Fitzgerald's Great Gatsby and the 20s After a time of prosperity, the roaring 1920’s became a decade of social decay and declining moral values. The forces this erosion of ethics can be explained by a variety of theories. However, F. Scott Fitzgerald paints a convincing portrait of waning social virtue in his novel, The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald portrays the nefarious effects of materialism created by the wealth-driven culture of the time. This was an era where societal values made wealth and material possessions a defining element of one’s character. The implications of the wealthy mindset and its effects on humanity are at the source of the conflict in The Great Gatsby, offering a glimpse into the despair of the 20’s. During a time of “postwar American society, its restless alienation, and its consequent reliance on money as a code for expressing emotions and identity” (Lewis, 46), Fitzgerald focuses his pen on the inevitable emptiness created by the illusions of wealth and its anomalous connection with love during the 20’s. In order to convey his theory, Fitzgerald builds a repertory of superficial characters whose existence revolves around material value rather than tangible human qualities. For example, Tom Buchanan, the husband of Daisy, is introduced as having an appealing and rich life. “He’d brought down a string of polo ponies from Lake Forest,” Nick comments about Tom. “It was hard to realize that a man in my own generation was wealthy enough to do that,” (p. 10). Tom is depicted as an enormously wealthy “national figure,” one with handsome and powerful “physical accomplishments” (10). But Fitzgerald’s description does not go much further than that. Tom’s persona is limited to a list of superficial accomplishments none of which resemble any spiritually fulfilling traits. Tom thus represents the end result of a person consumed by wealth, because that is his only defining characteristic. Although we could pity such a character, Fitzgerald makes sure that we don’t feel much of anything towards Tom because he was born into wealth and never had to pursue it. “His money was divested of dreams before he was even born” (Lewis, 51). Since Tom’s lifestyle links intrinsically to his character, nothing he does resembles the passions and desires of a natural human being, rather he is portrayed as a machine or byproduct of his family fortune. Tom la... ... middle of paper ... ... to love, the most powerful of all human feeling. “The culture of wealth,” writes Marius Bewley, “represents the romantic enlargement of the possibilities of life on a level at which the material and the spiritual have become inextricably confused,” (Bewley, 37). Gatsby learned this lesson the hard way, giving up his spiritual vision of love and losing it to the emptiness associated with wealth. Fitzgerald realized the confusion in the 1920’s of a culture based around wealth and used his novel to expose the blandness of wealthy lifestyles in contrast with the human feeling of love. If love were a color it would be red, and if it had a mind of it’s own it would remain far from the gray “Valley of ashes” (27) of New York in the 20’s. Gatsby unfortunately combined those two worlds together and the gray dusted over the red. In the end, Gatsby is murdered, Tom and Daisy continue like zombies, and Nick, disenfranchised, decides to leave altogether. Fitzgerald portrays the essence of emptiness in all the characters touched or consumed by wealth and leaves the reader with a clear message: No sense of fulfillment, specifically regarding love, will result in a life consumed by wealth.
“Earth provides enough to satisfy every man 's needs, but not every man 's greed.” As humans, we work countless hours in order to have a greater opportunity to succeed in life to fulfill our wants. F Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Great Gatsby, utilizes effective language and punctuation in the text in order to accomplish his purpose: Illustrate what material goods does to a society. From a rhetorical standpoint, examining logos, ethos, and pathos, this novel serves as a social commentary on how pursuing the “The American Dream” causes people in society to transform into greedy and heartless individuals.
People need redemption from our continual sin, otherwise, we just wallow in the shallowness of that aspect of our lives. Sin stays with an individual and effects the way their lives are lived. Unless they confront their past the sin will always be present. For example, Khaled Hossei’s , The Kite Runner explains how Amir- one of the main characters in the novel redeems himself because he undergoes strong guilt from his past sins. By examining Amir’s sins in his childhood, in his teenage years and in adulthood, his attainment of atonement is revealed. Particularly Amir atones for his past sins of being an eyewitness of Hassan rape who is his most loyal and devoted servant. He is influenced by this moment because he realizes that Hassan always
Perhaps the ‘Perfect Island’ objection is more intuitive and easily digested, and thus serves as a stronger argument for the layman. But Kant’s objection is important In that it highlights the distinctions between fictitious objects labelled as ‘in existence’ and physical objects in realty. However, I would argue that both objections give us good reasons to reject the entirety of Anselm’s Ontological Argument for the existence of God.
