Gatsby x__x

1. Why, ultimately, did Daisy choose Tom instead of Jay?

Daisy chooses social acceptability over what we are supposed to infer is "true love". Gatsby, while wealthy enough, is still from "new money," and because the Buchanans are pretty much universally recognized as coming from "old money" she deliberately picks the latter in order to maintain her affiliated status in the upper-upper class. It is also worth noting that in the 1920's the woman's role was to preserve the marriage--leaving was rarely considered an option, especially when a child was involved.

2. Which aspects of the major characters do you admire?  Why?  (Say which character, which trait, and why you admire it.)

Gatsby's blind optimism and persistence in pursuing his goals are admirable traits.

3. Which aspects of the major characters do you not admire?  Why?

*Daisy's superficiality and her complacency with the way things are.

*Tom's possessive nature and hypocritical feelings of jealousy regarding Daisy's affair with Gatsby.

4. Who is the protagonist of this novel?  Who or what is the antagonist? Explain your answers.

The protagonist is Gatsby and the antagonist are his romanticized dreams.

5. Jay Gatsby's life does not follow the arc of a typical tragic hero.  But do you as a reader sense some tragedy (of the Shakespearian variety) in his death?  In other words, is Jay Gatsby a character capable of eliciting a catharsis (Links to an external site.) in the reader? Explain why or why not.

Gatsby is capable of eliciting catharsis, as in the final scene at Tom and Daisy’s house, the reader learns that Daisy will never leave her financially stable situation to pursue her love with Gatsby. Gatsby waits outside her window to ensure that she is safe, yet his feelings will never be returned and his efforts to impress her have been futile.

6. If this book is an argument, what is its thesis statement?  (Try to come up with two or three answers to this question, and don't settle for the simplest statements; honor the complexity of this text by trying to discover its subtleties and nuances.)

The thesis statement of Gatsby revolves around the idea that dreams inevitably give way to disillusionment--this can be related to the American Dream, the dream of idealized love…  these themes are presented and subsequently deconstructed in the book.

Another potential thesis statement for Gatsby is that the past is an intrinsic part of your character and you cannot be detached from it.

7. Francis Bacon says we should read to "weigh and consider" the ideas presented to us in novels.  In what ways does The Great Gatsby challenge your personal view of the world of 2015, your values, your assumptions?  What is your response - for now - to that challenge?

Speaking from a #Seniors2015 perspective, it is obvious that conspicuous consumption is still a social phenomenon as well as the "leisure class" (think about the Occupy movement). The gender roles in this novel also force one to reflect on the institution of marriage and its historically binding aspects (financial dependency as a means of forcing the wife to remain subordinate, the perpetuation of the cycle of abuse).

8. According to Thorstein Veblin, conspicuous consumption is not unique to the "leisure class."  He says, "No class of society, not even the most abjectly poor, forgoes all customary conspicuous consumption.  The last items of this category of consumption are not given up except under stress of the direst necessity.  Very much of squalor and discomfort will be endured before the last trinket of the last pretense of pecuniary decency is put away."  Do you think that's true, that conspicuous consumption is inevitable no matter your wealth?  Should we try to minimize our own instances of conspicuously consuming?  Or are we wrong to assume, with Veblin, that buying things for show is inherently immoral (or at the very least, unseemly)?

Leisure is an inherent part of the American lifestyle and no matter the specific economic circumstance, that sort of "conspicuous consumption" will be present as a means of conforming to presumed standards. It is expected that people buy things for validation from others rather than necessity and this ideal is constantly shoved in our faces via the glorification of expensive commodities, especially in Park City and the popular instagram tag “#richkidsofinstagram” (follow me @adam.sny). Conspicuous consumption is by no means "inherently immoral" as there is nothing technically wrong about it in terms of ethics; rather, it is unnecessary at best and wasteful at worst.

9. In Chapter 4 of Plato's Banana Republic, Socrates argues that both wealth and poverty are antithetical to virtue.  He states, "Wealth, I said, and poverty; the one is the parent of luxury and indolence, and the other of meanness and viciousness, and both of discontent."  I think Fitzgerald - based on his portrayals of Jay, Tom, Jordan, Daisy and Wilson - would agree with Socrates (though you may read it differently). Now, the lifestyle you currently live (whatever that is) probably has more to do with your parents' choices and circumstances than your own at this point in your life.  But as you consider the social and economic lifestyle you hope/expect to have as an adult, how do Socrates' and Fitzgerald's views of wealth (and poverty) inform your aspirations?

