The Great Gatsby: Chapters 6-7

Mr. Heape, I used the online book to read so I do not know the specific page numbers the quotes are on, but I can give you the chapters.

 "I knew that except for the half-hour she’d been alone with Gatsby she wasn’t having a good time." (Chapter 6)

The author suggests by Daisy’s unbiased behavior of the people and action of the party, she does not enjoy her time at her actual “lovers” party. This saddens Jay Gatsby even though Daisy suggests that it was not a boring time. Nick Carraway could tell that she did not have a good time and his argument is how she only had the best time of the night when she was alone with Gatsby. This is almost a given because she is unhappy with her life except for the time she is with Gatsby behind her husband’s back.

The girl addressed was trying, unsuccessfully, to slump against my shoulder. At this inquiry she sat up and opened her eyes. (Chapter 6)

Immediately before this quote, Nick explains the tipsiness of the table he was sitting at. He had been with these people before at Gatsby’s party just two weeks earlier and decides it would be a good time to go back. This suggests that the woman who attempted to lay her head against his shoulder was also drunk, even though he did not exactly say it, it is implied. The author also suggests how drunk this woman was because she had “unsuccessfully” slumped against his shoulder. If she wasn’t that drunk, she wouldn’t have messed up and made a fool of herself.

“I like her,” said Daisy, “I think she’s lovely.”
But the rest offended her — and inarguably, because it wasn’t a gesture but an emotion. (Chapter 6)

Daisy is not particularly liking this woman that she sees, but more jealous of her actions at this party. She is with a man under a tree in the moonlight and they seem extremely lovable towards each other at this party. Daisy sees the two and pictures herself and Jay and how they could be if she was not with Tom. The argument the author is trying to make is not that Daisy only thinks she looks lovely, but her life is lovely.

He was calling up at Daisy’s request — would I come to lunch at her house to-morrow? Miss Baker would be there. Half an hour later Daisy herself telephoned and seemed relieved to find that I was coming. Something was up. (Chapter 7)

Nick thought that he, Jay, Jordan, and the Buchanan’s were all having lunch together and Tom’s house was very odd. Due to the fact that both tom and Daisy have been cheating on each other and Tom doesn’t not even know about Daisy and Gatsby’s affair. Nick suggests to himself that “something was up” and they are meaning to make this not seem like an awkward situation. Given the people attending, Nick believes Jay and Daisy are going to make a scene and finally come out to Tom about their love affair. He does not understand why they would do it over lunch, and why they want himself and Jordan there as well.

“You’re crazy!” he exploded. “I can’t speak about what happened five years ago, because I didn’t know Daisy then — and I’ll be damned if I see how you got within a mile of her unless you brought the groceries to the back door. But all the rest of that’s a God damned lie. Daisy loved me when she married me and she loves me now.” (Chapter 7)

Tom absolutely will not accept the fact Daisy has never loved him. He finds it impossible that they have been in love for five years when that was even before Daisy had met himself. The author is suggesting the hardheadedness of Tom about everything daisy. He will not accept the truth if he does not want it to be fact. Even when Daisy tells him she never loved him, he doesn’t believe the words coming out of her mouth. The only words that are fact are the ones coming out of his mouth, he believes. It also suggests that Daisy and Gatsby had to have been making this up because there is no way the two of them could have been seeing each other right under his nose. Tom will not accept a fault of his because he has too much pride to admit when he is wrong.

Commencement Speech

 

                The author’s argument that you as an individual need to find what you are looking for in life and not feel the need to live up to other’s standards is very uplifting and inspiring. She encourages going against the behavior society expects you to have to find your own way of life. Let go of what your parents, friends, or society want you to be and start being yourself. The hardest part is finding yourself first.

                Obviously, there can be no individuality between people if everyone is perfect and precise with their actions. Limitations have held people back from progressing in the direction of individuality and happiness. The author explains “nothing important, or meaningful, or beautiful, or interesting, or great ever came out of imitations”. The point is, no one should stop you from being yourself because your uniqueness is what makes the community a better, more meaningful place. Order and strict policies make everything predictable and more importantly, boring. You were brought into this world and you should determine your own fate, not rules.

                She also argues how parents may lose their want for a happy child and replace it for what they think a happy child would be. Parents want more for their children than what they had growing up. That could mean they want their kids to have better grades to get into a higher college than they went to, or they want their child to be involved and successful at sports because the parents wish they could have been greater in that area. Parents sometimes forget what being a kid and growing up is like. The author, as a parent herself, confesses that it is a difficult job to uphold. Parents have to remind themselves that happiness does not automatically come with success, money, or reputation. It comes with accepting who you are and what you think is successful in your own terms, not what the people closest to you or society think. At the end of the day, the only opinion that matters is you own because you have to live with that opinion for the rest of your life.

