In the informational text, “Can Money Buy Happiness?”, the central idea is by spending money unselfishly, can bring joy to both to giver and the receiver . For instance, in the informational text, Professor Elizabeth Dunn conducted a research in 2008. “She gave cash to two groups of students. She told one group to spend cash on themselves and the other to spend it on someone else. Which group turned out out be happier? The group that spent the money on others.” (Scope Magazine pg 26) According to the research, it is clear that spending money unselfishly brings joy to oneself, but does the character Jerry from, “President Cleveland, Where Are You?” agree with the central idea of “Can Money Buy Happiness?” Jerry would probably have disagreed with the central idea.
First of all, Jerry spent the money to bring Armand, his older brother, to a dance. This could be confirmed in the text when Armand was dressed up in a suit with new shoes when before he only had some old shoes that were falling apart. Where he got the suit? It was from Jerry. “ ‘I needed that five dollars it was an emergency’ “ (Comier pg 29) Jerry spent the five dollars on Armand, although Jerry feels regretful. Jerry spent money on Armand for love, even though he never agreed with love. “I was glad I had never become involved with love - love that bought desperation to your eyes, that caused you to write letters you did not plan to send.” (Comier pg 28) Jerry also muttered “Love” when he saw Armand, Jerry obviously regretted his decision but at the same time he thought he would feel happy.
Secondly, Jerry may have not felt happy because he was forced to spend the money unselfishly. Think about it, he never felt like giving the money to Armand for the cause of “love” but it felt he forced himself to give him the money, or like someone gave him a command to do it. This is implied when Armand thought Jerry a lesson. “ ‘It’s all right,’ he (Armand) said gently. ‘Maybe you learned something.’ The words were gentle but they held a curious dignity, the dignity remaining even when his voice cracked on the last syllable.” (Cormain pg 27) This was probably foreshadowing the part in the story Jerry felt like he was commanded or forced to
If you have ever heard of the grateful dead than you will know that Jerry really was a main key to that band. The Grateful Dead Movie ,released in 1977 and directed by Jerry Garcia. This means that he cared about his band. He was such a big part of the band. He wrote most of the songs for the Grateful dead. He worked hard for his band to be successful. He tried so hard to make sure that it meant something to him. I think that you can see the amount of thought and work went into the songs.He was such a big part of this band that they changed the name to Dead and
As Begley “When people buy something they try to pay as little for it as they can” (p. 1). Therefore, I agree that money sometimes can bring happiness while there are a lot of things which people cannot have it with money. The author states that people enjoy when they get something on sale, and they feel happy when they spend less money for. Also, the author mentions how money can affect people who are poor and give them happiness; however, rich people gather money to increase their wealth. Sharon also writes about the survey, which how people consider their happiness.
One minor conflict is between Jerry and his unresolved feelings toward his mother's death. These feelings, I felt, were mainly the reason he did not take the chocolates. Jerry is looking for a change in his life; a change to get him away from thinking of his mother. Another minor conflict is between Obie and Archie. Obie feels that he is always taking blame for Archie's doings. If Archie fails then Obie takes blame. If Archie succeeds then Archie gets the credit. Obie becomes angrier with each assignment Archie gives out.
Growing up in a family where both my parents came from poor immigrant backgrounds always made financial success a priority and when there was no need to be frugal, my parents did seem happier. But did money buy my parents’ happiness or did money lead to their happiness? Ed Diener and Robert Biswas-Diener attempt to answer that question in their excerpt “Can Money Buy Happiness,” where they claim that “[m]oney can be a help in attaining psychological wealth, but it should be considered in the bigger picture of what makes people general genuinely rich (Biswas-Diener 161). Although not explicitly defined by Diener and Biswas-Diener, “psychological wealth” is the overall measure of happiness, beyond just fiscal affluence, including positive ties with other individuals and joyful temperaments (Biswas-Diener 168). By extending Biswas-Diener and Diener’s idea of “psychological wealth” to include the perception of what wealth is and what wealth consists of beyond monetary success, such as achievements or fulfillment, there exist a copious number of ways to view wealth. One can be rich in more than finances and happiness is dependent upon the perception of wealth due to money being one of several paths, including deliberate effort and being positive, to “psychological wealth” which leads to happiness.