Socrates’ and Fitzgerald’s views on wealth would not deter me from attempting to achieve material success; although the characters in Great Gatsby are far from virtuous, I don’t believe that immorality is a direct result of wealth, or lack thereof. Discontent, perhaps, may be most prevalent in the extremes of the spectrum of wealth, but virtue can be seen throughout, and is more so dependent upon one’s personal efforts to adhere to their own morals.

No Country for Old Men

The 1996 prompt gives Fay Weldon's idea of a happy ending: "some kind of spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation."   In NCFOM, Sheriff Bell explains his spiritual reassessment to Uncle Ellis, noting that he always thought God would come into his life, and now, on the eve of retirement, he is no longer sure that will happen. HAVE YOU EXPERIENCED A SPIRITUAL REASSESSMENT OR MORAL RECONCILIATION?  What has changed about your moral or spiritual life as you grow into adulthood?

I've never explicitly aligned myself with a particular faith. In my life, God has always been more of a hazy concept than an explicit being with rules and checklist, granting or denying you access to a pleasant afterlife as he chooses. In this sense, I suppose I haven't undergone a "spiritual" reassessment in the one way tends to think. I've never been anything but an optimistic agnostic, so, unlike Bell, I don't particularly expect God to come into my life at any time. Nor do I expect him to leave it.

Moral reconciliation, on the other hand, is something that has more clearly changed me during these past few years. As I've grown up, I've become more and more attached to the ideals of constant progression and authenticity (though I never had a name to call the latter), and I've become more and more comfortable with the idea of life and death as I've become more and more comfortable with the power of human choice and potential. I find it reassuring that we always move forward, and this specific moral reconciliation allows/allowed me to get over my own sense of futility. Death is inevitable, sure, but human choice is powerful. Nothing is set in stone.

What characteristics do you share with Moss, Bell and Chigurh?

I am immediately turned off by the suggestion that I am like any of the central characters in this book, because quite frankly they're all a little irritating (Moss is selfish and most of the book that was written in his perspective just felt like endless descriptions of guns I didn't care about, Chigurh's "fate" goes against most of my personal values, Bell is a jaded and emotionally paralyzed old man), but maybe my knee-jerk defensiveness is just a projection of my own self-denial. Let me think about this. I need to come to terms with myself to answer this. Hold on.

Okay.

I suppose I relate to Moss in the sense that I try to act authentically (or at least I'd like to think that I do). Rather than lamenting over past decisions and their outcomes, I just deal with what I have in front of me. It's the only way to truly survive, I think. #NoRegrets.

Bell's tendency to snowball his basic thoughts into universal questions with overly existential implications is one that I also have.

The part of me that understands Chigurh is also a part of me that I hate: that nagging idea that no matter what I do, there is no real choice--things are this way, and that's that. The idea that things cannot be changed by my own hand, the idea that human will is practically futile... I have these thoughts that correspond with Chigurh's ideas of morality, "authentic" as I may try to be.

In what ways are you "authentic" or in "bad faith" in the existential senses of these terms?

I guess I've already answered this a little. I do my best to be authentic. It's kind of a huge deal for me to constantly be moving forward, looking ahead rather than becoming consumed with past events. Destiny isn't predetermined, I think; one makes their own destiny, and as such, I do my best to abide by my own willpower and strength of self. "Bad faith" is what marked a significant period of my life. Bad faith--the resigning, futile conscience, mourning life as you live... it's what consumed me when I was depressed for the first few years of high school.

What cultural values have you inherited that can be tied to "place" (where you have lived, or the conditions in which you have lived)? Have you adopted these values as your own, or rejected them?

I've lived in many different places, and perhaps I've held onto various different things from each: in particular, being exposed to the diversity and liveliness of New York City broadened my worldview and instilled within me at a young age that it is empowering, not disheartening, to belong to something big, to know that there is a constantly moving and shifting life force driving every seemingly insignificant day. I have done my best to remember this even when PC drama-induced cabin fever strikes.

Is there any way that you, as a young person, can relate to Sheriff Bell's feeling that his job has passed him by, that he is no longer suited to the work he loves?

I wonder if to become jaded is an inevitability of life. I haven't met an old person that didn't mind being old, that kept up with contemporary life instead of retreating further back into a defensive shell, that didn't pose a rigid resistance against change. It's hard for me to understand that mentality, so my gut instinct is to refute the notion that I'm similar to Bell like this. On second thought, however, the idea of utilizing defensive mechanisms to resist a kind of change I find scary is one I can relate to despite the age difference.

