Gatsby Synthesis Project
The cost of pursuing a dream
Happiness
The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald reflects on the dreams of multiple people. In order for Gatsby to achieve his dream to get Daisy back he had to wait a long time which created "a faint doubt [that] occurred to him as to the quality of his present happiness" (Fitzgerald 103). All that time Gatsby waited to achieve his dream, it created a doubt that he would never find Daisy again, as the time progressed that doubt that occurred depleted his happiness. This is also shown in the documentary Inside Job directed by Charles Ferguson. While the CEOs took advantage of the U.S. economic system to make millions of dollars they caused millions of Americans to lose their homes and money. Even though they obtained millions off dollars through this, they sacrificed their happiness by knowing what they did to the rest of the nation. Also, in an excerpt from Nickel and Dimed call "Serving in Florida" it shows how living in low income is very depressing to live in. Winn-Dixie offered Enrenreich "$6 and a couple of dimes to start with", this is simply not enough to live off of (Paragraph 6). In this, Enrenreich asserts that in this miserable way of living there is no happiness. Through working this hard life to achieve a good life, they lose their happiness because they are working for visually nothing. Just like in "Inside Job", in the article "Junk mortgages under the microscopes" Wall street lost "more than $1.5 trillion of loans, maybe $200 billion of losses" causing thousands of families to face foreclosure. These people that tried to take advantage of the system to gain money to live out their dream had to live with the fact that they lost so many peoples money just like the people in Inside Job. Having to have that loss on their conscious for the rest of their lives, this made them lose their happiness. In the movie "Wall Street" Gekko states "Greed is right", this mindset is what the Stock companies from Inside Job and "Junk mortgages under the microscopes" had. This mindset is what led to them stealing and losing all of the money,resulting to the loss of their happiness with having to live with what happened for the rest of their lives.
Bibliography
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Inside job. Dir. Charles Ferguson. Perf. Matt Damon. Sony, 2010. DVD.
"American Rhetoric: Movie Speech: Wall Street - Gordon Gekko Addresses
Teldar Shareholders - Greed Is Good." N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Jan.
2014.
Ehrenreich, Barbara. "Barbara Ehrenreich - Nickel and Dimed: On (Not)
Getting By in America by Barbara Ehrenreich"
Sloan, Allan. "Junk Mortgages under the Microscope." CNNMoney. Cable News Network, 16 Oct. 2007. Web. 05 Jan. 2014.