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Fear: A Good Thing Or Bad Thing Essay, Research Paper

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 wasn’t 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 didn’t 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 Webster’s 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 biggest mistake of her life. Daisy’s fear shows how someone’s fear can stop one from doing something. Later Daisy overcame the fact that she has certain feelings for Jay, and is now ready to commit to someone else. This example also reveals how fear can change from being an obstruction in the way to a clear passage without anything in sight.

Throughout The Great Gatsby, one of the main characters that endure the mental strain of fear is Jay Gatsby. He has to go through the anxiety of not being able to see his “lover,” Daisy. Once Jay finds out where Daisy lives, he immediately buys a mansion across the bay from where Daisy lives. From his front yard he sees a green light on the dock of Daisy’s house. Every time Jay sees this light it reminds him of Daisy, which just makes him take more actions to get Daisy back. This green light is like a traffic signal

because it tells Jay that his fear is still proceeding in him, and as long as Jay lets it symbolize this, he will never achieve his dream. Once Jay has “conquered” his fear, this green light will not symbolize anything anymore because it will mean he has “destroyed” his fear and can continue with his life.

After some time, Jay becomes acquainted with Daisy’s cousin, Nick Carraway. Nick is Jay’s one way ticket to meet her. Jay finally has the guts to ask Jordan Baker, Nick’s lady friend, to ask Nick to invite Daisy to his house for some tea. The day finally comes when Jay is going to meet Daisy, but he is so scared he doesn’t know how to act. She arrives on a rainy day, and Nick goes outside to greet her, while Jay stayed inside the house. Once Nick and Daisy enter the house, Jay is not there, he has disappeared in fright through the back door. All of a sudden, he appears at the front door

“pale as death, with his hands plunged in his coat pockets,

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