Wealth and Death

      If you're walking through the hallways of Troy High whilst eavesdropping, you might hear a few people here and there saying, "I have so much work I’m gonna die" and we don't take this seriously and just laugh it off and maybe ask them if they need help in one of their classes. This is how the wealthy people in The Great Gatsby and Diamond as Big as the Ritz view and react to real death. They treat it as something they don’t need to worry about and a future that they are ultimately safe from with their wealth as an impenetrable shield. When Myrtle died, the most anyone did was check if she was alive. No one felt any sorrow. Except Wilson…who clearly took it too far. Even Tom who had an affair with her was satisfied with her death, just because it would bring some downfall to Wilson who isn't even a direct rival.

      When I was younger it didn’t occur to me that death was such a deep concept and process. I just thought that only the physical aspect of someone was gone, and that they could always be brought back (I was about 7 and watched a lot of fantasy TV so don’t blame me). As I grew older and had more exposure to the concept from various novels, I realized how much more mysterious and scary it was and understood why people got so sentimental.

      This shows that the wealthy in Fitzgerald’s stories, have the goals and thought process that a normal modern-day child would. Or in other words, room temperature IQ (Celsius, not Kelvin). If this is not enough, I’ll give you more.

      When I was younger, I would also dream of living in a mansion with its own McDonalds, a huge pool, bodyguards since I would be an important person, and a few private jets. Who does this sound like… all the wealthy people in Fitzgerald’s stories.

      Now that I’m done mildly roasting the characters, I think we should consider how the economy might have influenced their actions and behaviors. The economy back then was driven by the consumer and new inventions had just started making their way into normal people’s lives faster than ever before. Many people did not know how to handle this and acted in wrong ways. Filling their houses with material objects to show them off. It might have not occurred to them that the inventions were supposed to be used for well-being, and not to express superiority. This is what drove so many people into a competition to be the wealthiest.

      I think this is something people should consider while reading the two novels. We should be putting this principle into daily life choices as well and ask ourselves all the time, “Are we buying this to show off and fall within the crowd or because we actually need it and because it will help us achieve something greater?”