Gatsby Project by Alice An

PERSPECTIVE is what you cost! The Great Gatsby Special

By Alice An

“Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover.” ― H. Jackson Brown Jr.

TIME VOLUME 187 NO. 2

2014

3/Editor’s Desk BRIEFING

16/ Anonymous vs. The Great Gatsby

5/IntroducLon 6/Dream COMMENTARY

CONCLUSION 19/ Conclusion

7/ The Great Gatsby vs. Junk mortgages 10/ Inside Job and The Great Gatsby

“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.” 14/ In Goldman, -‐  Eleanor Roosevelt Sachs We Trust “You can have it all. Just not vs. Inside Job all at once.” -‐  Oprah Winfrey 2

Editor’s Desk Introducing the Editor Name: Alice An Age: 17/Junior School: Coppell High School

Time Briefing Introduction ‘ I believe “Perspective” is what you cost for pursuing a dream’ - Alice An In pursuing a dream, individual’s perspective alters by disregarding social values such as morality, legality and integrity while facing the reality of society. People tend to ignore what they have learned as the reality through their lives when they decide to follow a particular dream since they cannot see anything around them due to their inevitable eagerness; Their honesty changes to dishonesty, their morality changes to immorality and their legality changes to illegality. They change their perspectives to what they want to believe with their misconceptions to pursue their eager dreams.

Gatsby Impact In literature, The Great Gatsby, many characters demonstrate changing perspecLve through their personal story.

Inside Job The recession in 2008 involved numerous altering perspective of reality that caused a severe corruption in the U.S. Let’s examine how it occurred. 5

Briefing

Dream “I respect myself for going after my dream” - Will

Viewpoint

The Great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby vs. Junk Mortgages under the Microscope

In the novel, The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald established imitation of society by depicting every character pursuing dreams. As well as in the formal article published by Alan Sloan, “Junk Mortgages Under the Microscope” demonstrates the desire of dreams. Through the process of chasing their dreams, characters become to disregard moral responsibility that they need to take and start to gain misconceptions by altering perspectives. The narrator, Nick Carraway is the mostly well-described character in the book that demonstrates his changing due to his desire for drama. Nick “decided to go East and learn the bond business” when he first comes to New York (Fitzgerald 3). However, as he becomes the living witness of such a drama between Gatsby, Daisy and Tom, he eventually commits the act of ignorance. Despite the fact that he believes he is the “one of the few honest people”, his morals gets mostly corrupted when he realizes that Daisy killed Myrtle, not Gatsby as he supposed. He is neither trembled nor bothered to take action with the situation that he is witnessing although he knows it is wrong (Fitzgerald 145). Not only at the end, but throughout the novel, Nick’s perspective changes from what he originally believed to what he wants to believe. He knows that Tom was having an affair, Gatsby conducted illegal business, Jordan lied with her game and Daisy was felling love with Gatsby again, but he did not tend to involve in any of these cases despite he believed himself to be the most honest and moral person (Fitzgerald 24, 57, 119). His irresponsibility and ignorance of the morality were completely seen as normal for Nick, himself depicting that his altering perspectives due to his enjoyment for drama. Due to enjoyment of profits, junk mortgages created by the company corrupted the individuals. It was “more than $1.5 trillion of loans, maybe $200 billions of losses, thousand of families facing foreclosure” (Sloan WWW). The collapsed mortgages demonstrates the extent to which companies involved in the false advertising disregarded any possible risk factors that would have threatened their client. Their desire of profits made them to be ignorant and manipulated their morality by justifying themselves in the way they 7

