...The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a story surrounding the decay of the American Dream in the 1920’s; a time when virtually anyone could achieve the dream. Jay Gatsby, the main character, encompasses every fault in the warped idea of the American Dream in the booming 20’s making The Great Gatsby, the perfect title for the story. The American dream is commonly defined as “The ideals of freedom, equality, and opportunity traditionally held to be available to every American. (Dictionary) Almost any American would describe the American Dream as a stable income, a sustainable job and the chance to provide the opportunity for the following generation to do even better. In the booming 20’s, that dream was available to almost every...
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...1. How is the concept of happiness displayed in the movie? 2. How does the idea of the American Dream come into play in the film? 3. Compare the text “But will it make you happy?” from the compendium, with the movie The Joneses. Account for the different points of view and discus your own opinion. 4. How is the film, and your findings above, related to the idea of consumerism. The Joneses They say that happiness is fleeting. You have to enjoy it for as long as it lasts. But what is true happiness really? And can someone achieve happiness if they’re alone? In the movie “The Joneses” from 2009, we deal with a fake family whose job is to persuade other rich families to buy products. In return they will get paid with money and expensive stuff. This fake family consists of a mother, a husband, a daughter and a son. Personally they do not share anything with each other, except their job of course. Trough out the movie we see how money and marital stuff is not the answer to true happiness. Even though the characters are paid really well, they are all alone, with no family or friends. Meaning that they do not have anyone to share their wealth with. Even those in the movie who are married and have money are not happy. This is because of the fact, that they live in an illusion were money equals happiness. Secretly none of them is happy. We also see how some families do all they can just to look wealthy and happy in front of others, which eventually in the movie led...
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...same things. This quotation shows how Scott Fitzgerald really felt about the American Dream. He was able to show how the American Dream was a failure in this whole book. There are three examples showing how the American Dream is a failure through the George Wilson, The Buchannas, and Jay Gatsby. Scott Fitzgerald uses George Wilson to show that the American Dream is a failure and not true. He is the one character in the book you can see this through because he is a hardworking man, responsible and as well truthful yet he is poor. We know from reading this book that George Wilson has been working all his life in the Valley of Ashes, but has still continued to be nothing more than determined to reach the success of the wealthy. All of his acts of hard work should be leading him to the richness and success of the wealthy instead of it all going to the wrong characters in the book. George Wilson shows that he is responsible and mature through the entire book especially when he finds out his wife, Myrtle Wilson has been cheating on him. He knows that the city has done this to her and he also blames the city for this reason and wants to leave. “I’ve been here too long. I want to get away. My wife and I want to go west.” This quote shows George Wilsons mature way of mind and that he has all the qualities to be a successful and rich man but is instead poor which goes to show again that the American Dream is a failure. Towards the ending of the book he stayed truthful to himself...
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...corridors, and the strong gusts of wind that blows in every night, slamming on doors and windows. The mansion represents the American Dream, a goal or hope for a better future. The loneliness of the mansion represents the result of someone who tries to escape reality in a never ending search for something greater. It has been common today to dismiss the life people currently live in and focus on the future that many believe will be better. At first glance, many might say the American Dream is beautiful. But on a closer inspection, depicted by Kimberly Hearne, The American Dream hides the truth of reality. Based on a Marxist view of “The Great Gatsby,¨ F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays the American Dream as a false hope that people seek to obtain in order to escape reality....
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...Many Sections of The Catcher in the Rye exemplify Holden’s utter distaste for the “perfect” American world that his parents and friends encourage him to accept; however, Holden wastes no time acquainting the reader with the term “phony,” his all-encompassing term for the fake society surrounding him. His overuse of the term is his way to express the shallowness and fakeness that he is convinced is surrounding him in the post-war, 1950’s era. In Holden’s opinion, phoniness represents a form of reasoning for everything that is wrong in the world around him. On the very first page of the novel, Holden decides that “Where I want to start telling is the day I left Pencey Prep” (Salinger 1). The school is one that “you probably heard of” (Salinger 2), indicating Holden’s familial class status, even though he makes it perfectly clear that Pencey Prep does not deserve its so-called fame. Holden argues the image it promotes and encourages is “strictly for the birds” (Salinger 3), meaning it is fake and would impress only the gullible, and certainly it would not impress Holden himself. This scene raises one of the novel’s key themes, and my largest argument of the novel: Holden's rebellion from the phony that is in his mind, the dishonesty and superficiality of the common American adult and family. Further, in Chapter 2...
