Free Essays,College Free Essays,Free College Essays at Anti Essays

In our modern culture we are obsessive about the things we own. A new car, a big house, and all kinds of material possessions that we work at jobs we hate to buy these things we do not need. We are pushed by today’s society to be part of conformity. This conformity is who can be the richest, have the nicest house, nicest car and the most expensive material items.
The narrator is the everyday 90’s, IKEA man; this is why he is not given a name. When he is ordering some furniture out of a catalog, he asks, “What furniture describes me as a person.” When it shows his apartment, the layout is like a page from an IKEA catalog. He lets his material possessions own him. He does not ask what do I like but what describes me. This is how our modern culture is today caught up with our material possessions. When his travel bag gets held by security at the airport, he starts talking about all of his name brand shirts and shoes that were in the travel bag. Why do we need a name on our underwear, shirts, or shoes; to make us happy? The narrator talks about the future at one point about the major corporations. He says, “When deep space exploration ramps up, it will be the corporations that name everything; IBM stellar-sphere, Microsoft galaxy, planet Starbucks.”(Fincher 1999) The fact is not very many major companies or corporations actually care for their consumers. The narrator works for an insurance company that has contract with a major car company. The narrator’s job is to see if it is cheaper to do a recall or to settle out of court with the victims of car crashes that resulted from the negligence of the manufacturer. He states the aspect of his job to someone; he says, “A car crashes and burns with everyone inside. Should we make a recall? You take the number of cars in the field “A,” multiply it by the probable rate of failure “B,” then multiply the result by the average out of court settlement “C”. “A” times “B” times “C” equals “X”. If ”X” is less than the...