Gatsby paper

American Dreams in the Great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitsgerald’s, The Great Gatsby, tells of socio economic themes in 1920’s America. Fitzgerald's story seems like a simple love story, but uncovers a deeper meaning of the American dream, one that, rather than focuses on the pursuit of happiness, focuses on the pursuit of wealth and materialism. The meaning of Fitzgerald’s story still holds true. The American dream today is focused more with materialism, wealth, and power, rather than being happy.

    When we are first introduced to Jay Gatsby, “he stretched his arms toward the dark water in a curious way...I could have sworn he was trembling. I glanced seaward—and distinguished nothing except a single green light”(21). We later learn that the green light that he is reaching for is the light at the end of Daisy’s pier. He is shown symbolically reaching for this green light because this light is attached to the dream he has been chasing for a long time and is now very close to achieving. Upon reuniting with Daisy, he learns that she is bored with her life. Daisy is amazed when she is brought to Gatsby’s mansion and realizes how extraordinary his life is. Gatsby thinks that he can win Daisy over from Tom with his wealth and disregards her connection with Tom. Nick even mentions to Gatsby that he can’t recreate this ideal relationship he had with Daisy so long ago and Jay responds, “‘Can’t repeat the past?...Why of course you can!...I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before”(110). At this point in the book Gatsby is not looking for Daisy’s love, he is looking for that Ideal relationship he once had long ago. He believes that in order to complete his dream, he needs Daisy. In Gatsby’s eyes, Daisy is no longer a person, but a materialistic item that will make his successes complete.

    We also see this greed in the short story, The Rich Brothers, as well. Pete is willing to sacrifice his relationship with his brother Donald due to Donald’s financial status. Pete was the successful brother who had a family and was very wealthy whereas his brother Donald was the opposite. He is described as “...Bony, grave, and obsessed with the fate of his own soul”(73). Where Pete was a man of business who cared greatly about other people's social status and was embarrassed of his brother, Donald was more spiritual and lived to help others. Pete is willing to throw out the relationship he had with his brother because of his willingness to give to others. “No you won’t pay me back. You can’t. You don’t know how. All you’ve ever done is take. All your life”(89). Pete does not see Donalds charity as giving to others who are in need, but as taking from his own wealth. So Pete decides to get rid of his brother in order to protect his wealth.

Journal 4-8-20

The definition of a historiographer is someone who studies the writing of history. My history teacher described it as someone who studies the history of history. At first, I kind of just laughed at this description of a historiographer and went on with my day. But after a while, I kept thinking about these keepers of history and their importance to the world. After a quick wikipedia search, I found that historiographers essentially research the methods and thinkings of former historians who kept records of the world at their point in time. By doing this, historiographers can analyze bias’s in historical writings and record keepings and make sure that todays society can get a completely filtered and unbiased viewpoint of the past. They also can view what societies are doing wrong and what they did right so todays society can prevent mistakes made by former societies. It seems like after maybe 100 years after an event, historiographers are able to have a viewpoint about the situation from afar.  By being distanced chronologically and having more information about the topic, they are able to form a more sophisticated and nuanced viewpoint. At a time like this, I feel like I am a historiographer of my own life in some ways. Before quarantine, my, and everyones, life seemed to be racing by. Everyone seemed to be worried about their grades, what they want to do with the rest of their lives, and what they are doing for turnabout. In the span of a day, everything changed. Life halted. During this time, I feel like, now that life is moving slower, I’m finally able to get that same distance that historiographers are able to have when viewing events from a different time. I’m able to have space from the high-speed society I live in to think and reflect on what is happening with my life. What am I doing wrong? What am I doing right? What do I need to change? I often wonder what future historiographers will think about our time. Maybe they can see that were missing something about this outbreak. Maybe they have the power to see that if we just made one small change, this quarantine could be all over and we can all go back to our normal lives. The answer could be right in front of our eyes, but because we do not hold the same sophistication of our future society, we are not able to see it. So we have no choice but to wait and see what the historiographers of the future will have to say about the world today.

