Date of week: Dec. 1-7 ,2014
This week my American Studies class had begun to discuss the Gilded Age and Roaring 20's. A time when there was a ton of technological progress in the United States which caused changes in the social classes of the country. There began to be a more significant division between the rich and the poor. As the Great Depression had come to an end before this time. Innovation drives the nation in new paths. The United States turns its interest in international business with the idea of Empire. This ties into the the great American novel, The Great Gatsby, as the characters experience life in their respective classes. In the novel the rich live luxuriously while the poor work day in and out to acquire the necessities for themselves and nothing more. The rich people are involved in business. The idea of rag-to-riches also comes into play, where someone from nothing makes it big. The morals and values of the different classes are different. The concept of morality in life effects the characters' decisions. How far someone is wiling to go to get to where they want? Would they throw away their morality to achieve their goal? Do the rich really have more than the poor? How is being rich defined differently now in comparison to then? Why and how do Empires form?