                If you try to be “perfect” according to your family, your friends, your community, and your society, the chances of you being truly happy with yourself is very slim. There will be something missing inside of you and that will burden you worse than if you had let any other person down. The author explains there is so much weight on everyone’s shoulders to be perfect and everything everyone wants you to be. She uses the metaphor of a backpack full of bricks to demonstrate the heaviness of society on your shoulders. She explains that if you just take the backpack with all the heavy bricks off, everything will seem so light as a feather, especially life. Take a chill pill and enjoy life instead of packing everything up. This is a genius idea and illustration to show people the importance of relaxing and not stressing about the world.

The Great Gatsby: Chapters 4-5

Mr. Heape, I used the online textbook website you gave us so I do not have the page numbers. However, I can give you the chapters.

(1) "I’d seen it. Everybody had seen it. It was a rich cream color, bright with nickel, swollen here and there in its monstrous length with triumphant hat-boxes and supper-boxes and tool-boxes, and terraced with a labyrinth of wind-shields that mirrored a dozen suns." (Chapter 4)

Before this, Gatsby had recognized Nick Carraway was eyeing his car. Gatsby says “It’s pretty, isn’t it?”…”haven’t you seen it before?” to suggest that Nick is not wealthy enough or educated to know the car or be expected to know what is so great about it. This quote argues that the speaker is more intelligent than people may give him credit for, but also that people are more intelligent than Gatsby gives them credit for. He used the short sentence “I’d seen it” to give off some attitude toward Gatsby and used familiar words to describe the car such as “swollen here and there” and “mirrored a dozen suns” to show how he had seen it before and analyzed it with much depth.

(2)” I had talked with him perhaps half a dozen times in the past month and found, to my disappointment, that he had little to say: So my first impression, that he was a person of some undefined consequence, had gradually faded and he had become simply the proprietor of an elaborate road-house next door.” (Chapter 4)

            Here the speaker argues the fact that besides Gatsby’s reputation and how highly people think of this man or how mysterious he may be, he is genuinely just like any other person. At first, he was a shadow in the knowledge of people, but then the speaker had started spending more time with this character and he became less dark and more boring. There is not much to him, and this makes Nick upset because he finally broke the awkwardness that no one gets emotionally close to this man but there is not a lot in the shell of his body.

(3)” Unlike Gatsby and Tom Buchanan, I had no girl whose disembodied face floated along the dark cornices and blinding signs, and so I drew up the girl beside me, tightening my arms. Her wan, scornful mouth smiled, and so I drew her up again closer, this time to my face.” (Chapter4)

            Carraway comparing himself to the great Gatsby and the one and only Tom Buchanan put him on a very high scale of reputation and wealth. The argument is of how he is technically a better man than both Jay and Tom because he knows how to treat a girl right. He only has one girl, and does not have to keep her in the dark or a secret from the rest of the is setting very high expectations for himself and now believes to be superior to the men who are shaming other woman, or in Daisy and Jay’s situation, disobeying her and Tom’s marriage.

(4)” An hour later the front door opened nervously, and Gatsby, in a white flannel suit, silver shirt, and gold-colored tie, hurried in. He was pale, and there were dark signs of sleeplessness beneath his eyes.” (Chapter 5)

            Here, the speaker attempts to show the readers what Gatsby’s condition looked like in order to persuade them to feel like Jay is just another nervous male about to meet a woman and has been wanting to talk to for ages. He said that Gatsby opened the door “nervously” to show how it is taking a toll on his body. Then it describes his looks, he is wearing a suit with a tie, which makes men look superior and tough, but Jay is not carrying himself as so. Nick describes Jay as pale and sleepless eyes to persuade the readers that Jay is obviously nervous about reuniting with Daisy, but more importantly a regular person with feelings.

(5) “I tried to go then, but they wouldn’t hear of it; perhaps my presence made them feel more satisfactorily alone.” (Chapter 5)

            The argument here is how Nick extremely wants to leave the area with Jay and Daisy in it after the awkward statement Daisy made about wanting to push around Jay in a big pink fluffy cloud. Nick felt like it was his time to go. He is trying to persuade the readers to understand that he wants to go, but that for some odd reason the happy couple wants him to stay in the room. They don’t want to be alone so that Daisy isn’t exactly alone with one man while married to another, therefore needing Nick around. It does not last though, and Nick finally escapes.

           

Week 1.3 Let Teenagers Try Adulthood

Non-Fiction Reading Response

          

                Leon Botstein's “Let Teenagers Try Adulthood”, says that high school is not anywhere near what the tradition used to be. The typical American high school in earlier times was for the transition of children, but it is now holding back young adults from what their full potential could possibly be. In fact, teenagers are maturing faster in modern days in such a rush to grow up, having sexual activities sooner than anticipated, and even puberty is occurring earlier in kids lives, especially girls. His argument throughout the paper is how teenagers should be put into college and the world at age sixteen rather than the normal American high school age of graduation, 18. I agree with this argument, because coming from a teenager, I would much rather be in college and have the freedoms I have heard of for the past couple years now, at my age of sixteen. I have the ability to work hard and live on my own because my parents have raised me up to be and independent person and take care of myself without mommy and daddy’s help all the time. If other people have raised their children to do things by themselves and make something of themselves at a young age, why not let them? All it takes would be motivation and proper training for all sixteen year olds to be put in the real world.