Junior Theme Reflection

Most of the content found in my Junior theme tried to answer the question “why are there so many more cases of ADHD and ADD today?” I chose this topic because about a year ago, I had been diagnosed with ADD through a short questionnaire given to me by my doctor. I talked about it with my friends and I learned that many of them also had ADD or ADHD. Through my research, I found that almost 10% of kids 4-17 years old have one of these disorders, compared to 4% in 1997. After researching some possible reasons for why this has occurred, Over diagnosis, a rise in technology use, and a better understanding of what ADHD is today were a few possible answers, but no single one of these lead to a definite answer

What surprised me the most about my overall research process was how little information there was on the diagnosis process of ADHD and ADD. As I said before, my diagnosis was based off of a 20 minute questionnaire my doctor had given me. I always had wondered how I could be diagnosed with ADD through a short questionnaire. It turns out that this is one of the very few ways doctors can diagnose the disorder. Coming into my research, I thought it would be relatively easy to answer my question. It turned out that ADD and ADHD are much more complicated than I had thought. I feel like my topic is very important in todays society because so many people are now being diagnosed with one of these disorders and there is no clear reason. Some people may have the disorder but don’t even realize it. I found it fascinating And slightly scary that even though ADHD and ADD are so common among todays society, but such little is known about it. I find that it is a very pressing issue because these disorders could possibly ruin someones life and the patient may not even know they have a disorder.

Education

In ‘between the world and me’, Coates talks about how education effected his life and discusses his grievances with the U.S. school system. On page 26 he questions the morality and reason of the school system by asking, “why, precisely, was I sitting in this classroom?”(26). He is sitting in that classroom because the school had forced him to be there. He then goes on to say “...the schools were not concerned with curiosity, they were concerned with compliance”(26). Coates is saying that he believes that the school systems today are not concerned with the learning of students. They only care that students obey the commands of teachers. With this system of learning in place, how are people supposed to question the world around them when children are being taught to follow the orders of the authority figures? Those who question or fail to comply to the school system are “...suspended and sent back to those same streets...those who failed in schools justified their destruction on the streets”(33). The schools are a vicious cycle that keeps people in low income neighborhoods. According to the U.S. department of education, more than 40% of low income schools don’t get a fair share of state and local funds (Department of edu). This info shows why coates feels the way he does about schools. From this information, we can see that the people with the lowest income receive the lowest education. Without a higher education, how are people in poverty expected to leave low income? This is the issue Coates seems to be addressing in this quote.

The Values of Fast Food

Fast food plays a huge role in everyones lives. Wether you’d like to admit it or not, you probably get fast food at least two or three times a week. Whenever I get the chance, wether it’s by myself, or with friends or family, I’m always eating out. My parents cooking just can’t compete with the superior taste of a McDonalds quarter pounder. Recently, I’ve tried to stay away from the unhealthy fast food options and just eat whatever my parents make for me. But theres one problem with that. Most nights, my parents are so tired from slaving away at work all day that they would rather just go and get their kids Mickey D’s instead of cooking for us. Some nights my brother will ask, “can we go to Chick-fil-A?” And my parents respond with, “No, lets go somewhere healthy”. Then, I ask myself, what fast food restaurants are really that healthy? Roti, Subway, and Panera are a few go-to healthy options, but you really wouldn’t be able to live off of these places like some people do.  I’ve started to notice that some of my friends are the same way. One of my friends parents also have the handicap of not knowing how to cook, burning everything that they come in touch with. Most nights, when I come over, theres always a bag of five guys laying on the kitchen table or about seven pizza boxes laying in the trash can. I, fortunately, got lucky, with both my parents knowing how to cook pretty well, but still, This made me start to realize how important fast food is to our society. As people are focusing more and more on their careers and living their lives, the art of learning how to cook is being lost in many homes. Now that women are starting to have a different role in society, the stereotype that all women should know how to work in a kitchen and cook can die off because many are too focused on their own lives and careers. And with people not knowing how to cook meals for themselves, where does that leave them to turn to? Fast food. A quick, easy, and relatively cheap way to quench your hunger. This option is so popular, the CDC says that on any given day, 1 in 3 (or 84.4 Million) Americans eat at fast food restaurants. The only problem is, most of these restaurants aren’t healthy at all. This is where the fast food corporations play the biggest role of all. Matt Birk, a former center for the Minnesota Vikings says he never broke a bone in his body,  “You can’t do that unless you put good things in your body. You’ll have a lot of energy. You’ll run around faster. You can concentrate at school. You’ll be nicer to people because you’re not crabby”. Eating all that unhealthy food makes you sluggish, unmotivated, and crabby. If restaurants could just make their options a little more healthy and an actually viable option for a good healthy meal, society as a whole would see more motivation and more happiness. People will be able to focus more easily in schools, raising average grades in the process. With just a small change of opening up more healthy restaurants or changing menus of current restaurants to being more fresh and organic, our society could become a more productive and joyful place to live in.

Matt Birk - Eating Healthy

CNN - # Americans eating fast food