Luke Troutman Mrs. B.L. Honors English III September 30, 2008 Wealth Overcomes Love In The Great Gatsby; Tom, Daisy, and Myrtle’s desire for wealth prohibits them from developing substantial relationships. Living a lavish lifestyle, with constant happiness keeps them from actually loving a person for who they are, not how they live. This shows a want for happiness in men, or women, and how they forget about love to obtain happiness and worldly possessions. Since he was a child Tom had always been wealthy acquiring everything he desired causing him to act childishly always wanting his way and to become wealthier.
During The Great Gatsby, Gatsby makes a large fortune for him self; he was kind of selfish he can do what he wanted. Gatsby, he created who he is for the sole purpose of gaining daisy's love, therefore, he doesn’t have the class or stile where he from (east egg). He looks great from the outside but on the inside he is an ordinary man, not the theatrical "Great Gatsby." Tom believes himself to be higher than everyone else, which is why he fails to keep his affair with Myrtle more discreet. Tom has no goals or dreams like Gatsby, and also he is an arrogant egotistical and limited man.
Charles Foster Kane, publisher of the New York inquirer and numerous other papers, and one of the richest men in the world, influenced America’s thinking for half a century. However, Kane is flawed, self-serving, destructive opportunist, a classic tragic figure doomed to fall. Because he had lots of money, Kane believed he could buy anything including the friendship and love. Message is simple: success, power, riches cannot replace love and tranquility. Many people walked out on Kane’s life: first wife Emily, the best friend Leland, and second wife Susan.
With technology that runs the life’s of millions, and the constant need to obtain anything and everything without a price, Lao-Tzu would hang his head in shock at the life we have grown so quick to know. There are places in the government and in the life of today that Lao-Tzu would think inadequate for living; however, we must look at what in our life meets his guidelines as well. Modern American society is not perfect. The ways of the world have changed since 6th century BC and life has become much more complicated all the while striving to make things simpler. The way technology has driven the last half of a century has changed life astronomically.
The narrator says, “ He had deliberately given Daisy a sense of security; he let her believe that he was a person from much the same stratum as herself –that he was fully able to take care of her. As a matter of fact, he had no such facilities.” (pg.149). Gatsby feels that the only way to win Daisy over is by creating a lavish life full of money and beautiful people. He believes that by attaining this lifestyle, he is worthy of her love. Gatsby dedicated himself to winning Daisy, which leads him to gain millions of dollars, buy an ostentatious mansion, and hold weekly parties.
All the themes of his novel turn out to be negative, especially his major theme of the unattainable “American dream”. Fitzgerald has created no honest characters other than Nick; even the protagonist is corrupted in the pursuit of his dream. Finally, the plot line of The Great Gatsby is centered around wealth, careless upper class people, and the idea that social status can never be changed no matter how hard one may try. "The rich get richer and the poor get - children."
THE GREAT GATSBY ESSAY America has always been classified as the land of the free and the home of the brave; never the land of the rich and home of the socially powerful. Society however, still feels that the ideal way of life is to be rich and powerful. This “ideal” way of life can be known as the American dream. Many movies, folktales, and novels have examples of how being rich and powerful benefit the best and only way to live life, to be happy. One of the most well known examples of this “American dream” is the story of Cinderella, who finds happiness only when she becomes rich.
In that era, most people thought money was the key to happiness. In time, it was proved true that it wasn't everything to be rich. But in The Great Gatsby, most of the characters shown have a desire for money to bring them happiness. Gatsby, most of all, achieves all the money that he ever wanted and was accomplished in almost every way, but he never gained his true happiness, which was having Daisy be with him. But throughout his life, he never loses his reliance on money.
The only issues we ever had were about me doing my homework and that was very gentle reminders. I loved being an only child...still do! And I loved being in the same house my whole life! I just understand that we lived here because it was more security for me, not that we couldn’t afford
Richard Cory, the ‘rich,” “admirably schooled,” and “clean favored” gentleman, as it turned out, took his own life with a bullet “one calm summer night.” No one ever did imagine that a man from such noble class can feel unsatisfied and meaningless in his existence. This depiction of the indiscernible and bottomless plight of the aristocracy directly denies the veracity of the American Dream, publicizing that money and wealth alone cannot serve as mankind’s ambition for well being and happiness. And as the poem “Nothing Gold Can Stay,” by Robert Frost claims, “…gold,/ Her hardest hue to hold,” the abundance of prosperity is eternally transitory and one cannot rely upon wealth as a source of aspiration and