After a day dedicated to giving thanks for one’s possessions,
Americans believe the only logical follow-up involves trampling one another in
order to nab the last marked-down Wii U on the second biggest shopping day of
the year. Although my food coma consistently prevents me from experiencing the phenomenon
of Black Friday, or anything involving movement, the affair never ceases to fascinate
me. The dedication of hardcore shoppers who wait hours on end and put
themselves in potentially life-threatening situations rivals that of Olympians,
and I cannot resist reading about the ramifications of their quests. Despite the humor these consumers provide,
the repulsion for such extreme consumerism remains. However, with some attempted
sympathy and after noting the similarities between Myrtle Wilson from The Great Gatsby and the Black Friday heroes,
I began to understand their positions. Though both the shoppers and Myrtle
appear very materialistic, their reasoning does not prove that illogical. The
shoppers wait for hours and risk harm in order to save money. Myrtle cheats on
her husband to achieve higher social status and have a wealthier life. Does
anyone disagree with wanting wealth and social promise? The paths Myrtle and
the extremist buyers take seems corrupt and excessive, their logic proves
reasonable. For instance, during Tom and Myrtle’s party, the adulteress
describes her extensive list of items she needs to purchase while with Tom
(36). The novelist presents situational irony as Myrtle generally remains
superficial, yet her decision to utilize Tom’s money, rather than her own,
remains wise, but immoral. Although I do not condone Myrtle’s behavior in
anyway, I recognize that the benefits and rewards of her risk prove worth it
for her. Both parties, Myrtle and the deal seekers, put themselves in danger in
order to achieve monetary benefits, and I have to respect their efforts. I
differ in values from them, but I, too, have made extreme sacrifices for
various items or circumstances I wanted acquire. I advocate that we all have a
bit of Myrtle and the intense consumers within ourselves, we just need to look
past our original moral judgments.
Your blog points out an interesting idea, the middle ground between money and happiness. While money obviously does not bring about an automatic sense of happiness, one must have some degree of money to not stare, or have a home or any of the necessities one cannot feel happy without. Many of the points we have made regarding this book seem to bring about a critique of thinking about money, yet disregard the fact that one must have money and must think about maintaining what they have in order to survive.
ReplyDeleteI think you bring up a very good point that both black Friday shoppers and Myrtle do have pretty logical reasons behind their actions. Black Friday shoppers want to save money to buy presents for the holiday season, which brings about happiness in loved ones. Myrtle wants to live well and simply uses the resources she has to achieve this goal. Though these seem like logical motives, I think they both still have a high sense of materialism especially in the case of a lot of the shoppers and Myrtle.
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