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The Good Life, 9780856682674, MV5BYWZjMjk3ZTItODQ2ZC00NTY5LWE0ZDYtZTI3Mjcw…

- - - - Dreams
        
        Gatsby & Daisy's dead past: Gatsby remains attached to a version of Daisy and himself that cannot exist, but remains attached because it had become more real than reality.
        
        Kiwoo & the house: Kiwoo unrealistically devotes himself to buying the house despite knowing he can never realistically earn enough.
        
        Parasite - Bong Joon Ho. Parasite explores the widening economic inequality and relationship of dreams of upward mobility to a reality where society has become immobile. Kiwoo’s relentless optimism and stubborn denial of failure become the aspects of his life that bring him the most suffering and dissatisfaction. In the end, Kiwoo recognizes the ridiculousness of capitalist society that places him at the bottom and holds knock off detectives in high esteem, yet sees no other alternative to participation in the system. The film suggests that the freedom to dream is not sufficient; one must also have the opportunity to act on their dreams to come to an approximation of a good life.
        
        Walter's liquor store: Walter is obsessed with owning a business and becoming more of a man. He dreams of this future despite having no experience or understanding of real world businesses.
        
        Mama's home: Mama has been dreaming of her own home since she moved into the apartment with Walter Sr. She is able to realize her dreams despite them being unrealistic most of her life.
        
        A Raisin in the Sun - Lorraine Hansberry. A Raisin in the Sun is concerned with the need to believe in dreams and the damage done when dreams are deferred and made untenable. For Mama and Walter, a good life is synonymous with escape from poverty that has them living in their old apartment and chauffeuring white businessmen. The appeal of the American Dream is crystal clear in Mama’s caring of the plant, but it has also eaten Walter up and begun to hurt the family ties that mean everything to the family. As Walter violently rages, “ain’t you bitter, man? Ain’t you just about had it yet? Don’t you see no stars gleaming that you can’t reach out and grab? You happy? —You contented son-of-a-bitch—you happy? You got it made? Bitter? Man, I’m a volcano. Bitter? Here I am a giant—surrounded by ants! (87). Ruth has become numb to their misfortunes and in resignation has only found depression, suggesting the predicament of unrealizable dreams has no resolution, save death. All of the family’s dreams depend on the death of Walter’s father, smacking a blow in the face to the ideals of American self-reliance and individualism.
        
        Changez & the U.S.: Changez chooses to believe he can be American and live with Erica despite the 9/11 upending of US-Middle East relations
        
        Emma & Paris: Emma has romantic dreams of nobility in Paris that cannot occur while she is married to Charles and not wealthy.
        
        Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert. Madame Bovary concerns the confusion of dreams with reality and the inability to reconcile the mediocrity of existence with an imagined fantastical life. Emma’s impossible passions and constant “grass is greener on the other side” mentality prevent her from enjoying Charles’ unrequited love for her, or anything in provincial life. Emma is a woman with aspirations before her time whose attempts to experience a different life begin to impede her ability to experience life at all. Emma places Charles and her daughter Bertha in crippling debt, ending the only things that may have given her the satisfaction she sought. Charles is the unambitious bovine husband who has no dreams and lives a comparatively simple, yet vaguely happy life. Charles provides an unsatisfactory alternative to the cruel nature of dreams that cannot translate to reality.
        
        Erica & her dead boyfriend: Erica remains attached to Chris in spite of reality
      - Cruel Pessimism:
        an acceptance of the harshness of the world and disbelief in the possibility for positive change prevents the individual from potentially realizing their dreams.
        
        Shevek's Mission: Shevek is able to break down barriers and communal ideas of what can be done to repair relations with the people of Urras. He does not fall victim to inaction.
        
        Mama's plant: despite its difficult upbringing, Mama refuses to give up on her plant.
- - - - A Small Place - Jamaica Kincaid. A Small Place explores the issue of debts that cannot be repaid and the violence of dispossession necessitated by the globalization of capitalism. Antigua is where the people are the capital and where tourism reminds Antiguans of the surrounding beauty that has become their prison. Solidarity between individuals as human beings is as much a fantasy as the hope that things will change, or that a hero will rescue them because both parties (Antiguans and tourists) are unaware of their position in the larger world. In a modern global world where everyone contributes to a system of inequality and debt, ideas of a good life for the individual become untenable.
      - Life & Debt - Stephanie Black. Life & Debt emphasizes the structural, deliberate policies that indebted Jamaica to foreign powers and the damage done to Jamaicans who understood yet were powerless to prevent the loss of their industries. Like Antiguans, they live with a series of contradictions where tourists compete for “who has the best tan” while workers earn an unlivable wage, and where the sun is at once your friend and enemy. The opulence and achievements of the Western world depend on these relationships to Jamaica, implying that an individual’s good life cannot be had unless it also actively improves the lives of others. The end is hopeful and highlights the determination and solidarity of Jamaicans to survive, but leaves little room to repair the influence of “good will” on their country.
- - - - The Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby is concerned with the inability to climb the social ladder without reinvention and reidentification of oneself with others of the upper class. Gatsby fashions a personality that allows him to keep his dream of being with Daisy alive, in an imitation of the romanticized American self-made man. Like in the Reluctant Fundamentalist, pursuit of wealth becomes a noble undertaking that in Jay Gatsby’s case necessitates the death of James Gatz and adoption of certain virtues. Gatsby blurs the idea of an authentic or genuine self and the idea of virtues as being independent from a social framework, suggesting that questions of the good life are constrained to what is permissible in one’s culture.