Can’t Buy Me Love
The depression was an era of extremes. A person was more than likely extremely poor, or in the lucky upper 1% that was extremely wealthy. The middle class was virtually not existent. All of these income groups, including those characterized in our three stories, wanted money because it supposedly brought happiness, but were actually struggling to cling to the intangible, unreachable feeling of love.
If money leads to love, Dexter Green has bought it a thousand times over. He wanted not association with the glittering things and glittering people [but] the glittering things themselves” even if they come in the shape of an object, a person, a house, a manner, or as simple as a life (Fitzgerald Dreams 58). He is still the “proud, desirous little boy” of his youth (Dreams 64). This reincarnation of the Victorian gilded age reinstates the fact those things that look of worth might really be empty of value inside. This glittering hollowed thing for Dexter Green appears as Judy Jones. He wants her; he longs for her because he has everything else. “Often he reached out for the best without knowing why he wanted it;” just another trophy on his shelf, and seemingly the gift one might give a person who has everything (Dreams 58). He is desperate for the lifestyle, the glittering things, and belonging.
Judy, herself, is a symbol of wealth and to men, the ideal of love. She has proper breeding, incredible beauty, popularity, and above of all, lots of money. Though she is what men want to use as an example of love, she can not love. Rather, she is merely the idea of love and evidently the irony of love. She has no human capacity for it for she is only playing the game to prove that she can “[make] men conscious to the highest degree of her physical loveliness” and make them fall in love with her in an instant (Dreams 65). Judy had fun with men and “was entertained only by the gratification of her desires and by the direct exercise of her own charm” (Dreams 61-2). She optimizes the evils of money and loses all that is attractive about her when tied down to marriage. She was a goddess with no morals in the eyes of men but was desperate for power, lust, and the thought of finding love.
Francis and Margot add an interesting tw...
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...r have (i.e. money, love, her sister life, freedom from responsibilities).
In Conclusion, all of these characters wanted something they could just not have. Most love, some courage, and some money, but the key here is that humans are driven by want. Money can buy a safari, or trip to Paris, or maybe a day on the links, but money can not buy happiness and money can not buy love. That is why all of these characters and all of us are desperate to feel wanted and loved because it is nothing you can buy; you have to earn it.
Works Cited Page
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. “Babylon Revisited”. Fiction `00. Third edition
James H. Pickering. New York: Macmillan, 1982. 210-30.
Fitzgerald, F. Scott. “Winter Dreams”. The American Tradition in Literature.
Fourth edition. Sculley Bradley. New York: Grosset & Dunlap, 1974. 54-75.
Hemmingway, Ernest. “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber”.
The American Tradition in Literature. Fourth edition. Sculley Bradley. New York:
Grosset & Dunlap, 1974. 1564-90.
Zinn, Howard. A People’s History of the United States. New York: The New Press, 1997.
Dreams prove as a powerful, motivating force, propelling an individual forward into real achievements in life. Conversely, dreams can transpire as blatantly artificial. F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Winter Dreams” depicts the story of Dexter Green, a young man who dreams of achievements and works hard in a real, non-illusionary world to win them. His work in this plain, unromantic world brings him ever closer to the dream world he so desperately wants, while at the same time the dreams show themselves as decaying or empty. Unfortunately, this does not cure him of dreaming and does not push him to abandon his dreams in favor of a healthier attitude. When Dexter embodies all of his dreams in the beautiful Judy Jones, her fickle attitude and the inevitability of her aging destroys Dexter’s dream world and dries up the source of his achievements. The author, using paradoxes, shows Judy Jones differently through Dexter’s eyes, and reinforces the theme of illusion versus reality.
Morrison, Samuel E. The Oxford History of the American People, vol. 1. New York: Penguin Books USA, Inc., 1994. Sun Tzu.
Brinkley, Alan. The Unfinished Nation: A Concise History of the American People. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2010. Print.
Zinn, Howard. A People's History of the United States: 1492-present. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. Print.
Henretta, James A., and David Brody. America: A Concise History. Vol. 1. Boston/New York: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2009.
Zinn, H. (1980). A people's history of the united states. (2003 ed.). New York, NY: HarperCollins.
Davidson, James West, et al. The American Nation. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2003
In the novel The Great Gatsby and the play A Streetcar Named Desire the main characters James Gatsby and Blanche Dubois have a lengthy search for love. Both characters go about their search in similar and different ways. The characters choose illusion over reality, but the way in which they go about it differs. Also in an attempt to impress, both characters try and “buy” love by using material possessions to attract people to them. Although Gatsby and Blanche devote a lot of their lives to finding true love, their searching leaves them unsuccessful.
Stefoff, Rebecca, and Howard Zinn. A Young People's History of the United States. New York: Seven Stories, 2007. Print.
The Great depression caused long-term unemployment, migration, poverty and many young men had to travel across the nation to find a job in places such as California. As a consequence to the Great Depression, almost all of the citizens of the United States lived lives that were filled with unfulfilled dreams. Without dreams, no one would have a reason to keep going. In this essay, I will look at several of the main characters, whose desire and vision of their dreams draws them together in the only way that it will counteract the loneliness of their existence.
The Great Gatsby set in the glistening and glittering world of wealth and glamour of 1920s Jazz Age in America. However, the story of the poor boy who tried to fulfill the American Dream of living a richer and fuller life ends in Gatsby’s demise. One of the reasons for the tragedy is the corrupting influence of greed on Gatsby. As soon as Gatsby starts to see money as means of transforming his fantasy of winning Daisy’s love into reality, his dream turns into illusion. However, other characters of the novel are also affected by greed. On closer inspection it turns out that almost every individual in the novel is covetous of something other people have. In this view, the meaning of greed in the novel may be varied The greed is universally seen as desire for material things. However, in recent studies the definition of “greed” has come to include sexual greed and greed as idolatry, understood as fascination with a deity or a certain image (Rosner 2007, p. 7). The extended definition of greed provides valuable framework for research on The Great Gatsby because the objects of characters’ desires can be material, such as money and possessions, or less tangible, such as love or relationship.
Through her rich and wealthy lifestyle, Judy represents what living in the upper class would be like for Dexter. Fitzgerald presents this idea by stating that Dexter “wanted not associated with glittering things and glittering people- he wanted the glittering things themselves” (1012). The “glittering thing” that Dexter wants to possess is Judy Jones. He does not wish to be just like any another wealthy individual, but wishes to possess this “glittering thing,” so that he wi...
Furthermore, a narrative of the Depression: "It was always cold in the house; the only warmth was a wood burning stove in the corner. We used to sit and listen to Gracie and Burn's on the 7 o'clock show. Dinner was watered down onion stew with a slice of bread. "We worked in the fields, maybe 9, 10, hours per day, maybe more. Pay was two dollars a week. We were lucky. We had a roof over our head and food in our bellies, even if it were onion stew, most days." Now, it's 1974 and I ask my granddaughter for a pop at the lumber yard. "50 cents for a 16 ounce bottle of pop. What's wrong with prices these days? I can remember 10 cents a pop."
Every character in the novel has moments of feeling happy and endures a moment where they believe that they are about to achieve their dreams. Naturally everyone dreams of being a better person, having better things and in 1920’s America, the scheme of get rich quick. However each character had their dreams crushed in the novel mainly because of social and economical situations and their dream of happiness becomes a ‘dead dream’ leading them back to their ‘shallow lives’ or no life at all.
Zinn, Howard. A Peoples History of the United States. New York: HaperCollins Publisher Inc., 1999. 25-33.