The Great Gatsby p.77 chap.4

"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 arm. Her wan scornful mouth smiled and so I drew her up again, closer, this time to my face." -Nick Carraway

Making Extra Long Tittles And Digging Too Deeply For My Last Blogpost Of The Year

Loving pop-culture myself, I have lately noticed patterns in books and movies. I noticed that certain settings, either added subconsciously or consciously, mean certain things or transitions in a story. While reading the end of The Catcher In The Rye, I noticed a couple of settings representing a character changing, or lack thereof. At the beginning of The Catcher In The Rye, Holden is childish and sometimes acts without thinking. For the majority of the story, it is winter and it is cold and snowy. But at the end when Holden goes home, he realizes how much he really cares for his family, and is very thankful of them. While he is home his sister, Phoebe, gave him a kiss. She then stuck her hand out, and said, "it's raining. It's starting to rain." It is as if she is stating that a change will happen, even though she, as a character, doesn't know that these changes will happen. All Holden says is "I know." His saying "I know", is like he unknowingly understands and accepts that a change is occurring.

I think the signifigance of the snow to rain transition is that snow sticks on your skin. This gives you time to think about the snow being on your skin and the individual snowflakes. If it is snowing lightly, you can brush off the snowflakes you don't want on you. But when it snows harshly, you must be surrounded by coldness. This is similar to the way Holden is surrounded by "phonies", as he calls the people that he knows and finds very uniform. At first he can brush them off, but when he gets caught in a blizzard, he must acknowledge their existence and move on. He must learn to accept things he does not like. I feel like this is a message that J.D.Salinger is trying to send out about growing more and more mature. I believe the rain represents a cleansing. I think the rain allows him to realize that it is not worth making a big fuss about people that are "phonies". Holden realizes that he should focus on what really matters most for him, his family.

J.D.Salinger could have many different messages in his story about childhood and adulthood. But I think the two that are most prominent, are the idea of understanding and the idea of love and appreciation. Holden was, in the beginning, inconsistent with his opinions, because he didn't understand them. But as the weather changes, so does Holden. He learns to comprehend most of his feelings and realizes that you don't always have just ONE opinion. For example, he once hated his school roommate, but when he gets kicked out, Holden realizes that he will miss him too. Holden always loved his family, but after his adventure in New York City he seems to love them more. J.D.Salinger could be doing this in order to show the reader that sometimes you need to experience something bad to fully appreciate something good.

The Post War's Affect On The Teenage Mind

I think that I have some sort of mental block with the phrase "classic novels". Reading deeper is something I cannot do with books labeled "classic". I have always had this weird trouble with classic books. Like in the fourth grade, when I picked up The Hobbit. It was slow at first and I thought, 'it must get better, it must! Its a classic after all.' I ended up reading it, just to say I read it. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed it but it was hard for me to enjoy it. But reading The Catcher In The Rye is nothing like that at all. I wasn't slaving away, forcing myself to read a dusty, boring old book. I found The Catcher In The Rye (by J.D.Salinger) to be like a movie in my hands and on paper. The setting, year 1945 in New York, is like a crisp black and white movie where everyone said words like "grand" and "swell". But the story is being narrated by a teenage boy, who's mind wanders and rants. Soon, I came to realize that Holden Caulfield is a social outcast(who is looked up to by some very famous serial killers... but that's another blog post).

"Everybody was on their way to the movies-The Paramount or The Astor or The Strand or The Capitol or one of those crazy places. Everybody was all dressed up, because it was Sunday, and that makes it worse. But the worst part was that you could tell that they all wanted to go to the movies. I couldn't stand looking at them."



That is a snippet (pg.150) of one of Holden's thoughts. This quote describes his world. He sees a world of religious, media-obsessed uniform families. He is so impacted by his surroundings. America at this time was just finishing with the war, and the general public was afraid of change. So there and then the American dream became unofficially defined as a white picket fence family. Typically a family of four; a housewife/mother figure, a successful working father, a daughter and a son. This family probably owns a house (with a white picket fence) and goes to church on Sunday. It seems that living in this world has affected his thinking patterns. I wondered would Holden be such an outcast if he lived in a less formatted world?

Holden often refers to "everybody", which makes me think that he feels like the media is forcing him to act and think a certain way. So he acts against it. There is a defined line between Holden and the world around him. And in his mind, you are either a part of "everybody" or you are Holden.

I think that no one is what they seem and everybody thinks differently then expected. And everyone changes depending on who is with you at a specific moment in time. So he probably would be slightly different if he lived in this less formatted world. He would probably be less alone. But no matter what, I think that Holden is destined to be an outcast.

