Journal #21

There are many similarities in these two movies when it comes to the characterization, conflict, and theme. Some of the characters are really similar in these two movies like Joe and Gatsby, Daisy and Sugar, Jerry and Nick, and Tom and Osgood. Joe and Gatsby are similar because they both are chasing after the girl that everyone wants which is why Daisy and Sugar are similar. They are the girls that everyone wants even though Daisy is in a higher class than Sugar. Gatsby and Joe are also similar because they use wealth to try and impress their girls that they want. Only Gatsby actually has money and Joe is just pretending to have wealth. Nick and Jerry are similar because they are the outside looking in. They are very similar because they know the main characters and give insights into their lives. Osgood is related to Tom and Gatsby because they are all rich. Spats is related to Gatsby and Wolsheim because they all have a lot of wealth as well but they have gotten their wealth by doing scandalous things and organized crime. The conflicts are similar because there is a lot of dramatic irony in both of them because we know both women are men and we also know the love triangle going on in the “Great Gatsby”. The themes are similar because they all want to strive for something that they cannot have. Even though they both are chasing what they want it turns out very different for both of them in the end. Gatsby ends up paying his life for it but Joe gets a happy ending with his woman. These two movies are related even though they are very different genres and those are some of the reason as to why they are similar. 

Journal #20

Nick is describing the first time Jay saw Daisy which is when he was looking at the green light across the body of water. He would describe her as beautiful, elegant, and almost as royalty with the way she would present herself to other people. He is saying that the green light represents what daisy is to Jay and how it can blind him just like she can blind him with her beauty. She can leave him unaware of the events that are going on around him that actually end up killing him in the end. He is connecting Jay with the sailors because they both loved this light and were pioneers of this time. They were all ahead of the rest of the people but in the end colonizing a foreign area turned out to be harder for the sailors than they had originally thought. This is how Nick describes Gatsby and the Green light that he loves ever so much.

Journal #19

Write a description for each of the following characters based on his/her first appearance in Chapter 1.  Your description should include:

-the character’s physical appearance;

-the character’s actions/words;

-an adjective that best describes the character based on his/her initial    

 appearance

Nick Carraway        Adjective ____Honest_____

Nick a polished and educated young man and the narrator of the novel. He is the person everyone goes to with their secrets. For example, Gatsby trusts him enough to have him plan a tea where Gatsby will reunite with his love Daisy. Nick is honest, tolerant, tends to reserve his judgment for people.

Tom Buchanan        Adjective _______Hypocrite_____

Tom is a mightily built and doesn’t have any morals. He is an arrogant hypocritical bully especially when he gets mad at Daisy for cheating on him when he himself was having an affair with Myrtle. He is a racist and sexist cheater to whom no one respects.

Daisy Buchanan     Adjective ____Needy____

            Daisy is Nick’s cousin and Gatsby’s love. She a beautiful young woman that, although loves Gatsby, marries Tom due to her need to always be loved. She is a socialite, sardonic, cynical, and superficial.

Jordan Baker           Adjective _____Cynical______

            Jordan is Daisy’s friend and a completive golfer. She represents the “new women” of the 20s and is cynical, boyish, and bends the truth. She once tells Nick that supposedly Gatsby was a German spy.

Jay Gatsby               Adjective ___Troubled_____

            Jay is the Protagonist of the novel and a very wealthy young man. He is deeply troubled with the fact that his love, Daisy, did not wait for him and has ever since tried to win her back. He is dishonest, vulgar, and optimistic. Even though he knew his chances of getting Daisy back were slim, he continued to throw parties in hopes she would attend one.

Journal #18

1. What is the significance of the story’s title?

There are two ways in which they are alienated because they are literally now in a different country than where they were and a physical alienation because of their injuries. This sets them apart and makes them a part of their own separate group. He also has an emotional injury that has set him apart from most people in everyday life.

2. Which character do you think best represents the “Hemingway hero”? Why?

The major is the hero because he suffered the most and had the hardest time dealing with it but he still managed to get through it with grace. Especially since he could no longer fence and his wife died he was suffering a personal and a physical loss. So he can no longer make money being a fencer and now he can't fence as well or maybe even at all.