MOVIES 2 WATCH ON VALENTINES DAY

Valentine's Day, while ultimately less of a "holiday" than it is a delusion crafted by the hands of Hallmark in order to inflate its capital gain, can still be kind of cute.

Here are the best high-school teenage heteronormative romcoms that you should marathon instead of contributing to all-consuming corporate greed (in no particular order):

1. 10 Things I Hate About You
2. Clueless
3. She's All That
4. Easy A
5. The First Time
6. She's The Man
7. You've Got Mail
8. The Proposal
9. A Cinderella Story
10. Date Night... (Kate)
11. Love Actually
12. Crazy Stupid Love
13. 13 Going On 30
14. Bridge to Terabithia

I did 14 because the 14...th.

Rose Maxson/Rose Lee

2. Is Rose the most oppressed character in this story, or the most powerful?  (One way to decide your answer is to ask yourself if you admire her, or if you think she is a model for other women.)  Reflect on your answer.

Why are the titles of being the "most oppressed" and the "most powerful" mutually exclusive? In a literal sense, yes, Rose is oppressed--perhaps the most so, if oppression can be quantified. Because she is a black woman. She is a victim of the racism that is so deeply embedded within American society. She still feels the effects of centuries' worth of slavery. And as a wife, mother, and woman--"...that's what life offered me in the way of being a woman and I took it"(Wilson 98)--she has dedicated her life to a subservient existence. Her own identity is masked underneath the overlay of patriarchal institution.

So, yes, she is oppressed--but Rose is powerful in her own right. And her power should not be overlooked or underestimated.

Her power doesn't exist in the way one most often associates the word with. After all, she is bound by obligations and ties and social expectations. She cannot leave as freely as Troy does, and she cannot abandon her family to lead an entirely independent life. Her autonomy is incredibly limited. 

But Rose's strength is what sets her apart as the most powerful character in my eyes. Her power is conveyed through the weight of her words and through the resilience of her loyalty. This is a woman who dedicated years to someone else at the expense of her own being. She is selfless, and though she has invested much life and love in her husband Troy, she does not let him walk all over her. The moment Troy admits betrayal is the moment Rose shuts him off. After years of sacrificing selfishness and (what was assumed, on her part) mutual respect for their marital bond, Rose has to face the fact that the man she has given herself to entirely took her efforts for granted; and she is strong enough to walk away. She still performs her circa-1950's wifely duties of being a homemaker and a mother to Troy's children, but her heart has severed itself from her husband's, and her ability to do that--to emotionally distance herself from a man who has eighteen years of Rose in him--is indicative of such character strength.

King Lear reflection

1.) King Lear dream cast:

I agree with your opinion about Cordelia. Scarlett Johansson circa Lost in Translation would be perfect. Based on what I saw in Her (using her voice alone!), Johansson is skilled at portraying emotion, particularly love of the unconditional variety, a character trait critical to Cordelia.

Regan would be someone like Julia Stiles, someone who can be cunning and deceptive but also sympathetic.

Edmund would be Tom Hiddleston, because Hiddleston played Loki in The Avengers and Loki is to Thor what Edmund is to Edgar. It just works.

Albany would be James Marsden, just because I pictured James Marsden whilst reading it. And I guess he seems noble enough.

The Fool would be Chevy Chase if we're thinking him to be older. The more I think about this, the more I realize that Chevy Chase would actually be the perfect Fool. Actually, Chevy Chase would be the perfect Cordelia too. I change my mind and take it all back: Chevy Chase is every character.

2.) The character I most admire would have to be The Fool. His brutal and unforgiving honesty, while indeed an important facet of his character and arguably an even more important aspect of the story itself, is only one part of his character. His genuine kindness and his wise disposition are what make me admire The Fool.

3.) The scene that, in my eyes, includes catharsis most obviously is Lear's death. The very act itself is truly a culmination of his inner turmoil, his anguish, his madness, his broken state--all of the emotions Lear has felt surface, and together they are strong enough to grant him a final delusion of happiness: Cordelia, alive. Emotion vomiting indeed. The final fleeting "gift" of Cordelia's imagined resurrection is just another stab in the wound, making it that much more heartbreaking.

4.) Aging is a scary concept. I am scared that I will lose touch with my younger self. I am scared that I will decline into passivity, going through the motions but not really living. I am scared that I will become jaded. I don't want to forget that youthful vitality of life.

5.) The part that makes me feel "uncomfortably at home" in King Lear is the idea that good won't necessarily triumph over evil. There will never be an entirely "just" result. Karma isn't necessarily as clear-cut as the idea that those who do good receive goodness, and those who commit acts of evil receive punishment... I think this play exemplifies that. It's a realization that all at once makes sense but is unsettles me. (It runs contrary to everything Disney ever taught me.)

