Sunday, December 9, 2012

The Wealthy

Not all, but a lot of wealthy people believe that because they're rich, they don't have to do anything for themselves and they don't care about other "lower-class people." 

In The Great Gatsby, people like Daisy and Tom are rather wealthy and don't care about anyone except themselves. When Daisy hits and kills Myrtle, she doesn't really care and though Myrtle was Tom's lover, all he does when he finds out is try to get Gatsby in trouble. Even when Gatsby dies, none of his friends care enough about anyone but themselves to come to his funeral besides Nick, Gatsby's father and Owl Eyes. In "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz," the Washingtons have found a huge diamond and live on the "only 5 acres of unsurveyed land" and don't want to be discovered. Because they don't want to be found and share their wealth, they shoot down any planes that fly overhead and take any passengers prisoner. They also have hundreds of slaves to do everything for them under the impression that The South won The Civil War and that slavery is still legal. 

Even in modern day the wealthier people tend to just pay people to do everything for them rather than do it themselves. For example, Danny Worsnop, lead singer of Asking Alexandria, said in an interview that when he was just starting out, he "knew everything"; when they were playing, what time to be onstage, what time to be back to the bus, every detail. But he says now that they've made it big, they just pay people to do things for them. He says now he doesn't know where they're playing the next day when he's on tour, he doesn't even know how to plug his microphone
in because it's easier to just hire someone to do 
these things for him.

Of course, not all wealthy people are like this; JK Rowling for example has donated so much money to charity that she isn't a billionaire anymore. However, it seems that many people, once they become rich enough to do so, would rather pay people to do everything for them and lose interest in other peoples' lives.

1 comment:

  1. Nice post Maddy! I enjoyed the way you used counterexamples and specific examples to back up your main point. I agree that once people make it big, they tend to care less and rely on others more. It is sad that people can't have both heart and money in most cases.

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