Initially, our first thoughts of Jerry at the beginning of the story, is that he acts immature and is burdened within a circle of maternal protection. During the opening of the story, the author conveys Jerry’s relative childishness by labeling him as “the boy”. The author also uses the mother to demonstrate his youth and how he is trapped in a circle of maternal protection which leads us to think that he is lonely due to that reason. In this part, “His mother walks in front of him, carrying a bright white strap in one hand” tells us that because the mother was walking in front of him, it gives us the impression that the mother still thinks of him as a boy that needs to be protected from any potential harm. We see more of Jerry’s immaturity and how the burden of protection leads his actions as we go through the story. During the part where Jerry sees the group of boys acting free-spirited, we see that he is overcome with desire to be with them, probably because he feels that because he is always in the circle of protection making him feel lonely and isolated from everyone. At first, he is added into the group and begins to have fun jumping from the cliff into the water with the other boys. Later on however, he starts to act immature when he realizes he could not do the same thing the other boys were doing. That was, underwater for a long time and going through the dark tunnel and he becomes scared. In this passage,“... In a panic of failure, he yelled up, in English, “Look at me! Look!” and he began splashing and kicking the water like a
Jerry: Selfish to Selfless We can learn a lot from how Jerry set aside the signed glove for his family. Jerry from "President Cleveland, Where Are You?" by Robert Cornier is an important character who shows selfless in the face of his own desires after being stingy with his money even though it was his dad’s birthday. Through his actions he demonstrates the story’s theme of putting family or group goals before your own. Jerry displays selfishness in the beginning of “President Cleveland, Where Are You?”
Jerry is haunted by his unimportance. He is unable to regain his composure after he overplays his rebellious actions. Defying the Vigils and Trinity takes its toll. Although
The characterization of Jerry illustrates the stages of maturing and becoming independent. In the beginning of the story, Jerry is depicted as young and immature. The immaturity of Jerry is shown when he is trying to capture the older boys’ attention. In order to capture their attention, “he began splashing and kicking in the water like a foolish dog.” This action conveys that Jerry is still immature, and wants to join the older kids. After seeing the boys pass through the tunnel, Jerry also wants to pass through in order to be a part of their group. In order
Jerry keeps the troubling situation secret at home because he doesn’t want to bother his dad with it since his mom died not too long ago, as Obie pointed out in chapter 2. Jerry doesn’t talk to his dad about anything because he doesn’t want his dad to have to deal with the drama of the chocolate sales and pain of getting beat up. This is not only seen in chapter 32 on page 219 when it states “Compassion for his father welled in Jerry. Should he tell his father what it was was all about? But he didn’t want to involve him.”, but it’s also seen in chapter 34 on page 225 where it says “He didn’t want his father’s universe to be disturbed and he wanted his own to be put in order again.”
Jerry demonstrates how powerful the ability to choose your own actions is. Kevin; a future vigils member was talking to Danny about how they wanted the freedom to not sell the chocolates as shown is this quote. “‘I think maybe that Renault kid’s got the right idea...and said he wasn’t going to sell the junk...I'm getting sick of selling stuff...the kids probably got the right idea’”(Cormier,112). They envy jerry, that he doesn’t have to sell the chocolates. They also wish they had the guts to stop selling the chocolates. But not selling the chocolates does come with a price to pay. “‘I won’t sell their chocolates whether they beat me up or not, and I'm not a fairy, not a queer’”(Cormier,173).
Maurie Backman, finance writer for the Motley Fool argues that money can buy happiness - if the money is spent right. To be more specific, money and savings can be used to purchase free time to enjoy some leisure activities, such as buying a new TV to watch better pixelation and broadcasting, watching a movie with close friends, etc. These leisure activities did make people happier, according to a survey of 6,000 adults, which was conducted by researchers at the University of British Columbia and Harvard Business School in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Backman emphasizes, “....part of the reason [Americans] are so behind on savings is because [Americans] are paying for
The subject of this paper is the age-old question, “Does Money Buy Happiness”. On the surface, this question appears to be an easy one. Happiness however, is a subjective item. To better answer this, several points must be analyzed such as, “What is happiness?”, “How is it measured?” etc. To better streamline this process, a research question was developed:
We all have heard the phrase “money can’t buy you happiness.” That phrase is a lie because mostly everything in today’s society revolves around money. The things people like revolve around money too. What a coincidence? Let’s say a person is upset so they go buy their favorite ice cream because they know it will make them happy. That person had the money to invest in something that made them happy. Or on an even bigger let’s say someone has been fantasizing about a car and they finally get enough money to purchase their dream car. This person is likely to be very happy. If it was not for the money, they would not have gotten that dream car, so basically the money made them happy. The truth is money makes people happy.
MP Dunleavey, is the author of Money Can Buy Happiness. She is an award-winning personal finance author, editor, consultant, specializing in women and money. She is also a former columnist for The New York Times, and MSN Money. Dunleavey points out some good ideas about financial key terms to validate how spending money when makes you happy, makes a lot of sense. It’s a usual advice about retirement and paying down debt but that’s always a given. The best parts of this book are the parts that focus on happiness and evaluating if you are using money for its intended purpose.
There are many people claim that there is not any relationship between money and happiness. However, I believe that there is a direct relationship between money and happiness. Research shows that being able to provide our basic needs and higher-level wants leads us to a happy life. The relationship between money and happiness is like the relationship between food and body. “The importance of money in human life is similar to the importance of food for the body. Just like you can’t live even for a few days without food, you can’t survive for long without money.”(Singh, 2015).Having access to our necessities, being able to participate in leisure activities, and being able to help our friends, are things which make us happy; and we need money for having them.So, for being happy in our life,