If only he was a simpleton, or even a caveman, our dear Gatsby might have found life more forgiving. But that wouldn't make much of a story.
What is your ultimate goal in life? Yes, everyone has a highest goal in life whether they are conscious of it or not. Some want to be rich, some want to be happy, or some forms of fulfillment. One someone was Gatsby.
Gatsby …show more content…
Or our old sport Gatsby? It actually relates to our society today.
It can be argued that Daisy did not reach self-transcendence, but that Gatsby did, and that Nick Carraway simply had an epiphany. Gatsby risked his life and reputation to keep Daisy safe, and paid for it with his life. His highest goal was to preserve her well-being. At the same time, Nick Carraway realized how shallow society was.
Reading the Great Gatsby may grant you an epiphany as well, since the Great Gatsby's messages and theme still resonate today. Our society is still as shallow as ever.
As we are in the Information Age, the age of informational transfer, the excess of information has arisen. Naturally self-centered, human beings have become even more narcissistic with the aid of new technologies today. Self-transcendence seems like a far-away thing, even for someone in the twenty-first century. Our values are in the wrong place, as were Daisy's. In the act of self- preservation, she allowed Gatsby to take the blame for the manslaughter she committed. And after Gatsby died for what she did, she still didn't attend his funeral. Instead, she saved herself and her reputation. A friend would not do that, but what of a …show more content…
According to A Corruption of Character (2008), Michael Millgate, the University Professor of University of Toronto, considers Gatsby’s involvement in an illegal business to be criticism of the American Dream: “In stressing the corruption at the heart of Gatsby’s dream, as well as exposing, in the revelation of Daisy’s character, the tawdriness of what the dream aspires to.”
In 1920s, the American society transformed. It became a society based on materialism. Their focus on wealth was overwhelming as was Gatsby’s. He did whatever it took, even illegal business, in his pursuit of Daisy, his first love who has the taste for finer thing. People disregarded the law, their country and their fellow brethren. A dog-eat-dog world became the dark-side of American Dream. Welcome to a part of the Gilded Age, the age of social conflicts.
After the Industrial Revolution, the era of mass production and machinery, the country came to decay, social disparity increased as big tycoons monopolized the economy in the Gilded Age. Our world has come far since then, advancing year by year, but not necessarily