Currently Listening More Mad About Mozart Eine Kleine Nachtmusik: Romance see related

How badly does this suck?

The intentions don't look as bad in the actual paper than in this stupid entry, by the way.

The Thorny Red Flower

American Lit A1

Mack

May 16, 2006

Great Gatsby Timed Writing

            Whenever one hears about a fantastic or important person, they expect that person to be larger than life.  In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel The Great Gatsby, Nick Carraway has heard all sorts of rumors about his neighbor Jay Gatsby and the lavish parties he throws.  In this passage, Nick meets Gatsby for the first time.  Gatsby has built up quite a reputation for himself, and Nick gives the impression that he expects someone who is extraordinary and above the norm.  Through dialogue, imagery, and internal monologue, Fitzgerald reveals that despite the legends surrounding him, Gatsby is an ordinary person with deep insecurities.

            Dialogue among Gatsby, Nick, and Jordan is one of the ways that Fitzgerald tries to project Gatsby as less than extraordinary.  In the beginning of the passage, Nick doesn’t even realize that the man he is talking to is the great Jay Gatsby:

                                    “I’m Gatsby,” he said suddenly.

                                    “What!” I exclaimed.  “Oh, I beg your pardon.”

                                    “I thought you knew, old sport.  I’m afraid I’m

                                     not a very good host.”

                                    (Fitzgerald 52)

Since Nick has heard all about the spectacular Gatsby, he probably expects some extravagant person to be the fabled host.  His shock in discovering that this ordinary, unassuming man is Gatsby illustrates that Gatsby does not live up to Nick’s expectations.  Furthermore, when Nick later feigns ignorance and asks Jordan who the man was, she replies with, “‘He’s just a man named Gatsby.’” (Fitzgerald 53).  Tossing him off as “just a man named Gatsby” reveals that Jordan also doesn’t think Gatsby to be quite as spectacular as all the hype surrounding him suggests.  The common partygoer may believe the crazy rumors surrounding their host, but those who actually meet Gatsby know that he is just an ordinary man.

            Fitzgerald also uses imagery to portray Gatsby as an average person.  Here, he paints a picture of Nick’s first perceptions of Gatsby after learning who he is:

                                    [Gatsby’s smile] faced- or seemed to face- the whole

                                    external world for an instant, and then concentrated

                                    on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor.

                                    It understood you just as far as you wanted to be

                                    understood, believed in you as you would like to

                                    believe in yourself and assured you that it had

                                    precisely the best impression of you that, at your

                                    best, you hoped to convey.

                                    (Fitzgerald 52-53)

Nick, at first, wants to believe that Gatsby is as spectacular as the rumors say he is, and for the first few seconds of his meeting Gatsby he believes his expectations are fulfilled.  However, there is a sharp and sudden contrast between his glowing praise of Gatsby above and what he says next: “Precisely at that moment it vanished- and I was looking at an elegant young rough-neck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd” (Fitzgerald 53).  This shows a very different Gatsby from the one above.  This one is very insecure and worried about how he appears to the lavish party guests.  As Nick talks to Gatsby more, it seems, his admiration for him fades.  Gatsby clearly doesn’t live up to Nick’s expectations.  This is proven further by Nick’s internal judgments about Gatsby.

            The internal monologue of Nick’s judgments depicts further how different the real Gatsby is from Nick’s colorful expectations.  After he has just realized what an insecure and average man Gatsby really is, Nick reveals that, “some time before [Gatsby] introduced himself, I’d got a strong impression that he was picking his words with care” (Fitzgerald 53).  This reveals that, before Nick learned that the man he was about to meet was Gatsby, he saw him for who he really was- an insecure man who was desperately trying to fit in with upper-class New York society.  Nick didn’t believe otherwise until Gatsby gave Nick his name, and Nick wanted to believe the great things he had heard were true.  After Nick has finished talking with Gatsby, he cannot get over how astounded he is at Gatsby’s true nature: “When [Gatsby] was gone I turned immediately to Jordan- constrained to assure her of my surprise.  I had expected that Mr. Gatsby would be a florid and corpulent person in his middle years.” This reveals a clear difference in Nick’s expectations (that Gatsby would be as colorful and extravagant as the parties he throws and the rumors he inspires) and what Gatsby is actually like. 

            Nick learns that Gatsby is not a spectacular man, but very average with much insecurity.  He finds out later in the novel that Gatsby is not just “only human” but has few dynamic or admirable qualities at all.  When one meets a famous or important person, it can be disappointing when that person does not live up to the expectations or hype surrounding them.  However, it is inevitable.  Everyone is human with their own individual faults and insecurities.  No one is larger than life, not even the great Gatsby.

Currently Listening John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band By John Lennon see related

If anyone has any suggestions, I'd be very happy to hear them!

