Character Analysis: The Wolf Of Wall Street

Decent Essays
The Wolf of Wall Street is not just a movie about a fictional character, the events that conspired in the movie did take place, and the person was real as well. Jordan Belfort, a wealthy stockbroker, started the illegal penny stock brokerage firm named Stratton Oakmont. He made two hundred million dollars from illegally and wrongly scamming investors which would end up with failed investments. Jordan Belfort took the money from his company and excessively spent it on prostitutes, drugs, international traveling, and living a life of luxury, all while having a wife and children at home. Despite living the high life, the actions and decisions Belfort made were extremely wrong and immoral. His actions were motivated by greed and his drug addiction. …show more content…
A penny stock firm is a common share of small companies at less than $5 per share. His business structure was to convince the company him or his co-workers that he could make their companies successful, but only if they agreed to give Stratton a sizeable amount of their stock. Once in possession, Belfort would turn around and sell his customers the stock, leaving the investors with a worthless investment (Wyatt). “‘Belfort had a motto: 'No one hangs up the phone until the customer buys or dies, ' wrote a contributor to the London Telegraph” (“Jordan Belfort”). He would then take the money and buy multiple illegal things with it. A lot of it went to his drug addiction, he would spend the rest ostentatiously on prostitutes, and many luxury items. All of this was fueled by his addiction to drugs, money, and wanting the high life. The life he lived was extremely luxurious, when looking at it lightly, but in fact it was truly terrible. He was battling addiction and greed, all while having a wife and children, whom were in the dark to what he was doing for part of the time. Jordan Belfort made some terrible decisions throughout his business and personal life, and he faced multiple consequences once his company’s activities had been …show more content…
His story is a warning to young entrepreneurs and businessmen how not to be successful to get ahead in competitive industries. After spending two years in jail, he wrote a book about his experiences with Stratton Oakmont, which later turned into a movie, named Wolf of Wall Street. As for his present day life, “Belfort now lives in Los Angeles, California where he works as a motivational speaker and owns his own sales training company focusing on teaching people business strategies- legally” (“Wolf of Wall Street”). Belfort’s experiences capture the addiction to drugs, money, and sex and the destruction these addictions can cause. These addictions ruined his family, business, wealth, and his reputation permanently. The issue with his story is that so much of it seems “glamorous” to young, naive adults with little experience to business. His choices were sadly driven by his addictions, which often gets overlooked by many. When a person only hears the ‘prettier’ parts of his life, such as: globe trotting, excessive wealth, partying, it sounds luxurious. Except his life was not in any way something to aspire to. In fact, his life in the nineties was a very dark point for him. Not only can his life be a warning to not get addicted to materialistics assets, but also to not overlook darker, deeper parts of a person’s life because of the ‘better’

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