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Ellen L

The Great Gatsby And The American Dream - Discuss Anything - 0 views

  • On the surface of The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald portrays a romantic love between a man and a woman, but inside the real meaning is much deeper. Fitzgerald depicts the 1920’s as a time of decay social and moral values, evidence of this is the greed and the pursuit of pleasure. Jay Gatsby’s constant parties epitomized the corruption of the American Dream as the desire for money and worldly pleasures overshadowed the true values of the American Dream.
  • It’s written in the American Constitution that every individual has the right to “Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness”. This right it seems has taken a twisted turn in the early 1920’s.
  • . These materialistic values consequently led the decay of the American Dream. The new American Dream described by Fitzgerald portrays a world where greed, the pursuit of money and pleasure are above all else. Fitzgerald portrays a world that has lost its way in the corruption of the American Dream.
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    "The pursuit of happiness soon turned into the pursuit of wealth and ultimately to greed" This relates to the capitalist business model seen in FFN, GOW, TJ and NaD in which all the business owners work to gain a profit, despite the situation they place their employees. Material wealth is seen taking over the ideals of society, a concept that the members of the Eggs exhibit through their ostentatious parties and affluence. 
David D

Bill Moyers' Journal: Respecting the Dignity of Labor - 0 views

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    While Barbara Ehrenreich has a powerful quote in this article, Andy Sterns is much more so, "Well, the good news is this isn't Rwanda or Darfur or some impoverished country. This is the greatest country on earth with the greatest amount of wealth. The problem isn't about the wealth. It's about distribution. And the truth is we are seeing America's growing apart instead of growing together."
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    This quote epitomizes the problems that the American economy faces today. The rich keep getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer. The problem is not a lack of wealth, but rather a deeper division between social classes. The ideals of this nation have not come to pass.
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    The rich are benefiting from the labor of the poor. The rich hardly have to work to make money anymore.
Vivas T

Gale Virtual Reference Library - Document - 0 views

  • In the end, it is inherited wealth and social standing that determine much more of one's destiny than is determined by talent and individual initiative
    • Vivas T
       
      This article illustrates the obvious class barriers within society in the early 1900s and displays the need for one to have money or "wealth" in order to amount to anything, similar to the claims of Virginia Woolf in AROOO. In addition, this article also explains the affect of these social barriers in society which do not allow lower class individuals to gain wealth or happiness, thus exterminating the hope toward the American Dream.
Zaji Z

Being Someone Else - 0 views

  • The yearning to bridge this gap is most persistently and most romantically evoked in Fitzgerald, of course, in characters like the former Jay Gatz of Nowhere, N.D., staring across Long Island Sound at that distant green light, and all those moony young men standing in the stag line at the country club, hoping to be noticed by the rich girls.
  • Some novels trade on class anxiety to evoke not the dream of betterment but the great American nightmare: the dread of waking up one day and finding yourself at the bottom.
  • the notion that wealth and privilege are somewhat crippling conditions: if they don't make you an out-and-out twit, they leave you stiff, self-conscious and emotionally vacant until you are blessed with a little lower-class warmth and heart.
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    This article discusses the acknowledgement of the social gap in fiction and the use of fiction to influence people's position on the gap. The Great Gatsby can be seen as an influence to bridge the social gap, as some feel bad for the class struggles preventing Gatsby from being with Daisy.
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    Nice quote
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    Wealth changes people to become reckless snobs looking to have a little fun with what they have... but the minute you set heart to something and forget the rest, you are incompatible with the wealthy peers.
Zaji Z

Great Gatsby - 0 views

  • The American Dream, once revered as an attainable, an almost holy icon of American culture, now found itself subject to scrutiny. Gatsby exemplifies the man who obtains, at least for awhile, the outward trappings of financial wealth only to see the empire he envisions for himself ultimately fail to materialize.
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    The American Dream is something many aspire to, but in the reality of things, it is fair to question how far someone can actually get to that dream. One can have wealth and go for it, but in reality, there are so many factors that make one seem like swimming against the current of the super rich and powerful.
Ellen L

Class in the 1930's - 0 views

  • many among the upper classes began to flaunt their wealth more than ever. Working class Americans, many of whom were thrown out of work by the Depression (which they often correctly blamed upon the reckless financial dealings of the upper classes) were shocked and angered by this ostentatious display of wealth.
  • They often viewed such programs as hand outs, which, as can be seen in this cover, were not somethign which the upper classes felt was their responsibility to provide. They were further angered by the actions of President Roosevelt, who catered to the mass of Americans while largely ignoring the interests of the upper classes. These factors served to heigten class tensions during a period when many Americans (both rich and poor) were already tense over their financial futures.
  • New Deal regulations helped foster significant unionization and these unions would often run into conflict with company hired police forces.
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    Discusses class conflict in the 1930s and, the New Deal's support of unionization. This article presents the views on the financial turmoil of the time from both the rich and poor, breaking down the reasons they dislike eachother
Zaji Z

