This statement puts a valid defense to luxuries. For example: the television was once owned by the wealthy or fortunate. It was considered a luxury to own a television. Many people looked forward toward achieving the goal of purchasing something that not many people had or were able to afford. This concept or ideology is supported by (Mieses) in the article who says that "luxury is highly dependent on time and place."…
Money cannot buy happiness. This famous proverb initially provides a comforting idea; that life is worth more than wealth. However, Willa Cather’s “Paul’s Case” provides a more unsettling take on this proverb. Cather asserts that the upper class has more than just money. They have a radically different set of societal expectations and standards, allowed the privilege of exclusive pastimes, such as the fine arts. Paul exemplifies the consequence of when someone of a lower socioeconomic status enjoys entertainment seemingly limited to only high-class elites. Paul, like many, chases after the idea that purely increasing his wealth can give him a life around the fine arts, but he fails…
Take present-day celebrities such as Kim Kardashian for instance. She lives in a lavish house rumored to have cost upwards of twenty million dollars, has an estimated worth of around $45M, and has her own boutique shop and clothing line (Bio), It is clearly evident that Kim Kardashian does not need to necessarily live such an extravagant lifestyle in order to survive and be content. It is safe to say that majority of her possessions are of sentimental value or help to prove her high societal status. Eigner states his “desire to grab for the gaudy bubble that has been largely sated” and that is “is an attitude I share with the very wealthy”. The rich, however, know they are well-off and have anything they could ever wish for right at their fingertips. In addition, celebrities and other famous people such as Kim Kardashian hold onto so many expensive items that realistically have no practical…
As humans, we all have a desire to have things that are beyond what we can afford. As a result, we start to have strong feelings of envy and jealousy towards that people who possess what it is that we cannot have. In the short story “The Gilded Six Bits” by Zora Neale Hurston, Joe quickly became fascinated with a big talker from Chicago named Otis D. Slemmons. Otis claimed that women gave him money and adored him. This interest that Joe had with the gold accessories that Otis owned lead to problems in Joe’s marriage with Missy May. Joe and Missy May will realize that everything that glitters isn’t gold, and that they should be content with what they already possessed.…
Guy de Maupassant shows Madame Loisel frustration by saying, “Instead of being delighted, as her husband hoped, she flung the invitation petulantly across the table.” She was too worried about what she was going to wear to even appreciate her husband for trying to surprise her by going out for an…
Not So Gracious " [S]he was simple since she could not be adorned; but she was unhappy as though kept out of her own class;" (Guy De Maupassant, 1). As beautiful as she was, she was still not pleased. This sentiment from The Necklace” by Guy De Maupassant proves that he believes women can be ungrateful and materialistic. This is shown through the character Madame Loisel with.…
He, a lowly clerk at the Ministry of Education, provides Mathilde with a comfortable life, but just not enough for Mathilde. She dreams of more than modesty. Mathilde feels burdened by her poverty and regrets her station in life. She often spends hours daydreaming of extravagance. Even while her husband expressed pleasure at the dinner she prepared for him, she dreams of a fancy feast on china. When her husband presented her with an invitation to a formal party hosted by the Ministry of Education, she was angry, annoyed and irritated, as she had nothing nice to wear. When asked how much a suitable dress would cost, she told him 400 francs might do it. Her husband silently protested, as he was saving that amount to go hunting with friends the following summer, but gave it to her anyways. As the day of the party drew near, Mathilde was clearly upset. When approached by Monsieur Loisel she said she had no jewelry to wear. Monsieur Loisel suggested fresh flowers, but she balked at the idea. Then it dawned on Loisel for Mathilde to ask her friend Mme. Forester. Mme. Forester agreed to lend her some jewels for the party. When Mme. Loisel comes across the diamond necklace and Mme. Forester agrees to lend it to her, Mathilde is overcome with joy at the site of it around her neck in the mirror, kisses her friend and ran off to show her husband. At the party, Mathilde is the most beautiful woman there, and is noticed by everyone and she adores the attention. At 4am she finds her husband sleeping in another room. He drapes her shoulders with her wrap and asks for her to wait inside while he fetches a cab. Mathilde is too embarrassed by her wrap and follows him outside instead. They walk for a while and finally hail a cab. It is not until they arrive home that Mathilde discovers the necklace is no longer around her neck. Panicked, she waits at home as…
Every day, a person will see celebrities on television, talk to peers in school or at work, or have encounters with strangers on the street, and automatically make assumptions on what their life must be like. Many times, they envision the other person’s life to be something bigger and better than their own life and that vision causes them to become jealous. That jealousy, in effect, can consume them and cause them become unhappy with the assets and characteristics that they have. People can become so discontented with their lives that they would be willing to give up everything they have to start over or have a different life with different problems. The way that the main characters in Jane Martin’s “Beauty” describe their lives as undesirable and wish to change their current situation clearly demonstrate how people tend to be discontented with their own lives regardless of what they have going for them.…