Sometimes no matter how big a mistake you make is you can try to be forgiven, and make up for your mistakes by seeking redemption. No matter what someone does, if they truly want to be forgiven they can, and will, seek redemption. And more often than not they will succeed and they will be forgiven. The book The Kite Runner, is about a kid named Amir, from Afghanistan, who was rich and privileged until having to move to America. And Amir stands by as Hassan is raped, which causes the guilt he has, and this is why he’s trying to strive for redemption. Amir makes mistakes and hurts his friend Hassan, and immediately afterwards he felt guilt, and wanted forgiveness, but Hassan acted like Amir did nothing, which bothered Amir even worse. And that
In examining each of their journeys, Hosseini introduces readers to a more optimistic outlook on sin and redemption, proving that there is always “a way to be good again”(Hosseini,
In Fitzgerald’s works, losing love to someone of a higher status is a recurring motif. In The Great Gatsby, Gatsby and Daisy are two lovers, brought apart by war. During this time Daisy marries a man named Tom, an extremely privileged young man, because of her need for love and falls in love with the wealth, rather than the man and the “perfection” that comes with it. When returning from the war, Gatsby sees their life in the newspapers
.... (Parkinson 96) This kind of so-called rebellious lifestyle encompasses a part of Gatsby; the part that put ultimate wealth as a life goal and as a way to Daisy. This depiction of Gatsby’s battle for the girl proves that Fitzgerald’s view towards wealth had to have been influenced by the time period he lived in. It also demonstrates the emptiness of values and morals that were so common amongst the majority of the population at that time. This lifestyle spread like a virus to most people because it promised a happy life while being the social norm at the time. It not only included wealth as a goal but sex and women played a crucial role in the average American dream during the 1920’s. For, “wealth and sex are closely related in this vicious and greedy world of plunder, which renders life meaningless by denying any altruism in human endeavor” (Parkinson 110).
St. Anselm came up with the first and most well-known ontological argument (Oppy, 2012, para. 2). His argument was conceptual rather than empirical in that it did not require any empirical evidence to ensure the success of his argument (Himma, n.d. para. 3). St. Anselm sought to “gain evidence without the need of a corresponding real-world experiment” (Fehige, 2009, p. 249). According to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, St. Anselm’s argument was an “attempt to show that we can deduce God’s existence from, so to speak, the very definition of God” (Himma, n.d., para. 3). The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy further goes on to say that claims of existence usually require empirical evidence or research of some kind (Himma, n.d., sec. 1 para. 1). Now, that’s exactly what St. Anselm’s ontological argument is; it’s a claim of existence. St. Anselm says it is an argument for the existence of God, but for now I will simply use his terms that...
“Money is the root of all evil”(Levit). Man and his love of money has destroyed lives since the beginning of time. Men have fought in wars over money, given up family relationships for money and done things they would have never thought that they would be capable of doing because of money. In the movie, based on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, the author demonstrates how the love and worship of money and all of the trappings that come with it can destroy lives. In the novel Jay Gatsby has lavish parties, wears expensive gaudy clothes, drives fancy cars and tries to show his former love how important and wealthy he has become. He believes a lie, that by achieving the status that most Americans, in th...
