Decadence

Many authors have addressed the topic of the American Dream and what it means to be successful, and many have criticized it. In The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald portrays the 1920s as a time decay caused by decadence and indulgence that ultimately corrupted the American Dream into the desire for money and pleasure rather than more noble goals. In Of Mice and Men, Steinbeck shows how the American Dream doesn’t always work out through the story of migrant workers in California during the 1930s…

ominously reveals “I 've got to make the Inquirer as important to New York as the gas in that light.”, thus highlighting the competing internal and external forces due to his excessive sense of self-importance. The chiaroscuro foreshadows his moral decadence as supported by Welles’ subtle positioning of Kane between his wife and mistress, exposing Kane’s infidelity, before Kane arrogantly declares in the dialogue “There’s only person who’s going to decide what I do in this world and that’s me”…

Democracy, freedom and equal opportunity have long been the ideologies associated with the American mindset, and as a result, the United States came to be recognized as one of the few countries in the world where anyone who worked hard enough could become successful and therefore fulfill the American Dream. However, through The Great Gatsby, author F. Scott Fitzgerald confronts this sanguine mentality. That which defines success in the 1920s, the time during which Fitzgerald’s novel is set, is…

‘Be careful what you wish for’, aptly describes what happens to Roderick in Rome, where the desire to see the great works of art result in the young artist experiencing “an indigestion of impressions; I must work them off before I go in for any more” (103). Accordingly, Roderick tells his patron he can no longer look at “other people’s works, for a month — not even at Nature’s own” (103), but instead he is driven to see his own creations. The time spent in the eternal city seems to both men like…

was left alone in the valley that becomes quite the opposite of “many-colored grass.” The narrator becomes fatigued by all the melancholy and relocated himself to a neighboring royal city where he establishes himself in court and loses himself to decadence (Chambers, par. 8) He is taken with a courtly lady, Ermengarde, and falls in love again. He marries her and says, “What, indeed, was my passion for the young girl of the valley in comparison with the fervor,…

Reign of Terror In Africa: Taking a closer look at Africa’s most active terrorist groups Terrorism is one of a number of security challenges facing some African countries. It is often associated with other security challenges, including armed robbery, trafficking of all kinds and money laundering. Terrorism is designed to create an environment of fear in society and enhance the feeling of instability in a country. More importantly, terrorism serves to highlight the relative weaknesses of the…

The term, Gothic literature, was a movement in the 18th century that focused on ruin, terror, horror, death, and the darkness of human nature. This writing also combines elements of the supernatural and events that can’t be explained in the natural world. Gothic writing originated with British writers using science, religion, and industry combined with the question of the unknown by using the symbolism of a darker world in caves, castles, nightmares, and fear. With the movement to the new world…

25 to as little as 0% (“Nuclear Power,” 2015). Enecan, an energy company, proposed a plan that would cut out nuclear energy use by 2040. (“Nuclear Power,” 2015.) All 48 of Japan’s nuclear reactors were taken offline (Kottasova, 2014). Despite the decadence of these plans, Japan relied of nuclear energy, one of the only forms of energy that wasn’t exported from other countries. According to the World Nuclear Association (2015), Japan imports up to 84% of its energy requirements, although the…

Avenue as well as their thoughts when they arrive home, provides perspective on how social inequality affects the African-American community. Accustomed to an impoverished community, the children have a huge paradigm shift after they experience the decadence of Fifth Avenue and realize the disparity between the two. Whenever they first arrive at Fifth Avenue and see the wealth and extravagance that the middle and upper classes can indulge in, they find themselves in what feels like a foreign…

a result, they feel restrained and held back by a world that is too plain and sluggish. In “Greasy Lake,” the unnamed narrator notes that gradually “courtesy and winning ways went out of style, when it was good to be bad, and when you cultivated decadence like a taste” (Boyle 129). “Greasy Lake,” like “A&P,” presumably also takes place in the 1960s, a time when the “bad” youth subculture thrived. During this time, young folk considered their behavior to be deviant from the establishment, and…