want to believe. Convinced by their blindness, they even drove corporations to against their own trust customers who were totally depended on CRA. Although they eventually gained profits, they disregarded their morality and responsibility as the public institution. The main character, Jay Gatsby, changes his perspective of morals and justice because of his desire to make Daisy as his woman. He originally dreams to get married with Daisy (Fitzgerald 150). After hearing Daisy’s marriage with Tom, he abandons his previous life in order to get rich. He gets rich through illegal actions and business, and tries to infatuate Daisy with his shady wealth (Fitzgerald 98, 73, 78). To the end, he confesses the murder of Myrtle for Daisy (Fitzgerald 143, 144). He was deprived by Daisy that led him to lose his sight of morals and justice in his life. He eventually sells his life for Daisy (Fitzgerald 162). His wrong way of loving Daisy made Gatsby to lose his own perspective of life by committing shady and illegal acts and his desire for Daisy became tenacity for Daisy. He lost whole perspective of life as well as reality due to his desire for Daisy, his only dream. Characters in the novel, The Great Gatsby, and Goldman Sachs corporation became blind with their eagerness of dream that mutated their perspectives of morality. They eventually make immoral, illegal and malevolent decisions. Pursing dream cost individual’s whole perspective of 8 life.

Commentary

Inside Job and The Great Gatsby The recession in 2008 was disastrous. It was caused by numerous different factors including greed of corporate, inadequate regulation and lack of responsibility. This severe economic crisis impacted the whole world and it passed the point of no return. There are few concerns. Who were in charge of dealing with this issue and who led to this disastrous result? They cannot blame a specif person. In this materialistic world, every single individual put all their efforts to achieve their dreams of wealth and power. All people should feel guilty of causing this terrible crisis. Ambitious banks and wellknown politicians and government officials lost their perspectives of reality leading up whole world to fall into a pit with broken system (Inside Job www). Similarly, Gatsby in the novel, The Great Gatsby, become ignorant of legality issue as he dreams to get together with Daisy. Individuals change their perspectives of legality while pursuing dreams.

First of all, the banks are the main culprits. In spite of their purpose of establishment, the executives’ aims were fraught with greed, which was to increase profits. Therefore, the banks allowed high-risk loans to be taken out by low-income individuals, then packaged these sub-prime loans into Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDOs), which it offered to its investors as high grade opportunities, all while insuring the CDOs with credit default swaps, which allowed the banks to recuperate their losses many times over as their customers lost all of their investments (Inside Job www). 10

Commentary

And that is exactly what happened. The instigators were left with hundreds of millions of dollars in salary and bonuses, while their customers' retirement funds were swept bare after the banks disregarded one of the cardinal rules of business which is customer is king (Inside Job www). This causes an issue of legality since it seems they have snatched the money of low-income individuals who need money for survival. The financial sector had been growing more and more deregulated in recent years through both lobbying, which provided millions to them, and infiltration of government positions and authority (Inside Job www). Further, as the banks operated in an oligarchical manner, there were only a few, but large, banks; this resulted in intensified repercussions from a single bank's misdeeds (Inside Job www). The character, Jay Gatsby, justifies his illegality because of his desire to make Daisy as his woman. He dreams to get married with Daisy (Fitzgerald 150). In order to show

off his wealth to Daisy, he abandons his previous life and begins to get rich through illegal acts and illegal business. He tries to attract Daisy with his shady means of wealth (Fitzgerald 98, 73, 78). He gave up his perspective of legality to chase his dream. He committed illegal acts and disobeyed laws by disregarding his own value of legality.

Commentary

In Goldman, Sachs We Trust & Inside Job The Belief that they can become rich without work

As demonstrated in the informational documentary, Inside Job, dreams of people alter individuals’ perspectives due to their greed by justifying themselves. The banks in Inside Job and Goldman, Sachs and Company in the late 1920s chased a dream of increasing profits and making money by accepting a cheating policy. They believed that they could become rich with tricks and without work. Goldman, Sachs and Company was originally considered as “the investment trust business” (Galbraith 234). However, they realized that buying their own stocks increased their value that “had a value approximately twice that of the current total worth of the securities, cash, and other assets” (Galbraith 235). People were buying stocks to get rich quick. In a great disappointment to investors including Harrison Williams and Mr. John Foster Dulles, as new stocks were issued, their values temporarily increased, then plunged to trivial amounts due to inflated demand (Galbraith 235, 236). The same circumstance occurred in other corporations Goldman, Sachs owned, like Blue Ridge Corporation, Pacific American Associates, Anglo-American Shares, Inc., and others (Galbraith 236, 237). Through continuous operations, Goldman Sachs was able to turn 14

