Class is what every person in this country aspires to. People spend their whole lives trying to improve their social stature and many times end up completely miserable. A person may climb a corporate ladder to eventually discover that they are completely alone at the top. The only gratification they seek is payment. Money is not class. Money is something that people confuse with social standing. True, the upper class is typically very wealthy, but money isn't the only thing that makes them an upper class. This point is illustrated in both the novel Black Gangster, by Donald Goines, and the hit HBO show (no pun intended) The Sopranos. Two of the main characters, Prince and Tony, are both rich and powerful men, but unfortunately both lack class. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an original essay There are two words that can describe Tony Soprano, scum and bag. He is a horrible person and his upper class lifestyle will be but a moment in his life. His source of income is murder, extortion and robbery. Of course, Tony is not considered by anyone but himself to be an upper class person. There is no way the current upper class will ever accept this. He is their new thing. We see this in an episode where Tony goes golfing with his neighbor and his two friends. His neighbor, who is a doctor, makes a living from the people he helps. This, in my opinion, can actually be considered class. The doctor's friends, who are also actual members of the upper class, insist on asking Tony mafia-style questions, as if he were Al Capone's right-hand man. They don't see Tony as one of them. He is a complete outsider and will never, no matter what, be accepted as someone of high social standing. In a way, Tony and the Doctors crew are like skinny girls who have fat friends; it makes them feel better about themselves. I personally think that if Tony had a decent life resulting from a good education, he would have a lot more class. Anyone can tell, listening to Tony or any of his family members speak, that they are clearly ignorant. It's not just the thick Jersey accent, either. He really is a stupid man when it comes to anything that doesn't have to do with business. It's really a shame that he doesn't vividly describe how he runs his business. If he did, maybe some people would think he's smarter than he looks and acts. This is perhaps the only place where Tony has class, his business management skills. Tony, as the head of his business, is the only place in his miserable life where he gets respect for what he does. Even if many problems arise in his business, he tends to find the appropriate measures to deal with them relatively quickly. Don't get me wrong here. I'm not saying that if a corporate merger goes wrong, bashing someone is a classy thing to do. I simply see Tony at this point in his life as more solid in his self-identification than the rest of his pseudo-lifestyle. When he's at work, he doesn't try to be something he's not. At work, Tony is a gangster, he knows he is a gangster and does not try to be otherwise. This could be due to the whole family aspect of his life. When Tony works, he doesn't need to act elegant; he should be a piece of shit. Not many people will stand in a park and watch some crazy guy driving a Lexus, chasing someone who owes him money, and think, "Wow, that's what I call a lesson." Tony knows that it is not a respectable job to make a living, this is seen several times in the first season as he talks tohis psychiatrist. He has regrets and admits them to them. When he's at home, Tony doesn't act like himself. He almost puts on a show for his family every day of their lives. He pretends to be a great family man, with strong family values ​​and a legitimate job. Honestly, it makes it most of the time. There are moments in the show where you forget that he just strangled a man with an extension cord and think, Awwwwwww, he's a really great dad/husband. As I said before, this is his pseudo-lifestyle. I really can't believe a serial killer could be a great father figure or husband. He plays it for his family and they absorb it as fast as they can. They are sponges for his false sense of class. Carmella, his wife, is showered with gifts, so maybe she'll forget that her husband lies, cheats, steals, and kills to get those gifts. The family lives in a very large house and there are expensive cars and SUVs in the driveway. I guess it's entirely possible that Tony thinks this is the lesson. Having things and money to buy more things. Of course, he's not the only person in the world like this. There are many of them, that's why social identities have been disappearing for days now. Someone pretty close to Tony's plight is Prince. He is a classic example of the villain who thought the only way out of his existence in the ghetto was through crime. There's the old saying that crime doesn't pay. In reality, crime pays, it pays a lot, but in the end, so do you. Prince had unlimited respect from all members of his gang. He also had the respect of most of the gangs in the city, and if he showed any disrespect, he showed them that it needed to be respected by killing someone. I think Prince's confusion with class was because he had everything he could want. Cars, money, drugs, power, whatever, and he probably had it. When they first arrived at the gangs' new hideout, Goines says, there were three black sedans and two Cadillacs parked in the private driveway. The house was one of the old mansions on Chicago Boulevard, once run by an auto millionaire. The place still retained a magnetic glory (Goines, 127). This type of life could easily go to your head as a sense of new social position. But, again, it's just stuff bought by money. The fact that the money used to pay for this place was all money made from drugs and prostitution puts the idea of ​​class in the dumpster. Prince and his entire crew were subject to this false sense of class. They all thought they had grown up and wouldn't have to worry about anything once all the threats were gone. If they had gone to school, become doctors, and grown up that way, this might be true. Unfortunately they chose prostitution and drug dealing. This was a bad choice on their part considering they all end up dead because of it. They paid for the crime that paid for their artificial class. Even if Prince had a closet full of silk suits and drove a Cadillac, someone who was truly upper middle class wouldn't even look in his direction. One great thing about Prince though is that he didn't confuse his work with his home life. His work was his home life and his home life was his work. He didn't have to pretend to be a happy family man, maybe because he didn't have a family, but still. Even when he visited his grandparents, they knew about him and his business. This is where Prince differs from Tony. Prince never had to put on a show and pretend to be upper class. Everyone around him thought they were too.