The Great Gatsby Wealth Essay

Wealth has been perceived as the ultimate goal of the American dream. Americans have let the standard of wealth get in the way of more important things in life. Wealth can consume your thoughts of the definition of true love and life itself. The focus of wealth can cloud your mind to block the reality that is right in front of you. The focus of wealth can also keep you living in a façade that only ends in confusion. And the confusion could possibly be asking yourself the question: was being wealthy my biggest aspiration? The effectiveness of the wealthy in the great Gatsby and midnight in Paris shows that wealth may not be the ultimate goal in life. Instead it consumes you. In the Baz Luhrman film The Great Gatsby the characters were very …show more content…
Inez and her parents; john and Helen are very wealthy people. But has their wealth consumed them? John and Helen aren’t very pleasant people, and neither is Inez. They have very Tom Buchanan like qualities. Those qualities are: they are bullies and they are carelessly rich. They will antagonize anyone who does not have the same beliefs as them. Their wealth has put them in an attitude that no wants to try to compete with which makes them lose out on the important things in life. When you are consumed by wealth your attitude can change about everything for the worse. Another example is that Inez is a pretty self –centered person. She does not want to do anything Gil; her fiancé and the main character, wants to do. She would rather explore the high-class things of Paris with Paul; who is a friend of theirs, than rather walk the night with Gil. The problem is that she does not want to spend much time with the man she is soon to be married to. So that is then when Gil starts to fall in love with other women. Another example in Midnight in Paris is Gil’s dreams for life vs Inez’s. Gil wants to stay and live in Paris, but Inez does not. She rather Gil stay a screenwriter and live in Beverly hills than him become a novelist. She wants this because she says he would struggle if he became a novelist. Inez’s focus is money and Gil focus is trying to go after …show more content…
They represent the effects by having their minds consumed so then they were led to confusion about their lives or they were trapped in an illusion. The whole idea is that there is nothing wrong with being wealthy. Wealth is a great thing to have when you know how to control it and it does not control