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...Jennifer Price, in her essay, The Plastic Pink Flamingo: A Natural History, establishes her thoughts on the plastic flamingo in the 1930s. Price’s purpose is to uses the horation style of satire in order to serve her point that American society is based on the impractical concepts of capitalism, and the American Dream. She adopts a humorous tone in order to appeal to the average American who may not be conscious of how ignorant they are on the subject of marketing and corporal influences. When the flamingo “splashed” into the 50s, it symbolized the beaches of Miami in the artificial world that was associated with the plastic yard decoration as well as the resort's destination (Miami). Price establishes humorous syntax to bring a joyful and jocular tone to her essay. The "wealth and pizzazz" is comparable to the American dream that died away long ago while it lightly mocks how Americans conceive that planting a pink plastic bird in the front of their yard can be a symbol of “pizzazz" or extravagance. Based on the fact that the flamingos were hunted "to extinction in Florida ", it is strange how the Florida tourist industry could market and build gigantic tourist attractions and tremendous amounts of money based on this long-lost idea, the (American Dream) the flamingo. It's like planting a dodo bird in your front lawn; the animal is instinct and does not fit in with the surrounding landscape, however for some apparent reason, it symbolizes wealth and luxury on the disgusting...
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...Main Thesis Gatsby and Tom represent the corrupt American Dream of the 1920’s through their selfishness, and narrow minded attitudes of getting what they want without considering the consequences. Body paragraphs Gatsby goes to great lengths to win Daisy’s love, which consumes his life. Little does he realize, that that dream has ended many years ago, and that he needs to wake up and see it for himself. After Gatsby’s death Nick sits on Gatsby’s lawn and reflects in everything that happened that summer. “ He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. Little did he know, that dream was already behind him… back where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under...
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...real-estate industry, however, at the expense of morality and family ties. Unlike Ira Ewing who is a boomer himself, Ysela, the narrator in an episode titled Oiga of The Republic of East L.A. written by Luis J. Rodriguez, is one of the descendants of those Mexicans who arrived in this city hundreds of years ago. Although, her ancestors used to own horses and properties and were the ones who named lands in this area, Ysela has got nearly nothing to lose after the family got ripped off by Anglos during wartime and she now lives in a trailer, suffering from homelessness and poverty. It seems that, from these two stories, people moved to Los Angeles do not always end up with happy or wealthy lives that they dream of. Los Angeles, which has always been said to be the place where American Dreams come true, is actually a hell, instead of being a heaven, where people moved to there would be degraded mentally because of the lack of traditional values in...
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...THE GREAT GATSBY ESSAY: TRAGIC HERO OR ANTI HERO In the novel The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, we read about a man named Jay Gatsby and his life in Long Island the summer after World War One. When reading the novel, you might have different point of views on Gatsby and whether he is the great man the narrator, Nick Carraway portrays him to be. Here we will decide if he is an example of "The American Dream" consisting of wealth and women or if he is just a manipulative fraud. Gatsby can be portrayed as someone living "The American Dream" because he came from nothing to being a nouveau riche. Gatsby lived the dream because he gets the girl of his dreams and is very wealthy for a while before his early death. We read about all of Gatsby's mansion parties and his lavish lifestyle. "There was...
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...One of the key tools to achieving success in life are dreams, because they add guidance to one’s life. From small-scale to large-scale, people accomplish things on a daily basis. What sets people’s dreams apart from each other? Ambition. As defined by Oxford Dictionary, ambition is “a strong desire to do or achieve something.” As mentioned before, the complexity of dreams and ambitions can have various difficulty. Cohesively, To Kill a Mockingbird, A Raisin in the Sun, and American Denial provide examples of dreams from small-scale dreams to large-scale dreams; however, what determines the value of these dreams is not how elaborate they are or outsider’s opinions on their dream, but how important the dreamer’s passion is to them and how they...
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...virtual world. The effects that the older generation has on the younger one is also seen in the book. Because of Willy’s deception, the lies he has been telling himself, but most importantly his sons causes them to view the world in a wrong way. A habit that is shown throughout the book was Willy’s tendency to slip into his dream world whenever things are not going as he likes. Another important deception that Willy has which affect his sons is his altered view of the American Dream, in which being well-liked and and attractive will bring ultimate success. In the end, Willy is the one who is hit the hardest by the destruction of his well built dream work. When Willy was growing up he met a successful salesman named Dave Singleman, whom was able to become well liked even though he worked from his hotel room. After learning how much success Dave was able to achieve, he believed that this was the American Dream and the future of America. Looking back, he keeps telling himself that he should have chosen to follow his brother Ben to Alaska. His belief that it was his poor decision which is the cause of his misfortunes is skewed. He realizes that the American Dream is not working out for him, but chooses to ignore the signs and keep struggling as a salesman. This internal struggle Willy experiences is seen clearly as he first mentioned how great his car was, but later on view his car as a piece of garbage. His struggle to keep everyone in his family satisfied forces him to lie. Although...
