Wednesday, May 27, 2020

How The American Dream Has Changed For All Americans

English-9
O’Connor
Charlie Acri
Changing Dream
​The American Dream has historically been a goal U.S. citizens have sought out to achieve during their lifetimes.  The ‘American Dream’ is described as “the ideal by which equality of opportunity is available to any American, allowing the highest aspirations and goals to be achieved”. That being said, each American has their different view of the ideal ‘American Dream’ and can be their own version of success as upward mobility is possible for everyone. This essay will talk about the thoughts of F. Scott Fitzgerald in The Great Gatsby, which explained how important money and status was to the people during the time of the novel. People of the U.S. today continue to value a different ‘American Dream’ as opposed to the people of the Gatsby era and while social separation still remains, it’s effect on the ‘American Dream’ has decreased. 
​In the Great Gatsby, the book discussed the ‘American Dream’ from the perspective of the 1920's, an era of industrial growth and prosperity creating two types of wealth, “old money” and “new money”. West Egg represents new money, a flashy and luxurious lifestyle where East Egg represents old money, the aristocracy. An example of the separation was stated by the narrator Nick, “I lived at West Egg, the-well, the less fashionable of the two, though this superficial tag to express bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them” (5). The separation between West Egg and East Egg was one of the big themes Fitzgerald expressed. These distinctions still exist today with old money still in the hands of the generational wealth, and new money which is earned by a first generation person like Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, and Jeff Bezos. 
​During the Gatsby era women were viewed as inferior to men, as wealthier men valued subservient and docile females. Daisy, in The Great Gatsby described this view when she discussed her hopes for her infant daughter, “I hope she’ll be a fool-that’s the best thing a girl can be in this World, a beautiful little fool” (17). Daisy experienced first hand the inequality as Tom treated Daisy with very little respect as he had an affair with another woman. Daisy was drawn to wealth and for her the ‘American Dream’ represented money and material things which was how the ‘American Dream’ was sought out in the Gatsby era of the 1920’s.  For Daisy, love was felt by marrying into a family of wealth where she did not have to be educated or contribute financially to the marriage.  An example to support Daisy’s thoughts was shown in a conversation between Gatsby and Tom “Gatsby sprang to his feet, vivid with excitement she never loved you, do you hear? Gatsby cried. She only married you because I was poor and she was tired of waiting for me.  It was a terrible mistake, but in her heart she never loved anyone except me” (130). ​As in Gatsby, we still have a social separation as it relates to obtaining a quality education, wealth, and a successful career.  However, some things have changed since Gatsby, the progression of women’s success since the novel was written has increased dramatically. Women are better educated and have entered professions previously dominated by men.  Social disparity still exists today in all different types of categories such as wealth, and opportunity, but nowhere like it used to be during the time of The Great Gatsby. Instead, the next generation is leading the charge to remove barriers of sex, race, and religion to create a new ‘American Dream’ for generations to come.
​Today, a new ‘American Dream’ has evolved where new generations have abandoned the materialistic ways of the Gatsby era.  Younger generations are serving different purposes as the overall ‘American Dream’ has changed for Americans nowadays. Like Gatsby, Americans today use their past experiences to shape their futures. “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that doesn’t matter-tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.  And then one fine morning – so we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past” (180). Americans today have integrated their own past experiences to shape a future which develops a personal standard for their own ‘American Dream’. Americans focus on positive past experiences that promote happiness, purpose and a career to better their lives and fulfill their obligation to themselves of completing the ‘American Dream’ as it is viewed to each different individual. 
Overall, the standard of the American Dream has drastically changed even as there is a wide social gap. For example, my family truly represents the ‘American Dream’ that has come to be for most Americans currently. The American Dream has progressed into so much more than just being about wealth and status, but has become more of following the path of your personal preference no matter which way that may take you. One of my cousins is a classical violinist who just completed her PHD in music performance; my oldest brother is a full time hockey coach who is assisting youth at all ages. My other cousin is a teacher of 4th grade students. All three of these family members are living their best lives and would say they are on the path of achieving their ‘American Dream.’ The American Dream has completely become more than just about being wealthy and important in the world. While my cousins and brother may not achieve significant wealth they are achieving their own ‘American Dream’ by doing what they love. 

Friday, April 24, 2020

Journal Entry Number 9

Journal Entry Number 9:

Today is Thursday April 23rd, I have been looking forward to this day for a very long time. Today is the 2020 NFL draft and my friends and I have been looking forward to this day for months. Not to mention this will be the first somewhat sporting event in months! That has definitely made this much harder for me because sports are my life, if i'm not in school i'm at the hockey rink and not even being able to watch the professional athletes has made it very difficult. Before I could even get to watch the draft J.B Pritzker mentioned some disappointing news. The stay at home order has been extended through May 30th. This is so hard to hear for me, that is over another month of not being able to leave your house. I am so bored and just don't know what to do with myself anymore. For fun I have found myself either throwing a tennis ball against my garage or stickhandling a tennis ball with my hockey stick. I'm not sure how much more of this I can do, I need interactions and can not keep zooming for many hours a day, my brain begins to hurt from staring at the computer for so long. My hockey team is planning on zooming tomorrow and that is about the only zoom I'm looking forward to so far. 

