Value
WHAT IS THE COST OF PURSUING A DREAM?
When it comes to succeeding in life or achieving your dreams, you have to sacrifice your values in order to gain the greater reward.
What is Value?
2. A person's principles or standards of behavior; one's judgment of what is important in life.
Dollar Value
These stories depict that people lusting and idolizing over a higher dollar value in society have lost their true value of who they are as people. Their passion to be at the top has completely destroyed their values of themselves because of the gruesome scandals and the way that they put others down.
Social Value
Sometimes it's more about who you are as a person instead of someone you want to be.
Nick loses himself in order to fit into the social bubble that Gatsby and Daisy are in, only to realize that it's not always as pretty and glamorous on the inside as it looks from the outside. Jordan Baker was one on the outside but manipulative and snakelike on the inside. She is dishonest, cheats, and bends the truth in order to gain access into the Upper part of society. Both Nick and Jordan were "Westerners" who were just trying to fit into the "Easterner" lifestyle (Fitzgerald 178). Just like fitting in, Rosalind states in "Queen Bees and Wannabes", a non-fiction girl book (original version of Mean Girls), that most girls get caught up in being in the "in-crowd" that they lose all their values (Wiseman 13). They decide to ditch the "innocent girl" that they once were for the image of "popularity" and social status (Wiseman 28). Wiseman teaches why these behaviors are "appropriate" for girls but not condoned because of the lowering of self-esteem (Wiseman 10). In order to fit into society, Gaby Rodriguez decides to fake being pregnant just to gain popularity and live up to her family traditions. In "The Pregnancy Project", Rodriguez becomes a "teen mom" to fit into the social norm of "other's expectations" of her (Rodriguez 20).
In the end, everybody loses respect for each other because of the fact that all of their values have been buried deep inside the corruption of chasing a dream that is unreachable. These characters show that who they once were, were better off than someone that they are trying to be or please. They want to be known, but not in a good way. These people are seeking after social value by losing their own true value.
The Real Value
The real value in life is to be the person who is true to him or her self and someone that you someday want to meet. The more you chase after something that doesn't belong to you in the first place, the more you will become the person who once despised. In the end, all these stories show us that people are willing to seek after whatever they want, without realizing that they are losing themselves along the way. It all comes down to what are you really willing to give up in your life to get that ultimate dream. Chasing a dream can come down to losing yourself and what you believe in.
Work Cited
Fitzgerlad, F Scott. The Great Gatsby. New York: Scribner, 2003. Print.
Gekko, Gordon. Greed is Good. American Rhetoric, 2001. Print.
Rodriguez, Gaby. The Pregnancy Pact. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2012. Print.
Wiseman, Rosalind. Queen Bees and Wannabes. New York: Crown, 2002. Print.
Mean Girls. Dir. Mark Waters. Perf. Lindsay Lohan, Tina Fey, Rachel McAdams, Amy Poehler. Paramount, 2004. DVD.
The Pregnancy Project. Dir. Norman Buckley. Perf. Alexa PenaVega, Walter Perez, Sarah Smyth, Sarah Strange. LifeTime, 2012. DVD.
Pictures
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