McDonald's Admits Huge Gap Between Exec, Worker Plans - 1 views

  • company coughs up only between 10% and 20% of hourly store workers’ insurance premiums, while it picks up a generous 80% for most corporate employees and restaurant managers. Making matters worse, hourly workers not only shell out most of the cost of their McHealthcare — amounting to $710 in 2011 — but they’re entitled to coverage of only $2,000 a year. Corporate employees, on the other hand, have unlimited benefit allowances.
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    The argument of who is in more risk of an occupational hazard: a McDonald's part time employee or the chain manager, it's a difficult decision to realize... of course, that was a sarcastic statement. Corporate giants and its executives have been indulging themselves in countless benefits including the benefit of proper health care while its typical kitchen employees struggle to keep up with quota demands set by greedy managers, providing an education for themselves and trying to raise children in order to maintain a family. This excerpt is clear proof of the sickening business ethics large corporations now follow: not to protect its workers, but rather the privileged who wallow in their own wealth. 
Ellen L

The Demise of the 1920s American Dream in The Great Gatsby - InfoRefuge.com - 0 views

  • the perception of the American Dream was that an individual can achieve success in life regardless of family history or social status if they only work hard enough.
  • Gatsby epitomizes the idea of self-made success; he is successful financially and socially and he essentially created an entirely new persona for himself from his underprivileged past. All of the wealth and status which Gatsby acquired, that while on the surface made his life appear to be the precise definition of the American Dream were actually elements which led to it’s demise.
  • “The culture of consumption on exhibit in The Great Gatsby was made possible by the growth of a leisure class in early-twentieth-century America. As the novel demonstrates, this development subverted the foundations of the Protestant ethic, replacing the values of hard work and thrifty abstinence with a show of luxury and idleness.” (Donaldson, 8)
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  • What Donaldson is implying here, is that the sudden wealth that many Americans began to acquire caused leisure and idleness to replace traditional ethics like hard work as qualities that were admired. None of the characters in The Great Gatsby seemed to care much about hard work once they had achieved their material goals.
  • The show of luxury and idleness that Donaldson talks about is best shown in Fitzgerald’s portrayal of Gatsby’s home and parties that for Gatsby were merely devices he used in a naïve attempt to win Daisy. Although he loves her, he undeniably also sees her as a material commodity, much the way he views his home.
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    This site discusses The Great Gatsby as a image of the culture of the 1920s, including the significance of the automobiles and the american dream. Gatsby's objectification of people and need for material gain to reach his goals is connected to the growth of the leisure class during this time period, which is dubbed "a culture of consumption."
Sarah Sch

The Great Gatsby - 0 views

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    "F. Scott Fitzgerald's masterpiece The Great Gatsby (1925) is the quintessential tale of the American dream: the heights a man may reach, the past he can discard, the joy he may (or may not) find, and the tragedy that living the dream may bring him. "
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    "Fitzgerald writes about the traditional white American dream which is born out of capitalistic ideals, and, thus, reliant on material acquisitions and attaining high social status."
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    This article's main focus is on "The Great Gatsby" and the elements it encompasses. The article discusses the literary techniques, basic plot, and authorial purpose. "The Great Gatsby" is a novel about the American Dream and one man's pursuit of his own part of that dream. Gatsby strives to achieve wealth and success yet once he's there he is not happy without Daisy. Daisy is the ultimate object. She is a person that embodies wealth and status.
Connor P

Gale Power Search - Document - 0 views

  • Large corporations grew prosperous, but their wealth failed to trickle down to the worker, whose real wages dropped behind steadily rising prices. Faced with unsafe, unsanitary, and tenuous working conditions, factory workers lacked both economic and emotional security.
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    This underlined quote displays the conditions the workers of the early 20th century had to overcome. Coming from poor areas and having nothing, their jobs could not supply them with any form of security but rather put stress into their lives and destroyed families.
Evan G

GRAPES OF WRATH - 2011 « The Burning Platform - 3 views

  • “It has always seemed strange to me… the things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second.” – John Steinbeck
  • By 1929, the richest 1% owned 40% of the nation’s wealth
  • The have-nots can dream about becoming a have, but the chances of achieving that dream today are miniscule. Steinbeck pointedly distinguishes between the selfishness of the moneyed class and the altruism of the working poor. In contrast to and in conflict with this policy of selfishness stands the migrants’ behavior toward one another. Aware that their livelihood and survival depend upon their devotion to the collective good, the migrants unite—sharing their dreams as well as their burdens—in order to survive. 
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    An overall summary of the depression/GOW. It especially hits on the selifshness of the rich, who seek to keep the poor divided, as well as on the unity of the poor, who die and sacrifice for each other. It contains an EXCELLENT quote from Steinbeck which cynically describes human nature, basically saying that nice guys are admired, but they never get ahead. Greedy, mean guys are hated, but they are admired for their success.  Again, later  it ties into crushing the migrants' dreams in order to keep them down and divided.
Sarah Sch