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...The Great Gatsby F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby gives the readers a visual image of every character’s life by expressing their feelings; the colors are used very often as symbols that depict the person’s character and represents their behavior. The author utilized the colors white, green, red, blue, yellow, and gold. The green light at the end of Daisy’s dock is symbolic to the limitless promise of the dream Gatsby pursues. “Gatsby believed in the green light with such intensity that he did not realize his immature dream was unattainable from the start.”(Fitzgerald) Gatsby, was hoping that his American Dream would come true, it was his inspiration, his hope, and, ironically, his death and downfall. he was expecting to get married...
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...Weiner 1 Jacob Weiner Daniel McClure California Culture October 1, 2014 California Sunshine and Noir California, the Golden State, where the sun is always shining, the waves are always crashing, and dreams are coming true. Right? Well, not exactly. It hasn’t always been sunshine and smiles for the great state of California. The state has gone through a variety of stages both economically, and politically. Throughout these phases, there have been a fair amount of themes that have helped build the foundation of California culture. Of course, there is the notion that anyone can move to California and strike it rich. This dream that is still very alive today has contributed in the past and present with massive booms in immigration into California. This popular conception is warm and welcoming, but it does not tell the entire story of California. When looking into the past and understanding how this state came to be, there is a dark and iniquitous aura that suggests that California isn’t really that enchanting, glamorous place that it is made out to be. The California Dream all started in 1848 when discovery of gold sparked a rapid movement known as the California Gold Rush. Word quickly spread when John Marshall first made his discovery in the American River. As Albert L. Hurtado explains in his paper, “Sex, Gender, Culture, and a Great Event: The California Gold Rush, ‘It is impossible to give more than rough estimates for the number of hopeful people who poured into California...
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...Granting Homeowners Their Dreams Part of the American Dream that someday one can own a house, live with their family, farm, and “live off the fatta the lan'”(Steinbeck, pg. 15) as Lennie believed in Of Mice and Men or simply have a house to live with your family. What makes this dream so popular is the idea that all people, no matter who you are, have the opportunity to achieve that dream in America. It is the life that many dream of and search for like Antonia in Willa Cather’s My Antonia. Antonia was an immigrant woman living in the Nebraska prairie. However, an American Dream doesn’t stop at the acquisition of a house, it is one’s own dreams and progress with success. In that sense, everyone is the same and works towards that one goal. The struggle is inevitable, but help is available to bring people one step closer to their dreams by becoming homeowners. Through the help of lending agencies who help anyone despite their credit and are even willing to turn a blind eye to important factors. Not only were lending agencies blind to see important things, but homeowners as well. Many of them were given the opportunity to buy their dream homes, but through bad mortgage deals with tricks that eventually led them to defaults. To prevent another housing crisis like it occurred in 2008, lending agencies must only offer homeowners mortgages that have fixed interest rates so that homeowners know what their interest rates always are to prevent defaulting while having a just system. ...
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...“Piece of me” is a song by Britney Spears from her 5th studio album. It was released on November 27th 2007, and was a response to the extreme paparazzi activity that has been surrounding Britney Spears over the last couple of years. So what makes Britney Spears so much more different and special than countless of other musicians in America, that she is the primary focus point of the paparazzi and the magazines? She actually sings it in the first line of “Piece of me”: “I'm Miss American Dream since I was 17…” Just to get it straight, the American Dream is an idea suggesting that anyone can reach success if they work hard, and that all people have the potential to live happy, successful lives. After singing and dancing through her childhood Britney released her debut album when she was 17 years old, and she has been a superstar ever since, “living the American Dream”. And yes, we probably all know that she did really well in the first couple of years, gaining millions of fans from all over the world, breaking sales records and becoming a modern pop icon. Soon, Britney started experiencing one of the most common side effects of fame – a rising interest in her private life. Fame can be very bittersweet, and in 2006 things started to take a turn for the worse for Britney. (If you are curious, simply search the internet. It’s all there.) A couple of scandals later, she made her comeback in 2008 – this song being a part of it. Personally, I liked the song from the moment I heard...
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