For example, the narrator in Simon’s song says, “And I curse the life I’m livin’”, “And I wish that I could be Richard Cory.” In Robinson’s poem, the speaker comes to the conclusion that Richard Cory has everything a human being should have. Making them envious, saying, “To make us wish that we were in his place.” The speakers in both the poem and song seem to be envious of Richard Cory, but they never say anything bad about him. The poem and the song end the same way: Richard Cory went home “and put a bullet through his head”. They just end with no explanation as to why Richard Cory killed himself. Edwin Arlington Robinson’s poem and Paul Simon’s song have many similarities however, they also have differences.
This manages to show him as a naive, opinionated person in his views. This makes his opinions become less convincing and believable to the reader. Before he starts, he describes himself as a ‘hard-headed business man, who knows what he’s about.’ This presents him as pompous and someone who thinks his ideas are always right and no one should doubt them. Firstly, he says ‘last month, just because the miners came out on strike, there’s talk of possible labour trouble in the near future.’ He goes on to say, ‘Don’t worry. We’ve seen the worst of it.’ The audience, watching this three decades years later, know that there were an increasing number of strikes during the period and after the play is set, undermining Arthur Birling even more.
Ignoring the reality of everyday life and how it works can obsure individuals perspective of the world, which has devastating effects, such as not being able to understand what it best for ones self in life. In ‘Paul’s Case’ by Willa Cather, the protagonist, Paul, experiences these devastating effects. In order to escape the misery of his everyday life, Paul ignores reality and devises an affluent life for himself, however it is these illogical measures that ultimately cause him to make irrational and harsh decisions that prevent him from securing self-fulfillment. Paul’s great misunderstanding about the relationship between work and money cause him to carry out decietful actions that lead to his downfall. Paul strongly believes that he belongs in the
Money and material things do not truly satisfy a person's life or make a person happy. Tom Walker had all the money in the world and he was still a stingy cheap miserable old man. Not thinking through choices in life can cause a lifetime of regret and Tom Walker is a great example of someone whose life was ruined by his bad choices. The sad part of this story is by the time he fully understands that his choices were wrong it was too late. He didn’t think about those choices in his earlier years when he was robbing people blind.
Surely there were poor and rich people and sometimes they wanted to screw with them because they were rich or poor. They probably envied the rich and damned the poor and more than likely they exchanged words and did evil acts upon each other. Documents explain that most of the persons accused were lower income people who were not high ranking members of society. They probably saw the poor as lazy people who didn’t want to make more money or become a high ranking member in the church and to them laziness is seen as an act of the devil. Some of the poor probably had to steal items to keep them afloat, whether it was food, money, or Valuable items and of course if you steal you are already breaking one of god’s rules and they know that you are the devil as the bible leads them to believe.
Between 1935 and 1975, wealth amongst society increased and this created a decline in social connectedness as society grew more materialistic. This resulted in large divisions amongst society based on their economic status. The poor only got poorer, whilst the rich got richer. The poor found them selves detached from society as every one grew more materialistic and were never satisfied with what they had. Carver came from a broken family, who never supported him and this inspires a lot of his stories, as the sequence of event are similar to his own.
“At one point, I remember, we paused over a picture of Ted Lavender, and after a while Jimmy rubbed his eyes and said he’d never forgiven himself for Lavender’s death. It was something that would never go away, he said quietly, and I nodded and told him I felt the same about certain things” (Obrien 27). Another theme is fear of shame as motivation. Tim O’Brien experiences this himself when he is on the boat with Elroy. He decides to go to war because he is ashamed of running from it.
The book is a revelation on how thing was in the roaring twenties and the attitude of rich people. The American Dream was a corrupted dream and people forgot about the spiritual value of money. How you obtain your wealth is important idolizing something and someone will take away the ability to have control. Lying, crime, and being deceitful can lead to death Gatsby was a confidence man with his life that was superficial and morally degrading. In the end the price was paid he was better of just being
After the death of Justine he Victor claims he had a "night of unmingled wretchedness" (79). His self-centeredness causes him a life of wretchedness. Instead of staying with his family, he leaves and goes back to Montanvert to continue his studies and to claim his discontent with the current society. He does not care about his family or their feeling, rather about
The obsession with social hierarchy drives people to be selfish and greedy- never happy with what they have. At the same time, there are many people like Gatsby today who feel they have to cheat their way to the top to be happy, like so many corporate giants who have schemed for years and stole billions of dollars from innocent, but maybe slightly naïve taxpayers. Both kinds of people have lost the sense of the American dream. Originally people just wanted a perfect but humble life: a loving, close-knit family, a steady paying job, and ultimately pure happiness. But once people see that it is possible to have much more than that, they begin to get covetous and only want more.