Moment of Truth

"The Diamond in the Ritz" is a novella by F. Scott Fitzgerald which, again, like The Great Gatsby , explores the American Dream and how greed corrupts even the best men. The interpretation we talked about in class discussed how happiness was an illusion because both rich and poor people cannot be happy. The rich constantly hide their wealth and live in fear of losing their wealth. The poor, on the other hand, don't have any money to get by, which is the polar opposite of the rich. At the end of the short story, when Kismine and Jasmine leave to go live with John, they will finally experience the freedom of not having to worry about money. They think it'll be fun and are actually excited about what comes next, their naivety not realizing the hardships that come with poverty. This then implies that no matter where you are on the social hierarchy, you will be unhappy. Harsh. However, that's not necessarily how I first saw it. The story ended with "[John] fell of...

I usually dislike classics that are required reads in school, simply because many of them don't appeal to the reader inside me. Many of the books I have read in school such as The Book Thief, and To Kill a Mockingbird were mildly interesting with decent plots, but weren't very enjoyable reads due to the overanalyzing we were forced to do in class. However, one must take note of the word "usually" because there is one exception to this. The Great Gatsby is an iconic work of literature that transcends time and will inspire generations to come. In fact, this book is one of the most widely taught in American high schools. For this reason, I did not come into this book with high expectations: overhyping things usually results in letdowns. Although this book started off slow, the book quickly gained traction until I actually started to enjoy the assigned chapters everyday. The method of analyzing in class also added to my enjoyment of this book because we weren't force...