Entertainment In The Great Gatsby, Invisible Man And A Streetcar Named Desire

Whether we understand it or not, the entertainment we enjoy has a profound effect on how we see the world. Entertainment not only shows societal values, but helps shape them as we embrace what hear and see as normal and acceptable. Entertainment can also impact our emotions as a well crafted piece of art creates thoughts and emotions. In Fences, Death of a Salesman, The Great Gatsby, Invisible Man and A Streetcar Named Desire, sports and entertainment are used to show the lack of opportunity as well as characters’ hopes and fears. In the works, characters’ desperation for social improvement through sports shows the lack of social opportunities given to minorities and those outside the wealthy elite. Invisible Man had demonstrated himself to
Many of the entertainers in The Great Gatsby come from Eastern European backgrounds that those invited would avoid if they were not entertainment. Although many people like Tom would avoid these non western europeans otherwise, none object to the “gypsies in trembling opal” dancing at the parties, or to “Vladimir Tostoff’s Jazz History of the World” (PAGE NUMBERS). Through entertainment Eastern European's generally shunned for their heritage can gain wealth and status the were previously unable to. In the book, the fact that Eastern Europeans can only gain status through entertainment highlights Eastern European’s inability to gain status through conventional means. In Invisible Man, “when special white guests visited the school” the college has a choir “sing what the officials called ‘their primitive spirituals’” (Page number). Although many of the students view singing the spirituals as degrading, they are still performed because the university gains more money from white donors if they hear spirituals. The fact that the university need to perform spirituals shows that, according to Ellison, African Americans are viewed by whites as a source of entertainment above all else and they will only be given improvements if they comply with this worldview. In A Streetcar Named Desire, the jazz as being played by “Negro entertainers” “with the infatuated
At the beginning of Invisible Man the narrator describes listening to Louis Armstrong because he has “ made poetry out of being invisible” and that Invisible Man’s “grasp of invisibility aids me to understand his music” (page number). Through the music, Invisible Man can hear the words of another in his circumstance, another intelligent black man in a white dominated society. Invisible Man remains alone, but the music lets him feel, if even for a small time, that somebody is with him. Later, in New York, when Invisible Man has no job, no money, and feels hopelessly southern in New York society, he begins to sing a blues song that leads IM to “[remember] the times that [he] had heard such singing at home” (page number), and then to join in. Through this music, IM is no longer trapped feeling alone while searching for a job in an alien location because, for one brief moment, he can lose himself into the familiarity of home. In Fences, jazz music fills a similar role for Lyons. Although he is not successful in his musical endeavors, Lyons views them as essential to his life because music is “the only way [he] can find to live in the world” and that he needs it as “something that gonna help [Lyons] to get out of the bed in the morning” (page number). For Lyons, music is the thing he needs to feel as if he has a purpose, as if his life is