Journal Entry Number 8

Journal Entry Number 8:

Today is Wednesday April 22nd, we had a baseball zoom today where our coach officially announced that our season is cancelled. This was very hard for our seniors and our coach has tried to set up a zoom banquet in the upcoming weeks so the seniors could get the appropriate recognition they deserve. My thoughts on school have definitely changed,  doing online classes is very different and very weird for me and I am definitely not a fan of them. However, there really are no other options and this is what the world has come to, we are very fortunate to still be learning, and one of my baseball coaches said “This should be a time where you don't have to focus on grades but it is a time to focus on your education.” I have been thinking much about it and he is right, this is a time where grades are not very important because they will stay the same as third quarter so instead of focusing on grades for the first time in our education we should focus on the learning and our education for the future. This is our education and there is no going back so why don't we put in the maximum effort to succeed in the future.

Journal Entry Number 7


Journal Number 7:
Today is Sunday April 19th, today my mother forced my sister and I to help rake our lawn again. By now all the activities my mom has us do are just busy work because if we were not outside we would be sitting in front of the T.V. During the weeks my family and I have been taking adventures out at night for dinner and to simply get out of the house. My moms office is in the city of Chicago and we have many times driven down there to get mail and then a quick dinner. This is a very hard time for restaurants and small businesses, I really feel for the people working at those companies because they could at any moment lose their job. We have seen many millions of Americans declare for unemployment as my brother and father always talk about how it increases. It has gotten near 20%. That is 1 in 5 Americans who are unemployed, which is just mind boggling if you think about it. My perspective on money has definitely changed. My mom is very fortunate to be able to keep her job and there are so many who will lose their jobs and struggle to pay the bills during this difficult time. All I can think of is how quickly this needs to end for all the people who can then go out and find a job. Where will it go from here? 

Friday, April 17, 2020

Journal Entry Number 6 of Remote Learning

Journal entry number 6:
Today is Friday April 17th, a green day for New Trier. Today I woke up at 8:30 and checked in for advisory and then continued to fall back asleep like I do everyday because I have the first period of every day free. I woke up a couple minutes before my physics zoom and rushed to my computer. I noticed that when I looked outside the ground was covered in snow which is very fascinating. There wasn't a ton of snow but enough to stick for a couple hours. Who would've thought there would be snow in April I sure wouldn't have. Something very interesting happened today, there has been much talk about governor Pritzker closing down the schools for the rest of the year and continuing with remote learning. This is not much of a surprise for me but it is kind of sad. There are so many things that have been cancelled and this is another one to the list. My baseball cancelled most likely will officially be cancelled because of this and that means two of my sports seasons were cancelled. This is so frustrating and I can't do anything about it. To get through these times the other day my family and I started a very interesting 2000 piece puzzle filled with the many national monuments in the United States. Clearly, life is getting very frustrating and being trapped inside is very tough, and we are simply running out of ideas for things to do. I have recently been trying to convince my mom to buy me a basketball hoop so I can spend more time outside playing basketball because I really need the exercise during this time.

Journal Entry Number 5 of Remote Learning

Journal entry number 5: 
Today is Thursday April 16th, a Blue day for New Trier. Luckily for me I only have 2 classes on blue days and am able to relax a ton. I have been having zooms with my baseball team to be able to connect with some of my friends and teammates which has been good. In fact, my coach has been giving us certain challenges throughout the quarantine. There was a time last week that we had a joint zoom call with the Loyola baseball team and played bingo, New Trier vs Loyola which was a different fun activity. The challenges our coach gave us were to somehow make a remote team picture where we would photoshop everyone in their uniforms together. The other challenge was to create a video of us all doing baseball activities at our homes, for example I took a video of myself hitting wiffle balls outside with a bat. These zoom calls with my baseball team have definitely been a good way of connecting with people and it's been so good to have interactions with people because that's what everyone needs during this time. 
Another good thing for me during this time of quarantine has been being able to spend time with my older brother who has been coming to our house almost every night. My brother is 25 and he lives in Evanston and I wouldn't be seeing him this much if we were not in quarantine. That is one of the positives of this whole thing for me. The other day for dinner we made noki as a family which was a really fun activity for everyone and all these activities have definitely brought everyone closer.

Journal entry number 4 of remote learning

Journal entry number 4:
Today is Wednesday April 15th, a green day for all the students of New Trier. This means we have periods 5-9. It has felt like we have been in quarantine forever and I have been feeling really bored with myself and I am running out of ideas. For fun today my family and I raked our yard and all the leaves in the backyard. We put the leaves in 8 different yard bags and worked for over an hour. My mom has been putting us to work by cleaning the house and yard as often as we can. My mom is very eager for us to get outside as well, so today I threw a tennis ball against the garage for around 30 minutes which was fun for me to be active because that is definitely something I have not been doing as much as I should.

So how much longer will this whole quarantine be is what the entire world is asking. Personally I think that it will be at least another month. The safety of everyone is far more important and cases are still happening. In fact, on the news I saw there was a nursing home in Joliet that had 23 deaths. Joliet is fairly close to us and it just shows there are still many cases happening. We need to wait for this whole thing to be over to go outside in my opinion. My physics teacher believes it will be pushed back even farther until May 15th and I agree if not even longer. Obviously this is tough for everyone and everyone just wants it to go back to normal but i'm not sure that's happening anytime soon.