Identify two works of art or popular culture that attempt to convey relations between classes.
Analyze and explain the differences between the two works with particular concern for the implicit ideological assumptions that determine how they represent class relationships.
Sources and Annotations
A minimum of four quality sources are required. Two of the sources must be annotated.
James katz was a poor farmer’s boy in North Dakota who grew up dreaming of being a big shot. After some hard work, he rose through the ranks and changed his name to jay gatsby. As a lieutenant in a military training camp, he fell in love with Daisy fay, a young lady from the south. But when he returned from overseas at the end of the war with his military medal, Daisy was married to Tom buchanan, an athletic, extremely rich but rudely mannish toff from Chicago. He bought a luxury villa on the west end of long island, across the bay from the buchanons, who lived on the east end. His house was brightly lit every night and throngs of guests were drinking and having fun. His only wish is to hope to see lover Daisy respectively for five years, when they meet again, gatsby thought time can go back and do it, but over time, he found that Daisy far people who do not like his dream, but this also didn’t take long to his senses, Daisy driving run over dead husband’s mistress, Tom impute gatsby, gatsby finally killed, Daisy was not a final farewell to: the narrator Nick the upper class rich man himself is cruel cruel and foul nature, leave New York, returned to the home of the Midwest.
The 1920s was a short and special period in American history, known as the “roaring years”, referring to the 10 years from 1919 after the end of the first world war to 1929 before the American economy collapsed.
Several factors constitute the particularity of this era. First of all, the United States is at the historical crossroads of the old and the new. The vigorous development of capitalism has enabled the United States to move rapidly from an agricultural civilization to an industrialized modern society. At the same time, the United States, which entered the war at the end of the first world war, became a creditor instead of a debtor because it was not badly hit by the war. At that time, the government mainly implemented the “laissez-faire” economic policy, that is, it advocated that the free market should be allowed to operate properly, and the less the government intervened in economic activities, the more efficient the economy would be. This created the miraculous Coolidge age of prosperity. As a result, the domestic economic situation in the United States was booming, with the rapid expansion of transportation, mining and construction, and the sudden rise of electrical and automobile manufacturing. Automobiles, electrical equipment, household machinery, processed food and clothing began to enter the home, bringing unprecedented comfort to many americans. Real estate and stock markets are particularly active, and some speculators have become nouveau riche overnight in these gambling industries. How much wealth has become the criterion to judge whether a person is successful or not, people began to make money blindly, to make “fast” money, to make more money; Chasing to be rich, to be richer… Meanwhile, American hedonism, spencer’s theory of evolution and James’ pragmatic philosophy were prevailing in the United States. The traditional puritanical moral concept and religious belief advocated “industry and frugality” and other ideas, which were gradually replaced by the pursuit of personal wealth, material life and other consumer hedonism.
Seeding the “American dream” from the start, has always been the united nation’s ideal and pursuit, it should have a strong vitality, but why to disillusionment, gatsby’s story tells the reader, if a dream, there is only the pursuit of material and the desire to become a “big man”, but lack of why have what should survive after wealth and have such problem with human ultimate meaning of thinking, such a dream, after all, is a mirage, also must be short-sighted and not composing the dream.
When money was everything, the original ingredients of the American dream were long gone. Although the material American dream is not necessarily a dream that fully expresses the American spirit, the material aspect of the American dream gives people such thinking: after the realization of the material dream of the American dream, what principles should be included in its connotation as the spiritual dream. No society can only rely on a high level of material life to maintain the meaning and interest of people’s life for a long time, what people want to live is the spiritual life, only the spiritual life is infinite rich development space. This is probably a fundamental question about the meaning of human existence, including the pursuit of material dream is a dream of no future, is eventually disillusioned dream.
A culture of consumption characterized by showing off to others and a desire for vanity and prestige makes it difficult for individuals to succeed. To show off, successful people need to show that they are better than others. That is, they have more money, more status and more wisdom than others. They expect others to grovel to them. But in the face of this false show off, some people will try to avoid, do not want to show weakness; Some are envious, even jealous. Some will look down upon this hypocrisy, and will try to denigrate it, knocking them down at the right time. The people at the top don’t want anyone to sit on the same level with them and beat them up.
In this relationship, the American dream will be shattered. The performance and consumption of the bottom people represented by gatsby appear to be integrated into the top society, but in fact they can hardly become the top people. Gatsby et al. ‘s performance consumption is based on imitation, which is caused by their innate sense of inferiority. Gatsby’s fabrication of his past reflects this sense of inferiority, which leaves them searching for their psychological belonging in the upper class. And this inferiority will never be able to get rid of the color, dialect, accent, habits, customs, lifestyle and behavior inherited from their ancestors, bring them a variety of discomfort, making them difficult to integrate into the upper class. Gatsby can imitate, but it is difficult to make up the gap with the upper class.