Government Regulation of Business - 1 views

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    "The way TRUSTS concentrated wealth and economic power in the hands of a few business tycoons so alarmed the American public that Congress passed the SHERMAN ANTITRUST ACT in 1890."
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    "At one point Standard Oil controlled more than 90 percent of the nation's petroleum refining."
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    This article explains the history of the regulations of businesses, federal and otherwise. The article describes certain laws to regulate the business sector and the purpose they serve. The article also gives historical examples of the power businesses gain without regulation. This article is relevant to the regulation and deregulation of businesses "Fast Food Nation" depicts.
Evan G

The Great Gatsby Study Guide - 0 views

  • New York City is a symbol of what America has become in the 1920's : a place where anything goes, where money is made and bootleggers flourish, and where the World Series can be fixed by a man such as Meyer Wolfsheim.
  • The wealthy families in the novel such as Gatsby or the Buchanans, were always trying to impress rather than trying to be themselves.
  • The morals of people with great wealth seem to be less than desirable, but many times are more socially accepted than lower classes.
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    Discusses appearance vs reality and  talks about the hypocrisy of the morality of the time period: rich people can have the poorest morals of everyone, yet it is more acceptable than poor people with good morals
Vivas T

Gale Virtual Reference Library - Document - 0 views

  • Fitzgerald's book mirrors the headiness, ambition, despair, and disillusionment of America in the 1920s: its ideals lost behind the trappings of class and material success.
    • Vivas T
       
      This quote illustrates the affect of the corrupt and "dissillusioned" state of society in the 1920s on workers and individuals due to their "trappings of class and material success". This clearly hinders individuals of a lower class status from achieving happiness and wealth, or the American Dream, due to the corrupt and greediness of society.
Evan G

Analysis of Corruption in Nick Carraway of the Great Gatsby. Essays on Literary Works - 0 views

  • the American Dream has transformed from a pure ideal of security into a convoluted scheme of materialistic power.
  • Jay Gatsby, who epitomizes the purest characteristic of the American Dream: everlasting hope.
  • depravity of the modern dream to wealth, privilege, and the void of humanity that those aspects create. Money is clearly identified as the central proponent of the dream's destruction; it becomes easily entangled with hope and success, inevitably replacing their places in the American Dream with materialism.
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    Discusses the conversion and corruption of the American dream, which becomes more materialistic and greedy than ever. Even Gatsby, the eternal optimist, an archetypal dreamer, makes his fortunes through underhanded, sneaky ways with his partner Wolfsheim.
Connor P

Gale Power Search - Document - 0 views

  • His repeated emphasis on the theme of corruptive wealth—present even in the notes for the unfinished parts of The Last Tycoon—and his depiction of the melancholy implications in the dream of the social aspirer—these represent the core of his commentary on our experience.
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    this quote discusses the american dream and how fitzgerald but emphasis on its corruption to show the time period. it shows how people try to grow socially but then cannot reach their goals
Ellen L

Economic View: Does money buy happiness? - Business - International Herald Tribune - Th... - 0 views

  • hen inequality is high and growing rapidly, luxury purchases are sometimes as hard to ignore as a seven- foot sixth grader.
  • When "The Great Gatsby" was first published in 1925, income and wealth disparities were at record levels. It is thus no mystery that F. Scott Fitzgerald's saga of wealthy Americans during the Jazz Age became an instant best-seller.
  • But since then, it has again been rising sharply. Disparities today are once more at record levels, which may help explain the resurgence of interest in Gatsby.
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  • Researchers have identified other factors that affect happiness levels far more than income does. For example, happiness levels rise substantially with the number of close friends someone has. One of the most striking scenes in the novel is of Gatsby's funeral, which almost no one bothered to attend. In his single-minded pursuit of material success, he appears to have developed no real friendships at all.
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    This article discusses The Great Gatsby's revived popularity as an effect of the increasing economic inequality between the wealthy and the poor as well as reasons contributing to his unhappiness, such as his lack of real friends. 
Sarah Sch

Rich/Wealthy Families - 0 views

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    "Money, as he had learned from his flamboyantly spoiled wife Zelda, is only the starting point for a different functional relationship with the world"
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    "The rich may be far more concerned with what is stylish than with what is safe, sane, or sensible. "
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    "Wealth is certainly the stuff of envy. When the dispirited have-nots, despairing of their ability to create a better life for themselves, rebel, they are likely to massacre the haves, as they did during the French and Russian revolutions. "
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    This article discusses the differences between wealthy people and the rest of the population. The article tells of the upbringings of wealthy offspring and the different priorities they are taught. The importance the rich place on image and status is one such priority Daisy and others place above all else. The source is great for a paper focusing on social disparity and social consciousness.
Zach Ramsfelder

Prohibition and the Illegal Alcohol Trade - 1 views

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    A little insight on how Gatsby made his fortune. Like the businesses in Fast Food Nation and the Jungle, Gatsby profits through arguably unethical and definitely illegal actions (in his case, illegally distributing alcohol during Prohibition).
David D

The American Dream - The American Dream - Library of Congress) - 0 views

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    For Jay Gatsby, the American Dream was one of great success and material things, and one with his love, Daisy. However, he went through an artificial process in order to obtain the social status necessary in being accepted by Daisy, which he did not really fulfill in the end. This source describes the American dream. While for some, it is a wholesome and simple life, for others it is great wealth and material prosperity.
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