The Gold Standard

After reading The Privileges and gaining a sense of the book’s main purposes, the difficulty increases in choosing only one color. Although many colors accurately represent the Morey family, I believe, in the least cliché way possible, that the color gold best represents them as well as the book overall. People claim that the color gold represents three things: increased personal power/ success, relaxation and enjoyment of life, and good health while also obviously alluding to wealth, all themes through the book. The audience sees an obvious display of increased personal power/ success in most characters however especially with father Adam Morey. Throughout the novel Adam experiences increasing success and therefore power in himself and feels that he “can’t let up…for a moment” for fear of losing his success (243). The steadfast diction of “can’t” indirectly characterizes Adam as determined and willing to do whatever it takes to achieve success. His attitude rubs off on his coworkers as they become a part of his underground business deals. His determined attitude also alludes to another main trait of gold; good health. Adam, as well as his wife and friends overly concern themselves with staying young and in good health. Adam becomes so obsessive that when he misses even one workout during a business trip he promises himself to “double his workouts” once he gets home (243). The exaggerated tone implies Adam’s dedication to his self image and health; a reoccurring theme throughout the novel as people strive to look young. The Morey’s daughter April, however, wants quite the opposite as she has always acted and looked older. She and her generation of young adults puts the gold color to use by encompassing relaxation and enjoyment of life. However, their generation takes it to the extreme by excessively partying and spending money and claiming that their parents let them “do whatever they wanted” (131). Here Dee claims that parents of today’s generation act too leniently with their children by allowing them to get away with anything. With all of these characteristics of the book, gold as a symbol of wealth ties the whole book together under the blanket of impending wealth and the risks it takes to achieve it.

YOLO

            As I rounded the corner into the second third of The Privileges, I noticed a reoccurring theme within the character Adam Morey. Author Jonathan Dee portrays Adam as a progressive man with a goal and no desire to look into the past. While I disagree with his concept on forgetting the past completely, I do find myself encouraging his attitude of moving forward. One passage that describes how I would want to live my life comes from Adam Morey himself as he believes that “The only thing that exists, the only risk to be analyzed, is what’s in front of us today” (143). I admire Adam’s sense of purpose in life and his driven attitude to achieve it. To me, this passage means that even if one makes a mistake or does some sort of wrong, once a lesson comes from it, there proves no reason to further analyze the mistake. As a human, I tend to make the occasional mistake and usually find myself dwelling on it as a vast majority of people do. Even once the mistake becomes corrected, I cannot help return to that moment and analyze it, no matter the kind of embarrassment or shame or other feelings that came from it. While people may take this passage the wrong way and read it as forget the past without learning, I believe Adam simply suggests that dwelling and analyzing the past can stifle present and future progress. I would like to live my life in this way that I learn from the past however move on because, as Dee implies through Adam, the present only occurs once, while the past has already happened. Or as our good friend Drake says, YOLO.

Can you fire a mom?

Throughout the first third of The Privileges, I found aspects of each character that I disapproved of however; the character Cynthia Morey proved the least likable in my opinion. Set mostly in the bustling city of New York, author Jonathon Dee, a native to his books principle setting, writes of the trials brought unto the young Adam and Cynthia Morey and their family. While focusing on Cynthia, Dee introduces her in the beginning of the book by saying that she would not be bothered "if things don't go perfectly" in reference to her wedding that day (6). This easy going statement indirectly characterizes her as relaxed foiling her against her mother Ruth who seems ready to crack like an egg. Dee continues to show Cynthia's evolving personality as she enters the foreign world of married life and eventually motherhood. His further description of Cynthia totally contradicts her former self as raising children also raises her nerves and a lacking sense of purpose. The once carefree and relaxed Cynthia has all but disappeared as the second chapter begins with her rowdy five and six year old children fighting. Cynthia’s inability to control her children shows as she “was crying” when they continued to fight (37). Although this action creates pathos for mothers who cannot control their children, I found it extremely aggravating as her weakness continued to evolve into a question of her purpose in the world. This lack of confidence in herself continues when the children get older in that she could not “say no to very much” (82). I believe this indirectly characterizes Cynthia as a weak, bad mother as she wants to have her daughter see her as a friend rather than a parent. The fact that Cynthia allows her children to walk all over her bothers me to a great extent. Her lack of restrictions, I believe, falls on the blame-like tone she takes when she feels that a privilege “had been stolen from her” (53). Proving herself selfish, she further grew irritating in my eyes. That, coupled with her weak sense of self, leads to me dislike Cynthia very much as I believe a mother should not only have the ability and desire to raise her children selflessly but remain a strong and firm role model for her children. Her drastic change from a carfree spirit to shadow barely able to control her kids proves that she does not have what it takes for the cut-throat world of moms. Next applicant, please.