WHERE THERE IS LIFE THERE IS GREED
Greed is the cause of societies failure.
Everybody has dreams. Some people dream about being so rich they can fill their hot tub with pure gold coins. Some people dream about meeting the perfect guy on the beach, spending the day together and falling in love watching the sunset. Some people dream about running away from their boring home to Hollywood to become the next undiscovered actor. But in the end it doesn’t really matter what your dream is, what matters is what you are willing to do to achieve that dream. In The Great Gatsby, Daisy, Gatsby, and Myrtle all had dreams too. Like the example above, their dreams were about money, love and a better life. But their dreams were ridden with greed to the point that they were hurting the people they cared about in order to get their dreams. In today’s society maybe people are influenced by the same greed. For the Gatsby society, greed was the reason for their downfall and the same will go for our society if we continue down this path.
In The Great Gatsby, greed influenced every part of their life. If we aren’t careful, this could be the slogan for our new society.
This picture symbolized how all Daisy thought about was money because she was so greedy.
Yet another form of greed shown in The Great Gatsby is Gatsby’s greed for love. Ever since his first kiss with Daisy he devoted his life to her. “He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God.” Five years had passed since that kiss and yet Gatsby still was determined to get her back. And he knew there was only one way to win the heart of Daisy, get rich. “He and this Wolfsheim bought up a lot of side-street drug-stores here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter. That’s one of his little stunts” Gatsby didn’t help anyone except himself when he became rich. Sure he threw fabulous parties which I’m sure had some memorable moments, but in the end it was all for Daisy. All the lying, scheming, illegal business deals, and yes even the parties, were because he was willing to do anything to have Daisy. And because this love story didn’t begin like a Nicolas Sparks book, it doesn’t end like one either. Gatsby is shot and killed because he took the blame for Daisy. This, in turn, becomes the downfall to the entire society.
Instead of spending five years searching for love, online dating has made it much easier for the single to mingle nowadays. The hard part about online dating is that you can never tell if the person is telling the truth. After just one questionnaire, a fat, hairy man who lives with his parents can become a six foot five British model with a mysterious side. Now, lying on your online profile isn’t exactly illegal but it’s not the right way to find love. A hopeful girl will be very disappointed when she actually meets the guy she’s been talking to for a week and finds out he looks nothing like a British model and the only thing mysterious about him is if he has showered in the past month. Online dating has made it easier for people to lie about their lives in order to find love, just as Gatsby lied about the way he became rich. No good came from when Gatsby lied and definitely no good is going to come from this society lying about themselves and where they came from as well, even if they say it’s in the name of love.
Although Gatsby was in love with Daisy, he had to become rich to win her over, which is why this heart is made of money.
In our society, Hollywood is a symbol of fame for wannabes, just like the East Egg was for Myrtle.
In the end, everything always comes back to greed. In The Great Gatsby, greed took over Daisy, Gatsby and Myrtle’s lives and left them all worse than how they started. Greed ruined the Gatsby society because it was more important to them then anything else. Myrtle and Gatsby upset the natural order of things by having affairs with Tom and Daisy. Everyone’s motive for being in these affairs was greed, either for love, money, or a better life. These affairs lead to a chain reaction and both Myrtle and Gatsby are killed which causes the society to fail. The same thing is going to happen to America’s society as well because it is very similar to the Gatsby society. People are very greedy for things they don’t have instead of being thankful for what they do have. Greedy people only care about their own selfish needs. Greed for money, love, and a better life are influencing good people to do bad things. It is tricking them into thinking they are better off risking everything to get what they need rather than be happy and thankful for what they have. If we aren’t able to realize what this greed is doing to our society soon enough, then we will meet the same tragic end as The Great Gatsby.
America’s society must choose their path. Either remain the same and fail, or change and have a chance at success.