Rose the Great

April 4, 2006

A1 American Lit Mack

Common Happiness vs. Individuality

In modern America, two of the most fundamental of the core democratic values are common good and individual rights. The contradictary ideas exist in a tight balance, and if one overpowered the other it could result in either anarchy or totalatarianism. Fahrenheit 451, a novel by Ray Bradbury, illustrates an America that has become the latter, where individualism is destroyed in the name of common happiness. The government tries to remove all intellectual ability in humans, feeling that it will lead to too much distress, by destroying anything that could encourage them to aspire to philosophy and reason, including books and higher learning. The metaphors, irony, and allusions in Fahrenheit 451 illustrate an America where a lack of regard for individualism has dehumanized the people, until they are no more intellectual than robots.

The first example of dehumanization in Fahrenheit 451 are the metaphors relating humans to inanimate objects. Captain Beatty describes to Guy Montag how the leaders are able to prevent people from becoming intellectual most of the time, saying, "We know how to nip most of them in the bud, early" (Bradbury 60). Though this is a common expression, it has special significance when Beatty uses it, because "nipping in the bud" refers to the way plants are grown, where botanists breed certain desirable traits and leave out others. He sees humans, like plants, as things that can be "bred" so they do not become intellectual, which he sees as the "undesirable" trait here. In the next sentence, Beatty goes even further, comparing humans to buildings: "You can't build a house without nails and wood. If you don't want the house built, hide the nails and wood" (60-61). Again, the metaphor of a house, like the comparison to plants, leaves the impression that humans are incapable of independent thought and discovery. Houses are made of simple materials like nails and wood, and by comparing humans to houses he dehumanizes them by implying that people are equally simple to "create." Lastly, Beatty instructs to "cram [people] full of noncombustible data, chock them so...full of facts they feel stuffed, but absolutely 'brilliant' with information." (61) He again shows his view of people as without independence by describing their brains as empty space that needs to be "cram[med] full" of things, like a drawer or a cupboard, so that there's no room left. Extra room in the head, of course, could be filled with the sort of "combustible," debatable, changing ideas that lead to conflict and discord in society, so Beatty feels society can make people "feel" smart by giving them solid, set-in-stone facts that don't lead to further questions. These ideas again show that Beatty thinks of humans as no better than robots, that they're as predictable and programmable as machines.

The ironic situations in the book also show how this future America opposes intelligent thought in its people. Schools today are thought of as places where one learns how to be intellectual, but in the world of Fahrenheit 451 they stomp the intellect and reasoning out of students. Beatty describes schools as "turning out more runners, jumpers, racers, tinkerers, grabbers, snatchers, fliers, and swimmers instead of examiners, critics, knowers, and imaginative creators" and how "the word 'intellectual,' of course, became the swear word it deserved to be" (Bradbury 58). The reader finds it ironic that schools are used as a way to stupefy the citizens of this future America, as Beatty tries to explain to Montag when Montag asks how intellectuals can still exist: "The home environment can undo a lot you try to do at school. That's why we've lowered the kindergarten age year after year until now we're almost snatching them from the cradle." (60) Here he directly admits that school are for brainwashing, not for real education. As disturbing as this seems, signs pointing the way to this form of schooling already exist in modern America. Most people already no longer see school as a place for pure education, but rather think school should be about training for a job. As Beatty says, "Life is immediate, the job counts...Why learn anything save pressing buttons, pulling switches, fixing nuts and bolts?" (55-56) One can already hear people complaining that they don't need a certain class because it doesn't prepare them for the job they want, or that they don't like what they learn in their classes because they think the information useless in the "real world." Also, schools are already used for social engineering, in that most elementary school social studies curricula focus on getting students to appreciate and accept "American values," which they portray as superior to other countries' founding ideas; this doesn't leave much room for debate and keeps students from truly appreciating people of other ideological persusasions. Many pressure groups seek to worsen this problem of social engineering by introducing religious instruction into public schools. How does one know such attitudes won't lead to schools such as those in Fahrenheit 451?

Another form of irony is in the job of firemen in the book. Beatty explains, "When houses were finally fireproofed completely, all over the world...there was no need of firemen for the old purposes. They were given the new job, as custodians of our peace of mind, the focus of our understandable and rightful dread of being inferior: official censors, judges, and executors" (Bradbury 58-59). It is ironic that firemen, whose job today is to put out fires, start fires in Montag's America. Yet, it is not so ironic when you consider the way firemen are percieved by society: as protectors and guardians of public safety. The view of firemen in the future has not changed, yet the "danger" that they protect people from is, rather than fire, the danger of intellectual thought. They are protecting people from the "unhappiness" that results from higher thought.

The allusions to modern American society show how the American value system has been changed in the world of Fahrenheit 451 to allow the leaders of their society to deny people their individuality, and "program" them until they become like robots. Beatty references the basis of American government when he states: "We must all be alike. Not everyone born free and equal, like the Constitution says, but everyone made equal. Each man the image of each other; then all are happy, for their are no mountains to make them cower, to judge themselves against" (Bradbury 58). This shows how the basic principle of equality is still existent in Beatty's world, but it's been twisted to allow the government to deny people the right to think for themselves. While modern Americans believe in equality as something all Americans possess the second they are born into this society, Beatty and other leaders of society in Fahrenheit 451 believe that people are born unequal, and they must be "made equal" by being forced to fit society's expectations. Therefore, society is able to "breach man's mind" and render him a robot, without any individual thought (58).

