America is essentially naive. We take what we want and we take what we have for granted. If something is going to propel our status up, whether it's for wealth, our social lives, or just out of selfishness, we don't seem to even hesitate to act. As we observe in Raymo's piece, the act of selfishness and naiveté is what drives their decisions, and eventually, will lead to their own death. The piece takes place in 1987, which is only around 25 years from when we learned how harmful cigarettes actually were. Just like in Raymo's piece when the six-year-old girl "rubbed the glowing dust on her body" not knowing that the "beautiful dust" would "damage her living cells" (Raymo 212) and kill her, our society did something quite similar and acted out of same naiveté. We did the same thing with tobacco and cigarettes and blindly rushed into using them because "they were cool" and "the new thing". Then once it was already too late and much of society was hooked on tobacco, we discovered the grueling side effects that came with it-death, cancer, tumors, and much much more. Unfortunately, in our society, almost all of our decisions are made out of our selfishness and these ultimately lead to death and disaster. However even when the consequences hit us and we realize our wrongs, we still continue to make these naive decisions because we just can't help ourselves and we allow ourselves to believe that we NEED more. Overall, I believe that Raymo's piece serves as eye-opener to display to the readers that we need to learn from our mistakes because if we don't, we just get stuck in a never ending cycle of consequences and down falls.
While only a few chapters into, "The Great Gatsby", a distinct symbol that has been presented multiple times, is the green light. At the end of chapter 1, we saw the green light as Nick spotted Gatsby, and later on, we see it again. "Involuntarily I glanced seaward--and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been at the end of a dock" (Fitzgerald 21). This quote signifies how the green light has multiple meanings behind it. The green light represents Gatsby's undying love for daisy, the American dream, and wealth. Since the quote explains that the green light is on a dock, us readers can infer that this dock is daisy's house and with Gatsby staring at it, it shows his strong love for her. The green light also represents the American dream and wealth. This green light is not exactly tangible for Gatsby. Although Gatsby has seemed to achieved the American dream through his wealth, he did not do it the right way....
Is your first sentence alluding to toilet paper?
ReplyDeleteI really like how you used Raymo’s piece to refer to how naive we are. I agree that we see what’s “cool” and partake in it and think it won’t do us no harm but our lack of knowledge eventually gets the best of us.
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