Distortions of the American Dream: The Effects of Materialism in Day of the Locust and the Great Gatsby
In both The Day of the Locust and The Great Gatsby, pursuit for the superficial and material in the world has become their driving focus, blurring the line between right and wrong. In this paper we will look at how materialism affects both Jay Gatsby and Tod Hackett.
We can see what direction the main protagonist in Day of the Locust, Tod Hackett, will go, just by looking at the word "hack" in his name. While in school he has decided to pursue the field of commercial illustration instead of pursuing the more rigorous field of painting art for arts' sake. His friends warn him that he is selling out. Tod has taken the possibility of a great education at Yale and has decided to help create superficial images of things that cannot be real for movies in Hollywood.
Jay Gatsby has taken a more overtly financial route. He does not claim to be an artist. He simply wants to accumulate wealth for what it will get him, in particular the love of Daisy Buchanan. While Hackett changes the focus of his trade to get ahead, Gatsby changes his last name from Gatz, believing that Gatsby will open more doors. Again there is a pun in the name. Reversed, his name is pronounced "be Gatz."
The issue of driving for money is not as overtly obvious in Day of the Locust as it is in The Great Gatsby, but it is there as an assumption. The movie industry is driven by large amounts of money, and those successful in it gain as least as much wealth as they do fame. Important characters in both books are clearly driven by money. Faye rejects Tod because he has neither looks...
Ginsberg in fact spent some time in a psychiatric ward and his poem Howel makes the implication that his and his contemporaries madness is caused by the madness of society which, due to its infatuation with technology, has become a demon far worse than any found in humanity's collective mythology. Jung argues that in modern society, mythology has not actually disappeared, it has just taken a less noticeable form in
Even though Aronofsky speaks of art and artists relatively more often, I would say, than other young directors, there is a strong idea that nature still grounds art, in contrast to the illusions and hallucinations of artifice. In Selby's novel, Marion is a painter, and her dream is to open a store that sells clothing based on her sketches. Marion is terrifically cultured, and her mind is filled with
Clinical Psychology Dissertation - Dream Content as a Therapeutic Approach: Ego Gratification vs. Repressed Feelings An Abstract of a Dissertation Dream Content as a Therapeutic Approach: Ego Gratification vs. Repressed Feelings This study sets out to determine how dreams can be used in a therapeutic environment to discuss feelings from a dream, and how the therapist should engage the patient to discuss them to reveal the relevance of those feelings, in their present,
If there is a tendency among readers to view Malcolm X as a radical figure, especially where compared to peaceful counterparts like Dr. King, the autobiography helps to show racism in a light that makes Malcolm X extremely sympathetic, or at least a rational product of his time. Narratives from his upbringing, especially in his father's work as a black revolutionary and in his family's constant state of moving to escape threats, are especially demonstrative of
Down These Mean Streets believe that every child is born a poet, and every poet is a child. Poetry to me was always a very sacred form of expression. (qtd. In Fisher 2003) Introduction / Background History Born Juan Pedro Tomas, of Puerto Rican and Cuban parents in New York City's Spanish Harlem in 1928, Piri Thomas began his struggle for survival, identity, and recognition at an early age. The vicious street
Meanwhile in the journal Du Bois Review (Parker, et al., 2009, p. 194) the authors point to racism and patriotism as key themes for the 2008 Democratic primary election. "Race was a consistent narrative" used by those opposed to Obama, Parker explains (p. 194). Both Clinton and the Republicans "used racial references" to attack Obama, including the attacks on Obama "for his perceived inability to connect to 'real working
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now