My Epiphany this Week

I find it ironic that we started reading The Great Gatsby this week. It was as if Ms. Valentino was allowing us to immerse ourselves in the world’s obsession with material goods. The excessive spending that characterizes the 1920s parallels to the amount of money people spend during the Black Friday Weekend.

I felt like Nick Carraway as I watched people make extravagant purchases, putting them on credit. Similarly, Nick watched “men and girls [come] and [go] like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars” (Fitzgerald 39). Everybody somehow ended up at Gatsby’s door” (Fitzgerald 41) just like how everyone ended up at some retail store last Thursday and Friday. The need to buy the latest gadgets that were on sale forced people to line up outside stores for hours, hoping to buy the 55-inch TV that was discounted $250. Although my parents and I did not originally plan to participate in this “tradition,” we still felt the need to see what was on sale—the need to buy something drew us in.

Materialism was at work, molding every person in the US to purchase something that would, in theory, make us happy.

We went to Best Buy at 6:00, not planning to get any of the “doorbusters.” As we walked around seeing what was on sale, my parents decided that they needed to buy a new TV to replace the one in their room. The new amazing features forced my parents to believe that it was a necessity. The discount was unavoidable, making it seem worth every penny spent. This one transaction turned into a night of visiting different retail stores to see what was on sale.

This is a perfect example of what people felt in the 1920s: every new item on sale was a necessity. People tricked themselves into the idea that their purchases would complete their life—as if they could not live without them. Inside, we are all similar to Daisy, crying at the sight of “such beautiful shirts…that [make] us sad because [we’ve] never seen such—such beautiful shirts before” (Fitzgerald 92).

Memories from APUSH

This need for material items has construed the meaning of Thanksgiving itself: to be thankful; instead, we forget who we are and spend ridiculous amounts of money. Thanksgiving was a celebration with the Native Americans who helped the Pilgrims survive; however, the pilgrims ended up killing them and taking their land. Our whole history is riddled with our conflicts with Native Americans because we are driven by the need for land. Even today we are invading reservations to build the Dakota Access Pipeline. It was on the news for a couple of days, and then we became focused on our own lives—we became focused on materialism.

NO DAKOTA ACCESS PIPELINE!

Whether Ms. Valentino purposely made us start reading The Great Gatsby on the Black Friday week or it was just a coincidence, I feel like we all begin to see the materialism that drives our country. Materialism not only damages our morals, but it also leads to devastating consequences: The Great Depression, The Great Recession, and who knows what else will come.