Though it seems like Daisy has everything worked out for her, she actually has a dilemma on her hands. Daisy only has the option of love or security, and the author shows the elusive nature of fully completing the American dream of having both of these things. Though some readers may not see it, Fitzgerald presents the disparity of her life through situational irony. Daisy, a wealthy woman married to Tom, lives a very luxurious and carefree life. As an upper class woman, it seems to the reader like she has everything she could want and has her dreams fulfilled. Her dream of love and security is first killed when “she only marrie[s Tom] because [Gatsby] was poor and she was tired of waiting” (130). Fitzgerald shows that even though she wants Gatsby, she cannot have both love and money, so she must to pick one while rendering her dreams incomplete. Another time Fitzgerald portrays the continued incompleteness of Daisy’s dream is when Gatsby returns after five years with much more wealth than before. This appears to give Daisy the choice of love and security, but all of this becomes . After being given the choice of Tom or her true love Gatsby, Fitzgerald establishes the situational irony when Daisy cannot actually choose Gatsby because he is “a common swindler” (133) and she would not be secure with him. The author portrays the deception of being able to fulfill one’s dreams by Daisy never achieving hers, which conveys his point that the American dream is unreachable. An additional instance when Fitzgerald shows the incompleteness of Daisy’s life occurs when her life receives the description of something “that wealth imprisons and preserves” (150). Though her wealth preserves her, she is also imprisoned by the fact that she cannot have both love and security. Fitzgerald knows that many readers believe that the American dream
The Ontological argument is a group of different philosophers arguments for the existence of God. "Ontological" literally means talking about being and so in this case, that being is the existence or being of God. The main component of the Ontological argument can be found in the Anselm’s "Proslogion" which is a short work that tries to demonstrate both the existence and the nature of God. His main aim in writing the Proslogion is not to directly prove the existence of God but to moreover, to show the relationship between faith and reason. Anselm wanted to understand the object of the belief. He is also not trying to defend his belief against the atheist and neither is he trying to convince the atheist that God exists. The ontological argument differs from other arguments in favour of God as it is an ‘a priori’ deductive argument, a priori meaning that can come to a conclusion by the use of reason and not proof. A deductive argument means that if the premises that are put into the argument are true, then the conclusion must be true. Thus, Anselm tends to base his argument on the definitions and terminology used.
When luxuriant lifestyles of the 1920s, commonly labeled the Roaring ‘20s, come about, morality and individual ethics go instantaneously out of style. Along with these poor morals, crass materialism becomes widespread among the fortunate, transforming noblesse oblige into an unpopular belief, and furthermore leaving those incapable of tremendous success back in the dust. The inevitable alterations in morality repeatedly occur as America continues to progress, and several traits similar to those of the 1920s are visible today. Fitzgerald’s use of The Great Gatsby for social commentary is parallel to today’s social atmosphere.
When people sin they go to great lengths to seek redemption after being tormented from their guilt. In “The Kite Runner”, Hosseini writes about the life of Amir, who sinned at a young age and was left with psychological, emotional, and physical struggles that put him on a journey to find redemption. Betrayal is one of the many sins that can create pain and suffering in a person caused by their guilt which leaves them seeking an important healing process called redemption.
“It's wrong what they say about the past, I've learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out” (Hosseini). In The Kite Runner, Hosseini shares Amir’s journey to atonement. As Amir states, he was unable to bury his past, similar to his father, Baba, who spent the majority of his life haunted by his sins. While both father and son are consumed by guilt, the way in which they atone for their iniquities is dissimilar. While Baba attempts to live his life according to the Afghan saying, “ Life goes on, unmindful of beginning, end...crisis or catharsis, moving forward like a slow, dusty caravan of kochis [nomads]” (Hosseini 356), Amir strays from this traditional perspective. Baba chose to continue his life unmindful of his past, while Amir, eventually decides to confront his. Although both Baba and Amir have acted immorally, the choices they make find redemption affect the success of their individual attempts. In the novel, Amir’s quest for atonement is more effective than Baba’s because he acts virtuously, while his father, acts selfishly. Ultimately, Amir is the more successful of the two because, in opposition to Baba, he seeks holistic atonement and is willing to make sacrifices to achieve redemption.
...achieves redemption and finally succeeds in overcoming his guilt. Hosseini uses this struggle to persuade those who feel extreme guilt for a wrongdoing to seek forgiveness and to help others in need. The author emphasizes that atoning one’s sins comes from reaching out to others. He expresses this when Amir offers to help Sohrab and he rids himself of guilt from his former relationship with Hassan. In addition, Hosseini writes to those who challenge the ideals of society in order to encourage them to create and follow their own values. The author uses Amir’s struggle in his relationship with Baba and his acceptance with Amir’s writing career to demonstrate this idea. Throughout his novel, The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini develops a main character that questions his decisions, yet conforms to societal ideals to represent his theme of redemption and self-acceptance.