Jeffery's Room

In the story, “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz” a great theme is wealth. But despite being filthy rich, the Washingtons are trapped in that mountain range. And unlike the rich in the Great Gatsby, they are not able to show their rich's off. They are almost slaves to their own wealth. Prisoners on that mountain. And while they live such a bountiful lifestyle, it doesn’t seem too hard to ruin it. Braddock Washington has to go great lengths in order to keep his wealth safe. From shooting down planes and making sure his slaves and workers are restrained, he has to work extremely hard to keep the secret of the diamond. It almost begs the question: is it worth being that rich? When you have to keep your rich safe and barely use it, is it still worth it? The Washingtons have to also make sure that any visitors that they have are exterminated before the summer ends. This obviously would take a toll on the mental health of everyone who lives there. It teaches them to not have attachments to ...

The best quote from The Great Gatsby is from the end of the book about the green light that Gatsby watched on that night. “Gatsby believed in the greenlight, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther”(Fitzgerald 180). This highlights the significance of pursuing the past. It was a big theme throughout The Great Gatsby . Gatsby was trying to regain his past by coming to New York. He looked at the green light across the bay as if it were a star in the night sky. And just like stars, Daisy was unattainable and too far to reach. He failed to recreate the past and anyone who tries to do the same will fail as well and Nick recognizes that. That’s why he talks about the future instead of the past and that we must stretch out our arms toward the future. The green light represents the distant past. We love to fantasize about the past and how great the “good old days” were, but it is...