There are many situations in the book and many of the man’s actions that made me think about the different theories and philosophers we have learned about throughout this class. After reading the book the one philosopher that stuck in my head throughout the book was Aristotle. Aristotle believes that the ultimate goal in life is happiness and I think that is what Hamid tried to portray through the main character. The main character believes that if he can become this rich and successful man he will be happy. He ends up losing his friends throughout this journey and realizes that he is alone and unhappy. However, then he realizes that to be happy he doesn’t need to be super rich and he helps out people in need.
The other philosopher that stuck in my head throughout reading this book was Mills. Mills believed that there is no universal rule to which pleasure will be most gratifying for everyone. Past experiences and they way we apply emotion and reasoning to them determines our interpretations of pain and pleasure. For the man, his past experiences were growing up poor so his ultimate goal of pleasure would be becoming rich. I do agree with Mills that past experiences do determine your interpretations of pain and pleasure. However I think that the man’s situation is a little different. Although the man grows up as being poor, he thinks that once he becomes wealthy he will have happiness but as you continue to read the book, we understand that money doesn’t ultimately bring happiness.
The language style of this book is much different than any other book I’ve read. I love to read for pleasure and love to read romantic novels and especially love Nicholas Sparks’ books. However this book is much different because each chapter begins with the man giving a little bit of information on how to get rich and then going back to his story. I also didn’t expect this novel to be as descriptive as it was and when I first started reading it I thought it was a little bit too much. It is helpful to help you connect to the narrator and make you feel like you are in his shoes but I was taken back a little bit.
Thesis statement:
“The interpretation of pleasure and happiness varies from person to person depending on their experiences. Without realizing it, many of our ultimate goals are to be happy but we often don’t realize it at first. The ultimate goal of happiness often comes from the intangible things and the things that don’t have a price tag on them.”
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