In this frightening novel, Bradbury creates a world in which humans are not given much ability to prove their worth in society; rather, they are viewed as robots and are "rebuilt" to suit society through extensive social engineering. The intellectual, creative and philosophical forces at work in the human brain, the very stuff that separates humans from animals or machines, are drained out of them until the people almost are no better than robots. Hopefully, America will continue to maintain the balance between common good and individual rights, and the social forces present today that hint toward the society of Fahrenheit 451 will not be carried out to their terrifying ends.

Critique this?

Deborah ****
American Literature B1
March 16, 2006 

Consolation of Fear

            Emily Dickinson, although known for often writing depressing and frightening poems, truly embraces terror in her poem "The Soul has Bandaged Moments." Yet, with much help from a variety of literary devices such as imagery and language, along with the structure of the poem, Emily Dickinson describes a female soul's fight for freedom, before it backs down again.

            The poem begins with language in "bandaged" and "appalled," both of which stir up the feeling that the soul trembles, weak and frightened (Dickinson 1, 2). The poem continues with the personification in "some ghastly Fright come up / And stop to look at her," showing society stopping to look the soul in order to make a judgment on all women (3-4). However, the fright "Salute her--with long fingers--” / Caress her freezing hair," the imagery depicting terror comforting and reassuring the weak soul (5-6). The "hair" that fright caresses symbolizes femininity, and therefore clearly determines the soul as female (6). Later, the language in "Lover" implies a sinful relationship that could scare an innocent woman.

            However, the poem turns on a brighter side starting with the doors bursting open and the imagery as "She dances like a Bomb, abroad, / And swings upon the Hours," meaning that although she once found herself shackled, the woman has enough power to break those chains (Dickinson 13-14). Nevertheless, soon, that happiness pulls back a little bit as the simile "swings upon the Hours, / As do the Bee--delirious borne-- / Long Dungeoned from his Rose-- / Touch Liberty--then know no more," illustrates that the soul as the bee seeks liberty and find it, but does not know what to do with it (14-17). One at this point can also predict a future downturn in the poem in "swings," noting that the third and fourth stanzas may shine with joy, but the other side of the swing stands unknown (14). Furthermore, the reader realizes that the soul does not teeter between different ideas of what to do with its liberty, but rather, the soul, in complete ecstasy, does not have the capability to make a decision, as noted in the language of "delirious borne" (15). Finally, the language in "Noon" depicts the day at its brightest, or the cheerfulness and joy.

            Unfortunately, as predicted, the fifth paragraph reverts back to the darker mood, or the other side of the swing. The language in "Song" implies that the soul wrote a song that led fright, or society, to her whereabouts (Dickinson 22). In fact, the "Felon" symbolizes her soul, describing it as the criminal society views her as (20). However, she eventually retreats to the comfort of the horror in order to escape the critique and criticism, as noted in personification as "The Horror welcomes her, again" (23). Dickinson's last example of language in "brayed" gives the last line a harsh sound (24). Finally, the rhyme scheme plays a large role as well. In the first two stanzas, the rhyme scheme stands controlled, symbolizing the soul in chains. However, during the two stanzas where the soul escapes and experiences a taste of liberty, the chains of the rhyme scheme disappear, freeing the soul. Unfortunately, during the recapture of the soul or the last two stanzas, the rhyme scheme rises back into power to capture the soul once more.

            Using various devices and structure, Emily Dickinson carefully conceals the story of a woman striving for freedom in her poem "The Soul has Bandaged Moments." However, rather than having the woman succeed, she retreats to find consolation in terror, for society's influence frightens her more than fear itself.

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This isn't for homework purposes, but it's just as important.

Since six different IA xangas have been hacked recently, including three students in our class, I removed the IA Homework Group from the blogrings for safety, since all the people hacked were on one or more of those.  We don't want this site hacked since it's an important one where we can work on group projects and stuff.

My advice to everyone who still has a site is to do whatever you can to keep your xanga secure.  Keep changing your password.  Don't use your password for other sites too, so in case someone figures it out they can't figure out how to hack into your xanga.  And definitely don't fill in all the personal info on your profile!!!  The guy who hacked the sites did some pretty horrible things to some of the sites, and plus none of us can access our sites anymore.  Do whatever you can to make sure that doesn't happen to you. If anything, you don't want some hacker to get access to your person info.

Hacking is a real problem.  I hope it doesn't plague any of us in the future.

Deborah H***
Mrs. Erikkla-Dunlop
American Literature B1
September 20, 2005 

The American Identity

            A land of opportunity, wealth, and power may summarize the American identity in the mind of an immigrant seeking a job. On the other hand, in an American’s views, his or her country may stand simply as “home,” or possibly a sign of superiority among other countries. As illustrated in the prologue of America by Chris Matthews, “The Organizer” by Dubravka Ugresic, and “Ellis Island” by Irving Howe, the view of the American identity consists of a rich blend of different values and description, among these: organization, monotony, and chaos.