Consider all of the things that we buy, the sizes of our houses and the balances we struggle to pay off on credit cards. Its stress that so many are willing to endure on account of a lifestyle many in America especially now just can’t afford. The clearest example of this today is in pop culture where a lavish lifestyle is portrayed on television so elegantly that the main goal for most “normal people” isn’t self-betterment or self-worth but simply net worth. Gatsby believed that wealth was the only element that would allow Daisy to fall in love with him. Furthermore, what daisy was to Gatsby is what money is to our society. It’s essentially a paradox that has corrupted our perception of what real jubilation…
The passage I decided to use for my essay is from the philosopher Aristotle in his philosophical work, Nicomachean Ethics, Book 1, Section 5. Aristotle states in his book that “Now the mass of mankind are evidently quite slavish in their tastes, preferring a life suitable to beasts, but they get some ground for their view from the fact that many of those in high places share the tastes of Sardanapallus.” (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics, Book 1, Section 5). In Aristotle’s passage he explains how human beings are way to caught up with the idea that we all feel the pressure as if we are all in a race to gain expensive material things, a social status and to obtain certain traits and looks in order to become the best human being we believe is happy. Because we are so caught up in the wrong idea we would rather live a slavish unhappy lifestyle and work ourselves as if we were labor animals so that we can gain things that are not planned for our lives just so that we can have a taste of what it might feel like to be happy, but those who think that way are looking in the wrong places for true happiness. Aristotle believed that having a mindset that we need to be on top no matter what, no…
Everybody wants to be successful, and to make money. Every child grows up wanting to have their name in lights or to live in a huge mansion in the heart of New York. No person grows up wanting to do small things with their life, it’s within our human nature to want more than we can get. To make more money than we know what to do with, to have a house that is too big for us to live in. But for the vast majority of us, as we grow up reality sets in and from our parents we see it is not possible for every single one of us to experience the opulent wealth that we long for.…
“[...] Rising from rags to riches, of amassing a great fortune that will assure a life of luxuriant ease, power, and beauty in an ideal world untroubled by care and devoted to the enjoyment of everlasting pleasure and nothing to intervene between wish and fulfillment. It is a naive dream based on the fallacious assumption that material possessions are synonymous with happiness, harmony, and beauty.” (Roberts 73, 2006)…
In our current day and age, the term luxury has been over used to the point that its meaning has diminished and people are no longer able to decipher what luxury is (Paul Smith 2011). Luxury has become less differential, more emotionally driven, and self-obsessed, making it less about the traditions of the aristocracy and more about how we define ourselves (Leadbeater 2008). “Luxury is a pleasure out of the ordinary” (Paul Smith 2011) that are built on desires. These desires are created by celebrities who play an influential role, in the luxury society today. In present day, the main role of luxury is to portray status in society and convey power. Luxury has become a mask, where one can create the persona they wish to expose to others.…
For example, Mathilde expresses her repetitive unappreciative remarks on life little pleasures. "She grieved over the shabbiness of her apartment, the dinginess of the walls, the worn-out appearance of the chairs, the ugliness of the draperies" is an example of recessive comments in which she complains that she should be treated like gold (de Maupassant 202). Her comments create the fact that her caliber of royalty should not be mistreated. Though she lives in a filthy cottage, which she calls home. Her emotions on life have gone in a realty world where she should be treated like a king. Her envies of better quality life style have turned into a disease, where she must have the finest jewels, tapestries in the world. Her cravings of excessive attention have made her gone into a state of addiction. Mme. Loisel was greedy, dishonest, and did not love her husband. She was a huge complainer who was always looking for attention, and often used people. In addition, Mathilde Loisel is a character that has much pride in her. It is her motivation to act throughout the story, and it is the key to her downfall. Mathilde downfall comes into place when she does not tell Mrs. Forrestier that she lost her necklace. Mathilde does not gush out confessions and prostrating herself while pleading for forgiveness, she takes the responsibility for her mistakes by…
Although luxuries attracts everyone and everyone wants to live a luxurious life but it has worst impacts on the society. When a society is divided in different classes like lower, middle and higher or elite class then it give rise impatience among…