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Can & # 8217 ; t Buy Me Love/ 3 Short Stories ( Check This Out ) Essay, Research Paper

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Can & # 8217 ; t Buy Me Love

The depression was an epoch of extremes. A individual was more than probably highly hapless, or in the lucky upper 1 % that was highly affluent. The in-between category was virtually non existing. All of these income groups, including those characterized in our three narratives, wanted money because it purportedly brought felicity, but were really fighting to cleaving to the intangible, unapproachable feeling of love.

If money leads to love, Dexter Green has bought it a 1000 times over. He wanted non association with the glistening things and glistening people [ but ] the aglitter things themselves & # 8221 ; even if they come in the form of an object, a individual, a house, a mode, or every bit simple as a life ( Fitzgerald Dreams 58 ) . He is still the & # 8220 ; proud, wishful small male child & # 8221 ; of his young person ( Dreams 64 ) . This reincarnation of the Victorian gilded age reinstates the fact those things that look of worth might truly be empty of value indoors. This glittering hollowed thing for Dexter Green appears as Judy Jones. He wants her ; he longs for her because he has everything else. & # 8220 ; Often he reached out for the best without cognizing why he wanted it ; & # 8221 ; merely another trophy on his shelf, and apparently the gift one might give a individual who has everything ( Dreams 58 ) . He is despairing for the life style, the glittering things, and belonging.

Judy, herself, is a symbol of wealth and to work forces, the ideal of love. She has proper genteelness, unbelievable beauty, popularity, and above of all, tonss of money. Though she is what work forces want to utilize as an illustration of love, she can non love. Rather, she is simply the thought of love and obviously the sarcasm of love. She has no human capacity for it for she is merely playing the game to turn out that she can & # 8220 ; [ do ] work forces witting to the highest grade of her physical comeliness & # 8221 ; and do them fall in love with her in an blink of an eye ( Dreams 65 ) . Judy had fun with work forces and & # 8220 ; was entertained merely by the satisfaction of her desires and by the direct exercising of her ain appeal & # 8221 ; ( Dreams 61-2 ) . She optimizes the immoralities of money and loses all that is attractive about her when tied down to marriage. She was a goddess with no ethical motives in the eyes of work forces but was desperate for power, lecherousness, and the idea of happening love.

Francis and Margot add an interesting turn to our achieved position of the rich. Francis was a metaphorical visible radiation in the darkness of money. Unlike the remainder of the characters, he had a happy stoping to his life for he was genuinely happy during his last minutes. Death did non halt him, because no affair what anyone did or said about him, he had won ; he beat his stereotype. Life is the king of beasts to Francis Macomber, the & # 8220 ; worst one can make is kill you & # 8221 ; and in a manner it did ( Hemmingway 1587 ) . He was the lone one to be physically depraved because of his early decease. He, finally, was despairing to be a adult male and desperate to hold & # 8220 ; no bloody fear & # 8221 ; in go forthing Margaret ( Hemmingway 1587 ) .

The name, Margot, will now because of this character, will intend uncaring. Every facet of her life had been by evil and hatred for herself, which she so deposited onto her hubby. She is the type of individual that in order to do herself experience worthy has to tease, annoyer and slander person ; she is & # 8220 ; merely enameled in American female inhuman treatment & # 8221 ; ( Hemmingway 1569 ) . She is despairing to remain immature and beautiful ; she was despairing to do certain she was non left buttocks. She had Francis & # 8217 ; s ticket in her hot small manus but kept in chlorine

ose to her because without it he would hold left her. For “Margot was excessively beautiful for Macomber to disassociate her and Macomber had excessively much money for Margot of all time to go forth him” ( Hemmingway 1579 ) . This is a matrimonial “check” to maintain each other in a place where they might non be able to go forth. This is clear connexion to Judy Jones and the manner she loves to play with a man’s head. Margot does it non like Judy merely because she can, but instead because she believes, she has to. From the illustrations we can see a theoretical account rich adult female: idle, sinister, bored, and scared, the perfect Jezebel.

Marion and Charlie & # 8217 ; s relationship in & # 8220 ; Babylon Revisited & # 8221 ; seems to be the internal struggle between the rich and the hapless in the depression. Charlie & # 8217 ; s life is summarized as the chase of pleasance. He did non work hard ; he played hard, where 1 might hold worried ; he would hold been unworried. Until he lost & # 8220 ; everything [ he ] wanted in the roar & # 8221 ; , his universe, married woman, money, and so his girl ( Fitzgerald Babylon 229 ) . A adult male such as this would non be expected to love as he did his married woman and he does to his kid. Through his character, an & # 8220 ; terribly dying [ adult male ] to hold a place & # 8221 ; can be seen who is seeking to happen a topographic point where love is present in a loveless universe ( Fitzgerald Babylon 219 ) . He could have some love from his girl, but one individual stands in the manner, a adult female with a score.

Marion is deprived of money, more than anything in the universe, she would love to populate the rich life of no duties, but she can non. She is non able to love, like the other adult females studied, but because her bosom is hardened to it. She now can merely detest. Marion hates Charlie because she can see him populating the life that she should be populating, more than that ; she hates him because she blames her sister & # 8217 ; s decease on him. She had & # 8220 ; bury how difficult [ Charlie ] worked for seven old ages & # 8221 ; ; & # 8220 ; she merely remembers one dark ( Fitzgerald Babylon 224 ) . He is her broken head, is evil ; evil needs to be punished, so she takes out all of her aggression from her life of poorness and adversity onto him. Marion, because of all this is & # 8220 ; non good and. . . can & # 8217 ; t stand dazes & # 8221 ; ( Fitzgerald Babylon 228 ) . She wants to maintain Honoria with her, purportedly to protect her from her immorality male parent, but she is really maintaining her to hurt Charlie. For if Charlie has love, he has everything. Marion is despairing for things she can ne’er hold ( i.e. money, love, her sister life, freedom from duties ) .

In Conclusion, all of these characters wanted something they could merely non hold. Most love, some bravery, and some money, but the key here is that worlds are driven by privation. Money can purchase a campaign, or trip to Paris, or possibly a twenty-four hours on the links, but money can non purchase felicity and money can non purchase love. That is why all of these characters and all of us are despairing to experience wanted and loved because it is nil you can purchase ; you have to gain it.

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. & # 8220 ; Babylon Revisited & # 8221 ; . Fiction `00. Third edition

James H. Pickering. New York: Macmillan, 1982. 210-30.

Fitzgerald, F. Scott. & # 8220 ; Winter Dreams & # 8221 ; . The American Tradition in Literature.

Fourth edition. Sculley Bradley. New York: Grosset & A ; Dunlap, 1974. 54-75.

Hemmingway, Ernest. & # 8220 ; The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber & # 8221 ; .

The American Tradition in Literature. Fourth edition. Sculley Bradley. New York:

Grosset & A ; Dunlap, 1974. 1564-90.

Zinn, Howard. A People & # 8217 ; s History of the United States. New York: The New Press, 1997.