3. What can you infer about the photographs the doctor hangs up? What is the significance of the major’s reaction?

That the photos weren’t actually real but just staged to look like the machines were working. They were the first to use the machines so there is no way that the injuries were healed by the machines. This acted as more motivation than actually proof of the machines that were working. Their reaction was that they didn’t really buy into it because they were the first ones to use it and the machines were experimental. They are skeptical about how much they will get better.

Journal #17

1. What is the significance of the poem’s epigraph? How does it relate to Prufrock?

Prufrock identifies himself with Dante’s Inferno where he does not have to share his thoughts with the world but rather keep them personal so he would feel no shame with the world and how they would think of him if they were able to hear his thoughts. This shows the internal experience people have with their own thoughts. It shows the stream of conscienceness between Prufrock and the guy in the soliloquy from Dante’s Inferno.

2. Make a list of questions that Prufrock asks. Do you see a pattern/theme to these questions or are they random?

“Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”

“How his hair is growing thin”

“But how his arms and legs are thin”

There is a pattern because he is usually talking about his appearance and how people might judge him so he wants to be careful about how he dresses and looks.

3. What do you think is Prufrock’s main flaw/problem?

His self confidence because he is always questioning his appreance and how he’s going to look to other people. He worries too much about how people think about the way he looks and not the way he acts. He thinks that people only see the outward appearance of somebody and not the personality they have on the inside.

4. Why do you think this is called a love song? In what way is it a love song?

I think this is called a love song because it has to do with Prufrok trying to find love. He tries so hard to impress everyone he meets and worries so much about his appreance that it’s almost like you’re reading a love story because they usually show how the guy meets a girl or tries to. It’s also ironic because he isn’t in a relationship or has any loves in his life but he wants to find someone.

Journal #16

Read the following quote and discuss how it applies to the main characters in both stories. In the course of this discussion, address how each of the characters is both similar and different:

“Determinisim governs everything … The writer must study the inherited traits of individual characterand the social condition of the time. Together, these elements determine the course of any action, the outcome of any life. Free will or self-determination is mostly an illusion, although chance is granteed a role in human affairs. Still, even the effects of chance are obliterated in the inevitable course determined by the interaction of inherited character traits and the social environment.“

In the “Blue Hotel” the Swede was from a different place then the rest of the people. Also in “To Build a Fire” the man was not from those parts he was just searching for gold. Being an outsider somewhere is hard because people aren’t used to you or the culture. Some people inherit bad traits like alcoholism for the Swede and stubbornness for the man. People judge us based on what we look like and then after how we act but first impressions are hard to erase and renew. The Swede had free will to keep pushing the stranger to the edge and that would everntually get him killed. Also the man didn’t listen to the locals to not go out alone and with that kind of weather. He chose by his own free will not to listen to them which eventually led to his demise. It’s hard being an outsider and luck goes the other way in this case but that’s just how society is now a days and we need to learn how to adapt with its every changing ways.

Journal #15

1. Write a sentence that summarizes the story’s overall message, and provide three direct quotes from the story that best illustrate this message.

Don’t just look at the world in your idealistic view but the realistic view as well. Look at the pros and cons because nothing turns out the way you expect.

“To take the part that her whole soul willed him to take, for the completion of her ideal of him”

"I shall always love you, and therefore I shall never

marry any one else. But the man I marry must love

his country first of all”

“I should like to kill a man; but now I

shouldn't care; and the smokeless powder lets you

see the man drop that you kill. It's all for the country”

2. What tactics does Editha use to make George believe as she does about the war?

She uses a lot of religion and patriotism to get him to want to go to war. Because she compares this to being God’s war and God wants him to fight he gives in and then wants to go to war. She also takes him to the rally and he sees all the good stuff like brotherhood and being a captain that war could bring him. She also says a lot of times that if you love your country you will go to war and he loves his country so that convinces him more to go to war.

3. Is there ever a time in which Editha truly understands what she has done? Does she ever experience an epiphany?

I think she does realize what she has done when she finds out that George has died in the war. She starts crying frantically and tells his mom right away like George told her to do if he were to die. She does realize that she never thought that she would die but I don’t think she had an epiphany because she just goes right back to moving on and persuading people at the end. She never really grieves over him as much as she would if she truly realized what she had caused.