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.

Journal #14

“Richard Cory“ (497)

Richard Cory is written from the point of view of some townspeople who used to see him coming to town. They idolized him and thought he had the ideal life. He was rich and gentleman-like and the entire town wanted their lives to be like his.

One day Richard Cory shot himself. This story shows realism over idealism but has elements of both. Richard Cory appeared to have an ideal life but he was actually depressed and lonely. His name symbolized that he was rich, hence “Richard” but at his core he was lonely; “cory”

“Miniver Cheevy” (497)

Miniver Cheevy is about a man who dreams of living in the past and wants to have been born at another time. Miniver spens all his time drinking and thinking and never does anything with his life. This poem again show realisim over idealism as Miniver spends his life obsessing over an ideal when his real life wastes away. His name symbolizes “minimal achievement” as the words sound similar.

“Mr. Flood’s Party” (498)

Mr. Flood’s party is about a lonely man who’s friends have all died and is shunned by the townspeople. He is so lonely he holds a drinking party for himself as a way to make the most of what little time he has left. His first name “Eben” sounds like the word “ebbing” symbolizing that Mr. Flood is ebbing away. Flooded in his alcohol.

Brian Cadden

Journal #13

1. What object symbolizes George Gray’s life? How is this object representative of him?

The object that represents him is the boat waiting to sail. This represents him because he is so afraid to try things at life that he is like a boat that has been docked but will never go out into open waters anymore. He doesn’t want to take the chance that something bad would happen to him so he stays at home doing the same things he’s done his whole life without excitement or meaning in his life just like the boat that will never sail again.

2. How was Lucinda Matlock’s life different than George Gray’s? How do you interepret the last line of the poem?

Her life is different than George’s because she has had so many years of excitement and doing what she loved that she felt fulfilled when her time came to pass. Instead of never doing anything new she would try everything she could because she knew that life was short and she wanted to make the best of the time she had. I interpret the last line of the poem to be advice. It says that “You have to live life to love life.” This is so true because if you don’t experience life to its true potential in full how can you love the life that you have lived. Without joy and love in your life you can not be in love with the life that you have lived like George in his poem.

3. How are “George Gray” and “Lucinda Matlock” examples of realism?

They are examples of realism because they both have to do with everyday life. They both are normal people who had normal lives just like the rest of us. The only thing that is different is that she enjoyed her life whereas he didn’t get to fully live his own. There is nothing extreme going on it’s just two people that have opposite opinions on how to live life going about their own lives. Both of them are realistic because that’s what life is.

Journal #12

1. “Young Goodman Brown” is an allegory (symbolic narrative). What do the following represent?

Young Goodman Brown – man who goes from good to evil

Faith – Faith(spiritually,emotionally,physically)

The Elderly Traveller/Fellow-Traveller – devil

Goody Cloyse – Corruption

The Ceremony – sinful nature of people

The Pink Ribbon – Ribbon

Young Goodman Brown’s Journey – Everybody has flaws

2. Identify the following for “Young Goodman Brown”:

Theme Message of Theme Element Used to Establish

Don’t let anyone persuade you from your beliefs.

Always trust your own instincts or you will live a very unhappy life.

Brown’s life before and after his journey

In addition, provide three direct quotes from the story that address your theme.

``Sayest thou so?'' replied he of the serpent, smiling apart. ``Let us walk on, nevertheless,

reasoning as we go; and if I convince thee not thou shalt turn back. We are but a little way in the

forest yet.''

``But where is Faith?'' thought Goodman Brown; and, as hope came into his heart, he trembled

“But he had no power to retreat one step, nor to

resist, even in thought, when the minister and good old Deacon Gookin seized his arms and led him

to the blazing rock.”

Journal #11

“Where I Lived and What I Lived For” (232)

It’s about a man who lives in the woods and the best way to live life is the simple way. He says not to worry about the small things in life and just enjoy the ride. A simple life is a happy and fulfilling life.

Quote: “to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meaness of it, and publish its meaness to the world.”

“Sounds” (234)

He simply listens to the sounds of the day. How in society they say people need to go do stuff and be around other people but he is saying that he just needs to listen and look at nature. This is entertaining enough for him and he doesn’t need other people.

Quote: “I had this advantage, at least in my mode of life, over those who were obligated to look abroad for amusement, to society and the theater, that my life itself has become my amusement and never ceased to be novel”

“Brute Neighbors” (235)

In this passage he is telling the story of the ant’s life and how it is filled with hardship and war just like humans. He is saying that the life of an ant is just as hard to live as a human’s and that they fight as hard as we do in our battles. They also celebrate as much as the humans do when they are victorious. The balance in this is similar to the American Revolution.

Quote: “I was surprised to find that the chips were covered with such combatants, that is was not a duellum, but a bellum, a war between two races of ants, the red always pitted against the black, and frequently two red ones to one black.”(235)

“The Pond in Winter” (237)

The speaker talks about how when winter comes he sees fisherman and just watches them because they don’t follow all the rules. He goes down with the axe to chop holes so he can get his water from the pond. We go out into nature and experience it ourselves and usually it is a simple carefree life. Nature and life is still thriving in winter you just need to know where to look for it.

Quote: “But there was dawning Nature, in whom all creatures live, looking in at my broad windows with serene satisfied face, and no question on her lips.”

“Spring” (238)

He talks about how everything is changing and all the animals and plants are coming out again for the season. He compares spring to a recreation of nature and everything being reborn again. Grudges should be let go and you should forgive people and give them a second chance

Quote: “As every season seems best to us in its turn, so the coming in of spring is like the creation of Cosmos out of Chaos and the realization of the Golden Age.”

Journal #10

Othello definitely comes to some conclusion about what he has done in his life and how that conclusion came to be right before he killed himself. His insight started with that he just killed his wife for reasons that were false even though they were given to him by his trusted soldier Iago. He realizes that he has destroyed his whole life because of faulty information. He had it all and in one swift blow it was all taken away from him. With his demise so close he realized that he got tricked by one of his most trusted officers. He probably learned to never trust anybody especially those closest to you. He realized at the end that he regretted not trusting his wife and that he gave up love for believing some lies about her. He saw that Cassio would now be the head of the army and that it would be in good hands when he was gone. He knew that he wanted to kill himself because he wanted to go honorably. He just wanted to be remembered for what he was not what he became at the end of his life when he was weak. He saw that he was going to be with his wife Desdemona so it wasn’t all that bad.