What’s So Good About Gatsby?

1. As a person and with himself I don’t think gatsby is great. He leaves everything to basically reinvent himself. He’s willing to do anything and takes risks to get what he wants. In the pas, he falls in love with Daisy, and when he finds her again while he’s trying to recreate himself he finds out he hadsn’t let go of her. There’s something with him and makes his not planned love take over him and control him. I feel like that made him lose sight of where he was going and unfortunately loses himself in that process. But also he’s a great person based on how he’s trying to become a better person.

2. I feel like Nick is definitely honest with himself. He hangsout with dishonesy people because he feels like he’s going to miss out on something. For example, like basic behavior that comes from those kinds of people. He’s tries giving those people the benefit of the doubt despite their way of being dishonest. I feel like he sees past that.

3. Tom and Daisy are careless people. They are totally insensitive and don’t think about others. Tom hurts Mrtyle by breaking his nose. He makes Wilson believe that Myrtle was Tom’s mistress. He also said stuff to make him believe that gatsby was her killer. Even though, Tom and Daisy are both married to each other, Tom has a mistress and Daisy enjoys ‘flirting’ with Gatsby. It seems as if they use their wealth and money as a way of getting out of stuff. Daisy doesn’t have a sense of obligation because she doesn’t pay attention to her own daughter.

4. Daisy is not a person I would let my son/brother/friend hangout with. Her actions throughout the book have shown that she isn’t a person I would want associated with me in anyway. Her carelessness  for others including her own daughter just shows her way of being.

5. The last line of The Great Gatsby means that in a way Gatsby was trying to recapture or relive his life and the past. That leads him to fight for Daisy’s love which he would do anything to win completely. In general, I feel like the last like means that while following our dreams and going on with life we find ourselves somehow caught in the past and sometimes it feels like we’re moving back rather than forward.

Gatsby Test Chapters 1-4

Chapter 1
1. What does Nick say about himself in the beginning of the book?
2. How does Nick know Tom and Daisy and what does he experience when he’s with them?

Chapter 2
3. What did Tom do to Myrtle and what does that say about his character?
4. In chapter 1, Nick finds out about Tom’s mistress. How does he encounter with her?

Chapter 3
5. How did the other people at the party react when Nick asked them where Gatsby was?
6. What are some of the things that Nick heard about Gatsby in this chapter?

Chapter 4
7. Why does Nick question some of the things Gatsby is telling him about himself on their ride to New York?
8. What do we learn about Mr. Wolfshiem?

Great Gatsby 4

In chapter 4 Nick and Gatsby are riding together into New York. Gatsby is telling Nick about his life in the past. He tells Nick about how he’s from the wealthy midwest. Nick proceeds to ask from where in the midwest. To what he responds ‘San Francisco. But if you must know, San Francisco is most definitely not in the Midwest. Although, some of what Gatsby told Nick was very laughable and unbelievable to Nick, he showed him a picture of him standing at Oxford. So maybe some of it was true.
Then while in New York, Nick sees Jordan. She finally tells him about their conversation at the party. Apparently, Gatsby is in love with Daisy by what Gatsby told Jordan. Gatsby was just leaving for war when Daisy and Gatsby were in love. So after he left to war, Daisy married Tom. Gatsby wants Nick to set up some way that Daisy and him meet up again. 

Great Gatsby 2

While reading the Great Gatsby today, we learned about Daisy. Daisy is a woman who isn’t mindful of other people’s feelings. She has a 3 year old daughter, who she briefly mentions as if the little girl was nothing. Nick, the narrator, doesn’t seem to like Tom and Daisy but is interested to find out what their life is like living by the bay. While Nick is at their house, the butler interupts with a call from another woman, but nobody wants to say anything about her. Now, if that was me I would think they are being suspicious and hiding something bad, because they don’t want to talk about it.

Down The Rabbit Hole

         In John Steinback’s article ‘ Good and Evil, thr Necessary Contradictions of the Human Nature, and Our Ground for Lucid Hope’ , I clicked on the link the difficult art of the friend breakup. I specifically clicked on this link, because I just went through this whole growing apart from a true friend. My best friend, to be exact. The thing is, yeah I was sad, but I thought I would be more hurt by this because she was my bestest friend. This goes to show that deep down she wasn’t and I knew it. I knew there was other people who I should consider better to me and actually being a friend to me than her. We never hung out. She would get upset when I would hangout with other people, but when she did the same thing I wouldn’t get mad because I’ m not a selfish person. I was ALWAYS there for her no matter what. I then began to notice she wouldn’t do the same for me. The thing that hurt me the most was that when I was going through a rough time physically, just out of surgery, she didn’t ask how I was. I don’t know about you but that hurt me. She made it seem like  she didn’t care about my well being or just about me. It really hurt me. But I didn’t say anything because I thought it was such a stupid reason. Mentally, I wasn’t good either. Thoughts running through my brain, getting me exhausted but I still don’t show it. After a couple months of bit talking, I faced her and told her how I felt about our so called “friendship”. She recognized her mistakes, but I couldn’t take her back as my bestfriend anymore. I didn’t want to, for various reasons.
         Steinback’s article shows a letter that Steinback personally wrote to his old friend George Albee. I can realate very much to it. “When he was most in need of support from his loved ones, he learned that Albee had been speaking ill of him instead of sticking up for him. The disloyalty wounded Steinbeck deeply and he distanced himself from his former friend.” “I’ve needed help and trust and the benefit of the doubt, because I’ve tried to beat the system which destroys every writer, and from you have come only wounds and kicks in the face. And that is the reason and I think you always knew it was the reason.” “People I liked have changed… I’m tired of the struggle against all the forces that this miserable success has brought against me.” These few quotes above hit me hard, to say my eyes started sweating and I kind of got the chills. I learned that just like John it was right to face her and tell her what was on my mind about my friendship. Letting go of her, as my best friend, was hard, but getting rid of the way she treated me was a good thing for me. It taught me that it was okay for me to let go because it wasn’t right for me. That I’m not a bad person for leaving our friendship. That I shouldn’t regret it. We learn and we grow from the good and the bad.

20th Century Writing Styles

Genre- a category of artistic composition, as in music or literature, characterized by similarities in form, style, or subject matter

Naturalism is a style and theory of representation based on accurate depiction of detail 

Realism- (1)attitude or practice of accepting a situation as it is and being prepared to deal with it accordingly

(2) the quality or fact of representing a person, thing, or situation accurately or in a way that is true to life

Moderism - modern character or quality of thought, expression, or technique

How To Get To Graceland

Something like reading, I prefer to do it by myself. I gain more, understand more of the content I’ reading. If I don’t understand something I go back and read it until I know I understand. When reading with others I tend to get more distracted. Math, on the other hand, that is something I can do with others. I don’t always get it completely, so I can use the extra help when doing it with other people. In Paul Simon’s video working together resulted in showing the capability of their art. There talent was shown and they definitely gained something from working together.