Commentary

its $104 stocks into junk investments worth only about $1.75 (Galbraith 238). In spite of trustworthiness of customers, the company changed their perspective to gain more profits and justified themselves as rightful acts. Similarly, the banks shown in the movie, Inside Job, manipulated the minds of low-income individuals to take high-risk loans and they packaged these sub-prime loans into CDOs, which it offered to its investors as high grade opportunities, all while insuring the CDOs with credit default swaps, which allowed the banks to recuperate their losses many times over as their customers lost all of their investments (Inside Job WWW). They became oblivious of all sense of public duty to provide benefits financing system for citizens, and played minds of citizens by tricking them with their high intellectual opportunity. The public banks and the Goldman, Sachs perceived that it was okay to manipulate the market to create wealth and ruin its trustworthy customers. Company’s perspective of greed blinded it to its ethical interests and created such a misperception. 15

In 21st century, technology becomes necessiLes rather than luxuries. Therefore, responsibility and freedom are required to manipulate the advanced technology, especially Internet. Tom Buchanan in The Great Gatsby and the group, Anonymous Hackers give up their perspecLves of responsibility for following dreams. The group Anonymous is a vigorous supporter of such rights. Members of the group believe unwaveringly that informaLon and its access should be free, and that abuses of corporate power should not go unpunished. In wanLng such an ideal world, Anonymous frequently parLcipates in illegal acLviLes, such as blocking access to websites, defacing websites, hacking to unearth personal and private data, and releasing said informaLon (Greenberg www).

In a speciﬁc example, aeer the repossession of the MegaUpload domains, Anonymous conducted denial of service afacks which made websites belonging to the U.S. Department of JusLce, the Recording Industry of America, the MoLon Picture AssociaLon of America, Universal Music, the U.S. Copyright Oﬃce, and the FBI unavailable (Greenberg www). These hackers realize that their acLons are illegal and unethical in terms of societal norms, however, Anonymous has lost perspecLve in that it neglects the fact that their acLons demonstrates their negligence of responsibility of being supporters of internet freedom that restrict other users who may want to access websites which have been tampered with. ContradicLon that restricLng Internet access to promote more free Internet access undermines their responsibly that they originally planned.

Similarly, in the villain of the story of The Great Gatsby, Tom Buchanan dreams of power and authority. Despite of his burdened responsibility to take as one of high-‐ranked family, Tom Buchanan believes in only a part of noblesse oblige that can only benefit him as a high ranked authoritaLve figure rather than showing an exemplar to others. Although he sees himself as one of the “Nordics” who “make civilizaLon” (Fitzgerald 13), he focuses only on his benefits and his dreams while disregarding his responsibility as a noble family. Tom’s call for “self-‐control” in order to prevent the “sneering at family life and family insLtuLons” is probably one of the most hypocriLcal statements in the enLre book due to the existence of Tom’s mistress, Myrtle Wilson (Fitzgerald 130). Daisy, it seems, is just a prize acquired by his wealth, and it was for his dream that he

iniLally married Daisy. Although he gains the reputaLon as a well-‐established rich, he is always quick to show off and prove his manliness. He does not fully take his responsibility of being rich and authoritaLve and his perspecLve of responsibility changes into selfishness, pomposity, and socially unpleasant behavior while pursuing his power including independence, money and influence. By afempLng to maintain his way of life, Tom has reduced a whole people to ashes without any thought of consequences and by disregarding his obligaLon.

In pursuing a dream, perspectives change. Individuals try to justify themselves along with altering viewpoints from what they have believed to what they want to believe as a truth and reality. A reality constructed with morals, responsibility and legality is tossed aside for one fraught with factors such as dishonesty, illegality, immortality and irresponsibility. Pursuing dream is a good sign and best motivation to live life but incorrect ways of chasing dream can cause an enormous ill consequences. Perspectives of world build identity of oneself and mutated perspectives due to pursuing a dream can ultimately disturb life of oneself. People should be able to control themselves to take a right step toward the ladder of dream. Not only individual but also private company or even public offices observed in the process of synthesizing demonstrate that altering perspectives and justifying changed perspectives cause them to fall into an inescapable pit and make them to pass the point of no return. 19 Â

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