Fear A Good Thing Or Bad Thing Essays - The Great Gatsby

Fear: A Good Thing Or Bad Thing FEAR: A GOOD OR BAD THING? A whole new environment was thrown at the young boy all of a sudden. He had never seen such different people, or so many people altogether. He had reached high school. Before this, he had gone to a small public school, which only consisted of about the number of people in one class in high school, and some classes even surpassed the amount in the entire school. He wasnt sure what to do, where to go; his mind was in a state of blankness. His palms were sweating, along with the rest of his body because of all the beautiful girls he had never seen before; in addition, to make all these matters worse, he was a shy guy. This quiet young man decided to face the facts: he was going to be attending this school for four years, so he might as well make the best of the time being. He didnt know where to start making a good impression, so he started in the classroom. He was intimidated because he had heard the classes were much more arduous compared to the ones in elementary and middle school, but he finally gave it a shot. According to Websters New World Dictionary, fear is the anxiety caused by real or possible danger, pain, etc.; fright. There is a gargantuan amount of people who would like to avoid fear altogether, but it is a part of life and without it, life would be extremely boring. The fear people endure can be perceived positively because it can help people do things they never thought of doing; on the other hand, it can deter them from achieving the goals they have set for themselves. This notion is shown in the following pieces of work: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Tragedy of Macbeth by William Shakespeare, and Cry, the Beloved Country by Alan Paton. Since the beginning of time, fear has been accompanying everybody that has walked on this planet and maybe even on other ones. As H.P. Lovecraft puts it, The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear (www.phobialist.com/fears). This quote reveals how everything people do is based on how strong the fear in somebody actually is, this determines if they are able to go out and achieve their goal, or just pay attention to the fear and chicken out. Fear can and should be conquered because it is the only thing hampering anybody from doing what he or she wants. Without fear, people would be able to do anything they want, which would allow people to achieve their goals. There are times that seem too impossible, too difficult to overcome, but all it is is fear holding people back in order to make one not achieve the objectives one has. As time flies by, everybody experiences these types of situations, even simultaneously. For example, in the dark trenches of the Great Depression, the nation as a whole, along with the president, was going through rough times. Franklin Delano Roosevelt made his inaugural presidential speech relating to fear. It states, The only thing we have to fear is fear itself- nameless, unreasoning, unjustified, terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance (www.phobialist.com/fears). Everything F.D.R. states in his speech, is absolutely true because in order to do something, all someone has to do is conquer their fear; therefore, the only thing one has to try not having is fear because without it, whomever wants to do something could. As in the lives of any human, the characters of books also go through situations that contain fear. These fears in them will either make them do something, or it can stop them from taking any action at all. In The Great Gatsby, many of the characters take part in many situations where their fear is brought out. One of the main examples of this, is when Daisy Fay gets as drunk as a monkey (Fitzgerald, 74) the day before her wedding with Tom Buchanan. She gets drunk because she had just received a letter from her former lover, Jay Gatsby, and she fears the marriage taking place the following day will be the