The Freshest Boy

We have read many passages and a book about sports and how they can relate to life. Iris’s quote on how suffering helps us become closer to happiness and how it also teaches us about wanting the right things is a quote that can be related to real life and characters we have read about. The quote for me is true, to a certain extent since in our readings we can see a lot of struggle and having the right idea to want the right thing but we find ourselves not seeing them happy. So the quote may be true but it can also be seen as not true. In Fifty Grand written by Earnest Hemingway Jack is towards the end of his career of being a boxer. He wants to live happily with his family and be able to support them. He knows to reach that happiness he …show more content…
In the story “The Freshest” Boy by Scott Fitzgerald Basil wants to become this famous basketball player in where he had the fame and the right girl. He was ready to do what every to obtain that, until he met one of his idols, Ted Fay. He had all the right things, the girl and the fame. Basil thought he was the happiest man, which would mean Iris’s quote would be true. Ted was a guy that struggled to become the best baseball player and had the perfect girl and was happy. That is what Basil wanted. In the story basil saw Ted and his girlfriend talking and over heard her say “We can’t have each other.” (Fitzgerald,74) Basil’s ideal life was destroyed and so was the idea Iris had in her quote, because if it was true Ted would continue to be with his girlfriend why would he not have the right thing. This is where Basil started to realize sometimes the things we might see as the right thing are nothing but that and it causes us to not obtain that happiness. Basil might have to struggle to have the fame and girl he always wanted but does he really need that to be happy. He later realized he didn’t and that he only thought of that because he was lonely for most of his life. He wanted people to recognize him and wanted the perfect girl to recognize him. He struggled to get that attention he always wanted until one day he was playing basketball and received that attention. He realized he was wanting the wrong things to get that happiness. One day he played basketball with an alumni and he said “Here Lee! Here Lee!” (Fitzgerald,76) and that was the moment he became happy. The only thing Basil really wanted was that attention and received it when he was not focused on being famous or having the right girl. Basil showed us that the quote can be true if you put the pieces in the write spot. Fame and the right girl were not the right things that would make basil happy. It was the fact that someone