There Wil Be Blood Essay
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Will Moriarty “There Will Be Blood” Essay APUSH People in america are constantly complaining about the government interfering with capitalism and the private sector, and act like the government is what we should be afraid of. This is not the case, for in America the private sector is so powerful that every regulation we have slapped on it has done its part in protecting our safety and human rights. The film “There Will Be Blood” greatly highlights how horribly market fundamentalism and laissez faire government policy of the early 1900s damaged the american people. The film depicts the greed the economy promoted, the oppression it caused, and the overall havoc which comes with a rapidly growing and expanding nation.
The main character, Daniel Plainview, embodies all that was wrong with the United States during the guilded age. He was able to gain power before he knew how to handle it, and he let the greed consume him. There was nobody there telling him he couldn't manipulate innocent townspeople for their land so that is what he did. There was nobody telling him he couldn't put his son on a train and ship him off, so he did. Even Eli Sunday, the preacher, was overcome by greed and came running back to Plainview to sell off the land of the people he had previously loved and preached for. A the very end of the movie you see that Plainview is completely consumed by greed as he humiliates and disowns his own son, because he is a “competitor,” makes the preacher renounce god only to tell him he had already taken the lands oil via oil drainage.
The people of Little Boston show how truly powerless people were in the hands of big business. They were constantly manipulated by Plainview in town meetings and church services, only to have their land be polluted and depleted of its resources. Plainview's oil rigs were examples of how unsafe working conditions were, as men were getting injured and killed left and right. It was Plainview's lack of safety precautions that caused his own son to go deaf. The Standard Oil Company's cameo showed
Will Moriarty “There Will Be Blood” Essay APUSH how easily businesses could be sucked up into monopolies.
The all the major oil booms saw the effects of Daniel Plainview everywhere that a speculator found oil. People would rush in with no time to think, since their competitors were just around the corner, and make irrational and dangerous decisions in the pursuit of wealth. They would do anything they could to cut costs, and damage their workers' lives in the process. This time period, and movie, really sum up why I hate people uplifting market fundamentalism and bashing on government influence of the economy. It makes no sense that we trust these wealth-driven oligarchies over the officials we have elected to embetter our lives and protect our freedoms. It is tragic that the word socialism has become so taboo because of one crazy Eastern nation, because it is bits of socialism that stopped these horrible abuses of power.
But really nothing has stopped. Big corporations are still oppressing people, either directly, through child labor in poor Asian countries, or indirectly, through manipulative health insurance policies and lobbyists preventing the banning of poison. The wealthy are still as untamed as ever, and they are killing our country.
The main character, Daniel Plainview, embodies all that was wrong with the United States during the guilded age. He was able to gain power before he knew how to handle it, and he let the greed consume him. There was nobody there telling him he couldn't manipulate innocent townspeople for their land so that is what he did. There was nobody telling him he couldn't put his son on a train and ship him off, so he did. Even Eli Sunday, the preacher, was overcome by greed and came running back to Plainview to sell off the land of the people he had previously loved and preached for. A the very end of the movie you see that Plainview is completely consumed by greed as he humiliates and disowns his own son, because he is a “competitor,” makes the preacher renounce god only to tell him he had already taken the lands oil via oil drainage.
The people of Little Boston show how truly powerless people were in the hands of big business. They were constantly manipulated by Plainview in town meetings and church services, only to have their land be polluted and depleted of its resources. Plainview's oil rigs were examples of how unsafe working conditions were, as men were getting injured and killed left and right. It was Plainview's lack of safety precautions that caused his own son to go deaf. The Standard Oil Company's cameo showed
Will Moriarty “There Will Be Blood” Essay APUSH how easily businesses could be sucked up into monopolies.
The all the major oil booms saw the effects of Daniel Plainview everywhere that a speculator found oil. People would rush in with no time to think, since their competitors were just around the corner, and make irrational and dangerous decisions in the pursuit of wealth. They would do anything they could to cut costs, and damage their workers' lives in the process. This time period, and movie, really sum up why I hate people uplifting market fundamentalism and bashing on government influence of the economy. It makes no sense that we trust these wealth-driven oligarchies over the officials we have elected to embetter our lives and protect our freedoms. It is tragic that the word socialism has become so taboo because of one crazy Eastern nation, because it is bits of socialism that stopped these horrible abuses of power.
But really nothing has stopped. Big corporations are still oppressing people, either directly, through child labor in poor Asian countries, or indirectly, through manipulative health insurance policies and lobbyists preventing the banning of poison. The wealthy are still as untamed as ever, and they are killing our country.