            In addition, I agree with Botstein’s position on who runs the high schools. Jocks, attractive students, and the popular by association people are the ones who own the school. If the fact, if the outsider of the high school is usually the most successful one, why let them suffer for a couple more years instead of letting them bloom outside high school? Yes, there are exceptions, such as sports stars who go pro, singers, successful doctors who were popular in high school, but wouldn’t that just make everyone shine their greatness onto their community sooner? This situation goes right along with Thomas Paine’s argument in “The Rights of Man”. In his attack on Edmund Burke, who did not want to change the original style of government because it had worked previously, Paine believes that if a society and people change, show should the style of government to match the people of that time period. The same concept should go with the education style. No one can help that teenagers and kids are growing up and maturing faster than in the past, so instead of trying to change what American’s cannot control, why not change what we can to match the people of our society today? Botstein says that “Elementary school should begin at age four or five and end in the sixth grade. We should entirely abandon the concept of the middle school and junior high school.” High school should begin with the seventh grade, and then be four years of secondary education that we may call high school and end at the age of 16 instead of 18. This tradition should be put in place to match how much the teenagers could contribute to the community and meet the level of the high schooler’s maturity in modern times.

The Great Gatsby: Chapters 1-3

Mr. Heape, I used the online textbook which does not give page numbers, but I can give you the chapters..

(1) "Why they came East I don't know. They had spent a year in France for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together." (Chapter 1)

Fitzgerald suggests that Nick Carraway's second cousin, Daisy Buchanan, and her football all-star husband, Tom Buchanan, were uneducated in their decision to move east to the area in New York. He questions the couple's actions by saying "Why" and "I don't know" in the same sentence. Then, the author backs up his assumption by telling the reader what they had done with their times and life before they settled East. They lived in France for a year for "no particular reason", which concludes that Nick does not understand why they would live in such a marvelous place and act like it is no big deal to have lived there then come back to a place that would supposedly be a "downgrade" in the narrator's mind.

(2) "If she saw me out of the corner of her eyes she gave no hint of it — indeed, I was almost surprised into murmuring an apology for having disturbed her by coming in." (Chapter 1)

The still, mysterious person Nick is referring to is a woman friend of Daisy’s who lives at the Buchanan's house, Jordan Baker. Here, the author tries to give off the impression that when Nick enters the room, he is disturbing to her peace or that she is too good to move herself for a person like him. Nick almost feels like apologizing, partly because he feels he has disturbed her focus, but also because of his uncertainty in himself. If Jordan does not want to acknowledge that he has entered the room and will not even look at him, he feels he should be sorry for even coming in her range, as if he is not worth the interruption.

(3) "But immediately she turned sharply from the window and, leaning forward, tapped on the front glass.
'I want to get one of those dogs,' she said earnestly. 'I want to get one for the apartment. They’re nice to have — a dog.' " (Chapter 2)

The author demonstrated how Myrtle Wilson is a very abrupt and hard-headed type of person. She wanted a dog. She had made up her mind on the spot. She set her mind to it and Tom, while not being as excited about the new pet as she was, let her have her way and were choosing a dog instantly. Later, after they had picked the dog they wanted because, as Wilson would say, "it's cute", Tom did not even think twice about buying his lover that dog. This suggests that not only is Myrtle the type of person you don't want to fight with and it's easier to give in before hell raises, but that Tom is head-over-heels for this woman. A woman who has to get her way.

(4) "With the influence of the dress her personality had also undergone a change. The intense vitality that had been so remarkable in the garage was converted into impressive hauteur. Her laughter, her gestures, her assertions became more violently affected moment by moment, and as she expanded the room grew smaller around her, until she seemed to be revolving on a noisy, creaking pivot through the smoky air." (Chapter 2)

Nick's thoughts about Myrtle are now based on how she acts toward other people. She has "undergone a change" and is now acting differently than she ever has. Carraway is discovering that she acts different around different people and now is acting annoying by being loud, and the room seems to shrink and contain things only about her. These thoughts and the negative language towards this lady suggest that the author wants the readers to have a view of Myrtle as a fake woman. She is obviously fake to her so-called 'husband' back home at the garage and does not speak of her other lover to him, but this reinforces the fact that it is second nature to her and it does not bother her to be a mischievous, lying woman like that.

(5) "It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced — or seemed to face — the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor." (Chapter 3)

Nick was in love with this man, obviously. The way the author's words of Nick's thoughts were put forth made the narrator feel so warm, secure, and welcome. After meeting Gatsby, and not even knowing this down-to-earth man  he was talking to was him at first, Nick gained so much respect for the party host. The fact that Gatsby had given Carraway a "rare smile" with "reassurance in it" that "concentrated on you" makes the readers accept Nick's thoughts about him as their own. Gatsby being a killer seems almost silly after their casual meeting, and Nick has doubts about that rumor being reality.