Conformity In The Great Gatsby

Trying to pursue your own dreams or paths can be quite hard to do, considering all the obstacles that lay in your way, such as your own and other’s beliefs along with their opinions. No matter what the location is, there are always non-conformists and conformists. This idea does not only occur in real life, but also in books and stories, too. Conformity itself has always been such a big part of our society, from the littlest details, - such as dressing alike or following the same trends -, to the extremes, - such as plastic surgery and so on -. Nonconformity is not always a good thing, and conformity is not always bad either, although they do both have their own down falls. Changing for society however, is never advised, but it cannot be stopped …show more content…
In the short story, “The Pedestrian” by Ray Bradbury, the main character, Leonard Mead, was ¨The car hesitated, or rather gave a faint whirring click, as if information, somewhere, was dropping card by punch-slotted card under electric eyes. "To the Psychiatric Center for Research on Regressive Tendencies.¨ At the sight of one non-conformists the society goes haywire to try to prevent it from spreading to others, Leonard Mead was taken away to a Psychiatric Center, because he was doing what is unknown to that society, which is being a nonconformist. While in the movie Dead Poets Society, Neil Perry’s father wanted his son to go to a top notch school to receive an excellent education, while his wish was to become an actor.Due to his father’s beliefs Neil became restricted, from following his passion of acting. For example, right after his father discovered he was staring in a play, his father dashed to the school, demanding him to quit. Although there are many ways to ruin a life, conformity certainly has to be one of the main reasons …show more content…
Due to being restricted to only doing what is ¨socially acceptable¨, which is the definition of conformity, can cause one to obtain a psychological or even physical disorders, such as depression. Nowadays it is not odd to read or hear about kids or even adults that get bullied into suicide. Most of the time the people committing suicide, appear to be freaks to certain people, and they try to change to fit in, but a majority of the time that occurs, it does not end up very well. Trying to fit in just causes more pain, one can never exactly win against conformity, some people get picked and ripped apart no matter what they do, no matter if they conform or do not conform. So, most likely if you are going to get ripped to shreds anyways, why live your life trying to please the people who do not accept you for who you are? Hypothetically speaking, when you take your own life, you should not take it because you did everything you could to try to fit in but nothing work, the only time when it really does seem a bit logical, is when you take your own life because you were yourself, but no one accepted you like that. At times though, to feel accepted or unaccepted by society is our fault, in the current world we live in, social media, and all of the advanced technology that is taking over. With the help of all the high end products, that are at our fingertips, conformity is being