Growing up is all about having your emotions distraught. It is about the uncertainty of finding yourself. And Holden finds himself not being what is expected of him, and has a hard time living up to expectations. He feels alone, which is a common feeling during the coming of age period of life. Holden is such a real person, and I totally love him.

[the power of suggestion forces you to click on this link]

Monster by Walter Dean Myers is a story of a hopeless teenager. As readers, we don't know much about Steve Harmon. We know that he is on trial for murder, he is presently in jail, he is black and sixteen years old. His story doesn't seem outstanding, he just seems to be a troubled youth. But while reading his movie version[screenplay] version of his reality, you see small scenes from his small life and his desperate thoughts: "I'm innocent." Soon I started to realize that this isn't just a story of guilty/innocent, it is a story of proving an under aged and unlucky boy's humanity.


So, as I do in a lot of my posts, I will find definitions of the word 'humanity' and similar words. Dictionary.Reference.com says humanity is "the quality of being humane; kindness; benevolence." merriam-webster.com says being humane is "marked by compassion, sympathy, or consideration for humans or animals". And if being 'humane' is simply showing compassion and generally being kind, everyone can be 'humane'. Everyone has their own small moments of kindness and small niceties. It seems very easy to prove someone is humane but then again, proving someone is innocent is something completely different...


The reader begins to see the world through Steve Harmon's eyes, and the world becomes an ugly place. It seems like everyone judges him because of the color of his skin. "Half of those jurors, no matter what they said when we questioned them when we picked the jury, believed you were guilty the moment they laid eyes on you. You're young, you're Black, and you're on trial. What else do they need to know?" says O'Brien, Steve's defense attorney. In response, Steve says something very ,very interesting. He says "I thought you're supposed to be innocent until you're proven guilty?" And he brings up a very good point. Everyone is looking at him, and just because he is on trial, he is judged. Just because he is young, he is judged. Just because he is Black, he is judged. As a youth, he must already be slightly insecure and this must be really shaking him up(it would shake me up).
The prosecutor called Steve a "monster", causing him to feel uncomfortable. He is questioning himself. And I think that the power of suggestion is acting up. When people call him things, I think he believes them. I think he is slowly giving up hope on his innocence. But I'm not done with the book yet. So, I'm left thinking... Do you think that he will become a monster if he is called a monster? Do you think that the jurors will be humane, and judge him solely on the evidence?

Extremely Sad and Incredibly Beautiful

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer was a small book about life and death, love and war, and gain and loss. It was very beautiful but granted, very sad. When reflecting upon what I was going to write about, I realize how increasingly beautiful something becomes when it is heartbreaking. But does sadness in literature always make a good story? It's not the large topics in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close that really hit home, rather, it's the small moments of life before the mournful moments of death.

Oskar's, the narrator's, father died in 911. Oskar's grandfather's family died in the bombing of his home town. Both Oskar and the grandfather character, Thomas, are in between life and death. Once Thomas said "life is scarier than death". I always found this concept very interesting. Every since I first heard Mystery Jets' song Dreaming of Another World (Side note: I have written about the Mystery Jets before. I'm very sorry if it is getting stale and if you think I am a broken record for only talking about this one song, from this one band. Please forgive.) There is a lyric that reads "to live or to die, the riddle without a clue". After hearing this, I kept thinking about how death compares to life? Honestly, to me living outweighed death every time. But nearly all of the characters in Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close found living a dreaded chore. This is because all the characters believe that life is scarier than death. They have lost many family members to political violence. Even Oskar, no, especially Oskar feels that wavering between life or death is a legitimate choice. “Everything that’s born has to die, which means our lives are like skyscrapers. The smoke rises at different speeds, but they’re all on fire, and we’re all trapped”, says he. He feels just as figuratively trapped as Thomas, the grandfather, and just as physically trapped as Thomas, his father.

In the flashback part of the story, Thomas, the grandfather, remembers the first time he "made love". (Side thoughts: He uses that term, "making love", that always bothered me. What is the difference between having sex, and making love? Nothing, it is two different words with the same definition. Like joy and happiness, cry and sob.) He remembers how much he loved her, and how she asked for them to "make love". And he remembers her wincing. When he asks her if anything is wrong, she says no. He asks her why she winced, and she said because it hurt. The next week or so, she died in the bombing. She was pregnant. To me, this is the definition of love: desire and pain.

To expand, can you live your life without fear of losing everything? Thomas and Oskar cannot, they are scarred by the horrible events that unfold and take everything from them. They are paralized by this fear and it prevents them from fully living their lives. Thomas used to have a family, a loving girl, an upcoming child, and a lovely home. But all of these things were ripped out of his hands, leaving him unable to love and resettle.

I honestly don't know what to believe about life and death, love and war, and gain and loss. After reading this book, it seems that one has to overcome fear in order to move forward. I feel I have only become more puzzled about my beliefs after reading Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. I have even been questioning my writing style. To make a story beautiful, does it need to be so unnecessarily sad?

