakes up at six in the morning to bake cupcakes for her pcampaign. Additionally, she made posters all by herself with no help, in order to increase her chances to win the campaign. Tracy also displays her work ethic by giving a well-constructed speech to the school. This case displays excellent work ethic that Tracy is well- prepared and is determined to win the campaign. A great example of someone having an outstanding work ethic to be successful is Kobe Bryant. He is self-determined and self-movitated everyday. Kobe wakes up early to work on his shooting, drilling, and footwork to improve his skills, even before his playmates show up to the gym. The work ethic that both Kobe and Tracy have is very similar. This proves that one can achieve successful achievements in life, as long as they have a great work ethic.

On the other hand, Paul’s success in his presidential campaign comes from self-indulgent as wellprivilege rather than his work ethic. In the novel, the readers found out that he is apathetic. This means that Paul shows little to absolutely no emotion for his presidential campaign. The readers also discoversreaders also discover later on in the novel that Lisa (Paul’s girlfriend) wrote his well-constructed speech for him and he does not even write his own speeches. Paul also decided to give a bad, non-constructed speech to his supporters, throughout the high school. Moreover, Paul Warren does not even care if he wins or loses the presidential election. Personally, I think Paul Warren can do better, but since he decided to do such a terrible job on his speech and how he puts no effort in his campaign, it lead to him having a bad work ethic. Paul needs to put more effort into his campaign and speech. If he did, he could of easily won student body president, over Tracy. With a bad work ethic, one can not achieve success. Success will be fulfilled if one puts their effort into something as well as demonstrate a strong work ethic. He still almost win even though Tracy is more qualified and works harder.

Overall, both Tracy Flick and Paul Warren have different approaches in running their presidential campaign. With different outcomes in both Tracy and Paul’s campaigns, Tracy was a more successful candidate in becoming student body president. Tracy’s motivation, determination, work ethic, and dedication lead her to overcome her under-privileged barriers achieve her goal as student body president and win a scholarship to Georgetown, but Paul did not achieve his Mr. McAllister’s goal, due to his lack of putting effort into his presidential campaign. Positive traits like motivation, hard-work, and dedication leads to success and goals that one wants to achieve in life. In the novel, Tracy has displayed all of these traits in order for her to achieve something she wanted and she also made a lot of sacrifices, in order for her to win the presidential campaign. Paul, on the other hand, did not show a good work ethic, unlike Tracy. He did not work as hard as Tracy did, so Paul did not have to make a lot of sacrifices. In this case, success is all about inputting the dedication, the motivation, making sacrifices, and putting the hard work in order to achieve something better. Tracy displayed her success in running for student body president and got something out of it, while Paul did not displayed his success at all and ended up with nothing. Like people say, “Hard-work pays off.”

Works Cited

Perrotta, Tom. New York: Berkley Group, 1998. Print.