#4

Montag returns to the firehouse with Faber in ear. Beatty tries to freak him out by pitting literature against literature, demonstrating the "contradictory" nature of books in a strange monologue that truly terrifies Montag. All of this wordplay is mere setup for what comes next: the firemen leave to go burn down a new house, and Montag is caught off guard to find that the next victim he is getting paid to torch will be himself.

Mildred, it becomes clear, is the one that called the police and informed them of Montag's book-hoarding tendencies. Yet Montag feels no ill will towards this "strange woman," even as she flees the scene in a taxi and leaves him to deal with his sins alone. He is forced to burn down his own house, but the experience seems distinctly euphoric for him. A pyromaniac's therapy, if you will.

Beatty taunts our beloved protag throughout this time, forgetting that he is teasing a flamethrower-wielding man in a lapse of judgement Montag later amounts to a death wish. A death wish fulfilled, as Montag torches Beatty after he threatens Faber. With this, our rebel becomes a full-fledged fugitive in a scene positively blazing with Bradbury's colorful description--Montag stumbles away after being bitten by, and subsequently killing, The Hound.

Beatty is such an ironic character. He is a sort of self-aware villain, full of contradictions and spouting dishonesty. He reminds me of The Joker, in a weird way--I wish I could think of an example with more significant literary merit, AP Scorers, but alas. The both of them enjoy playing mind games with the protagonist and our protagonists are often roped into empathizing with them despite it all. Though Batman never kills, and Montag killed Beatty. But I digress.

"The Sieve and the Sand" is, to me, the most interesting symbol of the novel thus far. Montag recounts a childhood experience in which a cousin promised him money in exchange for his getting sand in a sieve. Past Montag cried out of frustration at his own futility, and current Montag cries out of frustration at his own futility. In this case, "futility" is his incapability of understanding knowledge (in the form of literature) the way he desperately wishes to... the sand is truth, the sieve is Montag. He cannot possibly know everything in the world, but he feels like he has to in order to compensate for years of ignorance.

#3

After showing Mildred his secret collection of (about twenty) stolen books, Montag and his wife begin reading them-- or rather, Montag reads them and Mildred complains. Mildred is a fascinating character. But I'll discuss her later... continuing on with the synopsis, Montag desperately tries to reach out and grasp Mildred with his words, but she evades them easily, a slippery kind of human that disconnects as soon as something more substantial than the TV characters she calls her "family" is mentioned. 

Frustrated with these relics of knowledge that say so much but mean so little to him, he remembers the old man he met with once in the park, a former English professor. Montag retrieves his contact information and sets off to find this old man Faber. On the subway trip, Montag's senses are assaulted by commercialized and mass-produced sounds and words and thoughts and he panics, stumbling onto Faber's doorstep nigh hysterical. After gaining the old man's trust, Faber confides in Montag and shares with him the three-step secret to understanding:

1.) Acquiring quality information.

2.) Having the "leisure" to digest this information.

3.) Having the freedom to base future actions upon this learned information.

The section ends with Montag going about his fireman job with Faber's voice reading The Book of Job to him in a hidden earpiece. There exists major juxtaposition between this and Mildred's Seashell headphones, the ones that blare insect-like hums into her ears at night to send her to sleep.

Of course, whenever I analyze a work that features a small group of rebels working against the establishment, obvious comparisons bubble to the forefront of my mind almost automatically. Fight Club, 1984, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, etc. I've read it so much that rebellion seems commonality now, though the struggle in this particular novel seems infinitely more convoluted than any other I've had to think about. It's not just the government or the elite or the law working against the characters we empathize with--it's also the general population, it's also the millions of content ignorants. It's also the protagonist's wife. I am actually accumulating severe amounts of stress reading this novel because my mind tends to get sidetracked marveling at the sheer gravity of this conflict. It's so large and frightening. A war against intellect.

Re: "more on Mildred"; Millie's complacency is highly correlated with mid-twentieth-century gender roles. Her weak will agitates me and it's true that I find her character so frustrating, but it also forces me to reflect on the time period once again. The '50s feminist movement was essentially nonexistent. Conformity was fervent, agitators were shunned, and perhaps Millie's character represents this kind of forced submissiveness and perhaps Clarisse's questioning nature represents her foil. On a personal level, it's hard to read Mildred as merely a character in a novel instead of what I see her to be... that is, Bradbury's exaggerated criticism of the '50s housewife. Ugh. Where you at, Betty Friedan?