Can anyone tell me....

My last blog post was about how Romeo and Juliet was a story of humanity, this post is about fate. How fate is a big subject in the movie, a bigger subject in the real life filming and an even bigger subject in the book.

I, like many, saw the movie before I read the play. I never thought that fate was a huge part of the story, in fact I never thought about fate at all. It's probably because I could never understand the scene right before Mercutio and Romeo go to the party, where they discuss their dreams and their premonitions. It doesn't seem like fate that Romeo and Juliet meet. It seems like a coincidence. Which brings up the question, what is a coincidence and what is fate?

During the filming of the movie, there were some coincidences as well. "The dramatic storm scene on the beach in which Mercutio dies was shot during a real hurricane." I feel like having a real storm made me think was fate in control of how the movie was shot? Was fate in control when Aldo Signoretti (hair/makeup guru on the set of R+J) was kidnapped and released after paying the $300 ransom? Is fate the decider of good things as well as the bad things?

The Romeo and Juliet text has more coincedences that cause the Montague boys to get to the party. For example, the person responsible for sending out the invitations cannot read, forcing him to ask Romeo to read it to him. So now Romeo knows of the gathering and has access to attending it. But in the movie, they just somehow get invitations and crash the party. I would see the subject of fate in the movie more if there were more coincidences like the one in the text(For example, the person responsible for sending out the invitations cannot read, forcing him to ask Romeo to read it to him.). But still confused with the exact meaning of the word 'FATE', I did some follow up research/thoughts:

Merriam-Webster- "an inevitable and often adverse outcome, condition, or end"

I thought of one of my favorite movies, Terminator 2: Judgment Day. John Connor says "The future's not set. There's no fate but what we make for ourselves." Do you believe John or do you believe Merriam-Webster?
(Pardon my geek out- referencing a sci-fi movie and a dictionary in one question...)

End of the World Blogpost(just cuz)

*Spoilers: for the movie Titanic and Romeo+Juliet*
I lost my worksheet so I don't have a quote(but if I find the worksheet, I will write another post((Part two)) including my ideas with the new found quote in mind).

Remember in Romeo and Juliet, when Tybalt dies? Juliet's father says "We are born to die." This concept just makes me think and think about how human we are. How we can be so ignorant sometimes and almost always greedy. How we can be struck dead any moment.

I saw most of Titanic for the first time yesterday, and it reminded me of this quote; it reminded me of deconstruction and the ruin of greatness. And I know that the story is being told by Rose herself, but sometimes the whole Jack/Rose love seems just as unreal as the love between Romeo/Juliet. Especially the scene where they pretend that they are flying/being free while the sun is setting and Celine Dion sings the worlds cheesiest song. True love isn't shown in moments like that, if it is shown at all it is shown when Rose rescues Jack from death the first time. She is going down a corridor filled with water (above her head) holding an axe in one hand and swinging on ceiling pipes with another (monkey bar style), or when Jack realizes that he cannot stay afloat on the headboard with Rose after the ship had sunk, and he must float beside her. It is shown when Mr. Guginheim stayed behind on the ship to allow woman and children to survive, when he could have easily used his influence to get on a safe boat and survive. It is shown when an old couple lay together, side by side, as water floods into their rooms. It is shown when a mother and her two children are trapped inside, so they lay down and she tells a beautiful tale. It is shown when one life boat returns to save the souls that have already passed on, and it is shown when the men on the life boat realise they were too late. This love that they show, is setting an example of the greatness of humans. The Selflessness that they express, is so beautiful.

This movie reminded me that everything that comes together will fall apart. And as centuries pass, I won't be anything more than a word in a history book, if at all. And all of my possesions won't be anything more than junk. Junk that turns into Garbage. It reminds me that my small troubles and my small worries mean nothing in the context of the world or even the universe. And my bed around me will become old and decaying like the titanic around the 2,223 people on that boat. And we won't be anything besides a once living civilization, like dodo birds or dinosaurs.

Once I realized this, I had come back to the world we live in. A world with wars and a world with greed. People do not understand that it won't matter in the end, when we are fossils in the ground, who had the most riches or who was in the most control of others. People don't realize that paper decays, meaning money will decay. Power will decay, and everything falls apart.

Once I realized this, I compared our world to that of Romeo and Juliet. And we have the same problems, problems of greed and problems of power. I realize that this could be the message Shakespeare was sending out. And he could not have been smarter for writing this message in the form of a love story. For people would be able to find even more sadness in it. Noone would rather watch a sad story of how the world is going to end one day and that "frays" between you and your enemy will not matter in the context of the whole, than a love story with the same message.