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.