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.