The director of Darks days is a black man, and since most of the underground population is black, the color of the skin makes the film surprisingly easy to make. However, the director did not want to deal with the racial issue too much, in his film, there are black and white, all living what wang shuo described as a “messy life.” By targeting the social system rather than racial discrimination, the director not only avoids grandstanding, but really gets to the point.
Shot in old-fashioned black and white, the film’s harsh and sombre paintings add to the darkness of the subway tunnels and make the images look paler. All the shots of the film are shot by hand-held camera. The moving natural shaking and the graininess of black and white pictures bring a strong documentary style to the film. In such a picture, black and white men and women, are put on a layer of vicissitudes of the veil. Hardship and danger everywhere, all faithfully recorded. The director also creatively gave up all the narration, without any guidance or comments, and put the truth directly in front of the audience, leaving the audience to think for themselves.
The film focuses on the following three aspects: the past, present and future of the residents.
The director takes us back to the past by telling the story of a black woman who was forced to abandon her children in order to survive. A man’s daughter was killed by someone, but she was mistaken for a murderer and put in prison. An old man is abandoned by his children and goes underground to wait for death. Most of them never went to school, most of them had an unhappy childhood… . These are people whose pasts are full of misery, the woes of the underworld.
Most of the things touched by the camera are still people’s present life: picking up garbage in the street every day and selling it to the recycling station for money is their only means of survival; The house was a monster of iron and wood, and the furniture was the remains of the rubbish heap; The water comes from underground pipes, and the power is privately connected. During the filming, the metro management gave them 30 days to leave their last home… .
The director did not mention too much about the future of the residents, but through their talks and lives, he told us clearly that they had to maintain the status quo until they died.
The narrative structure of the film is completely chronological, based on the daily shooting. At the end of each day, the director cuts in a scene in which the subway slowly starts to move, loud noises are heard, and the train moves like a monster into the endless darkness. Such a symbolic scene represents the plight of the inhabitants below: they are in the dark, but can not see the light; Life is like the name of the movie, dark days, hope seems to have disappeared.
In another scene, a large black man rumbles through a trash can in the street and screams with excitement. Behind him, a pair of men and women in expensive dresses strolled into an upscale restaurant. “If you love someone, send them to New York, because that’s heaven. If you hate someone, send them to New York, because that’s hell.” Heaven and hell are unfolded on the same film, and New York’s wounds are gently opened by the director.
Background music was created by American musician DJ Shadow. Sharp electronic music, as the camera sloshing as strong jump, for the black and white picture to add a point, but also let the movie’s mood just right to express.
With the help of the film crew, the underground residents finally found work. At the end of the movie, the residents excitedly demolish the shacks they have lived in for several years, and move into the new house.
The two films tell the story of life at different economic levels. Society is a whole of people because of some kind of connection, the difference between the rich and the poor, and the difference between them lies in the future planning, the grasp of the opportunity, and whether they have advanced consciousness. Poor people make money to survive, rich people make money to live a better life.
Because of the poor to the dedication of love and light into the rich, gatsby never speaking out of turn to give up, that men have superhuman courage, dare to feat in a boat to sail alone on the sea rescue, has the ability to from scratch to the rich, everything just for the persistence of Japanese, but he didn’t think she is a lady since childhood, although wealthy, but the wto is shallow, can’t distinguish a throb, and material pleasure, with huge wealth and the power of people, but they are not happy, because their spirit like garbage pile castle, if men can see everything, after all is a dream, With his ability and strength is not to see after all, after all, just hope to get their lifelong love, the release of the spirit of the soul to get the release of the world. Through their conversations and lives in the Dark days, the movie makes it clear to us that they have to stay the same until they die.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Gatsby
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_Days_(film)
Common：I get that you’re trying to establish a contrast in your essay between a story about the rich in 1920s America and the contemporary underclass living underneath the city. However, your sources are limited to Wikipedia (good for starters, but there’s a lot more you can dig up in library databases). There are no citations, no proper bibliography (URLs are not a bibliography) and no annotations. The story of the great Gatsby is that money, on its own, cannot overcome what Bourdieu called “habitus.’ You could have used the information from the second reading assignment and applied it to your analysis. In the end, I’m not sure there’s any way to properly compare these two works. But I leave that up to you. What concerns me are the many grammatical issues that are getting in the way of your communicating your ideas. And the complete lack of citations, which makes it impossible to establish where you are getting your information. Some of the writing seems plagiarized. If you are quoting, you should indicate that you are. Please get help at the SLC. You can do so online.
