“Before the year was up, Janie noticed that her husband had stopped talking in rhymes to her.” pg 26                                                                                                                                         “On the train the next day, Joe didn’t make many speeches with rhymes to her…”                     pg 34

This process of “sweet talking” Janie shows very much about the American character.  Logan Killicks had been begging Nanny to marry Janie, but once he finally got the chance to, he realized that there wasn’t much else to do with her.  Joe Starks, on the other hand, quickly picked up Janie with his big ego and nice words and then quickly set her on his mantle as a prize for all to see.  The American character is constantly striving to gain power.  They set out goals, and when they achieve them, they move onto new goals.  In Logan’s case, once he obtained Janie, he had reached the highest spot he had ever expected.  With the prize in hand, Logan did not know what to do with his life and thus started to treat Janie as if she was nothing.  Starks, on the other hand, saw Jaine as just a minor goal along his way to all-powerful.  Starks’ ambition is similar to many people trying to live out the American Dream.  He feels like he can conquer anything, and will not let anything hinder his rise to the top.  In the end though, Starks became consumed with his power and his pursuit for the top was cut short just like many other American characters.

“Ah don’t want yo’ feathers always crumpled by folks throwin’ up things in yo’ face.  And Ah can’t die easy thinkin’ maybe de menfolks white or black is makin’ a spit cup outa you”  pg 20

Nanny has been trying her entire life to keep Janie in line for a successful life.  Since Nanny and her daughter had grown up with many hardships, both of them being raped, Nanny does not want Janie to end up in a similar situation.  When Janie kissed Johnny Taylor, Nanny sees Janie subduing herself to a male and gets worried.  Though it is not as extreme as getting raped by a male, the submission to any man is not what Nanny wants for Janie.  Pertaining to the cult of true womanhood, which we heard about the first day, this action by Nanny seems very interesting.  It seems like under Nanny’s ideology, Janie is going to become a very difficult women to deal with.  We already know she left Tea Cakes for some reason and that Nanny is marrying her to Logan Killicks, we can already see that something is obvoiusly not going right between Janie and her men.

“We slowed down. Taking a white card from his wallet, he waved it before the man’s eyes. ‘Right you are,’ agreed the policeman, tipping his cap. ‘Know you next time, Mr. Gatsby. Excuse me!’” pg 68

The white “get out of jail free” card that Gatsby shows the police officer seemed very interesting to me in a few senses. First, and most obvious, is that the card is white, a very prominent color throughout the story.  This white shows Gatsby’s power in this very powerful society.  What got him all this power though?  The reader knows very little about Gatsby’s past and his rise to West Egg power.  As people said at his party, he could possibly be a bootlegger, and our encounter with the ominous Meyer Wolfsheim seems to back that idea up pretty well.  This seems ironic by the end of the chapter though when the reader learns about his love and plan to “recapture” Daisy.  Gatsby believes that the thing of purity and beauty will somehow become attracted to a life created by insincere practices. The song at the end of the chapter seemed quite like foreshadowing but regardless, it seems quite hard for Gatsby to come out of this situation unscathed.

“In spite of this wives’ agreement that such malevolence was beyond credibility, the dispute ended in a short struggle, and both wives were lifted, kicking, into the night.”  pg 52

The views attained in the previous chapter may have been a bit too critical of Tom Buchanan; his actions are just the same as everyone else’s in East Egg. All the men are just out to gain more and more power over not only their wives, but everyone they associate with. Fitzgerald is trying to show how influential conformity is to the American way of life through the personalities of all these wealthy men. Everyone is always out to be better then someone else. People in America just want to keep up with their neighbors. They want the best car, the newest clothes, and even the most progressive ideas just so that they do not fall behind everyone else. Many people devote their lives to this endless competition of conformity and yet in the long run really do not attain anything useful throughout their entire lives. A prime example of this is in high school life. Throughout a year things such as clothes styles change countless times just because they are the new “in” thing. Kids do not want to be left behind in this shuffle and thus go out and buy these new clothes to conform to the times. Tom is in exactly the same position and is simply acting as his peers do. Though cheating on your wife is a bit more extreme then wearing a strange hat or something of that sort, Tom is essentially just a target of peer influence and would seem like an outcast if he acted any differently. Regardless, this influence on one another makes it seem as if this way of life is going to cause some trouble for many people in the future, especially for our main characters such as Tom and Gatsby.

“‘It’s a bitch,’ said Tom decisively. ‘Here’s your money. Go and buy ten more dogs with it.’” pg 28

Just as in the new Britney Spears song, Tom Buchanan is a womanizer. Not only is he cheating on his seemingly loyal and beautiful wife Daisy, but he also flouts it as if it didn’t matter. Though he does not sit with her on the train, everyone who knows Tom knows that he has this mistress. He just has very little respect for women and what they think and just uses them to get his “power fix”. The quote was striking because he seemed to intuitively know that the dog was a female despite what others thought. Tom has just gotten to a point in which he can just degrade and disrespect women without any repercussions. He seems to have an eye for the “weaknesses” of women and uses it to his advantage. Also, by telling the dog vendor to go buy ten more dogs, Tom showed how little he valued women. Each one is the same as the next and they are all worth just about the same. This way of thinking seems very strange considering the descriptions of Daisy given in the earlier chapter. Wearing white, which symbolizes many things, among them being beauty, purity, and most of all the unreachable, Daisy seems like the perfect fit for this power hungry Tom, and yet it seems as if he wants more. Just as captain Ahab, Tom’s need for more power and his quest for the top may be foreshadowing his impending downfall.

“Across the courtesy bay the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water…” pg 5

The color white, just as in Moby Dick, has a very significant meaning in The Great Gatsby. The houses, owned by people who have too much money to possibly spend in their lifetimes, are all glittery white. They are houses that to almost any person in the world would be unattainable in even ones wildest dreams, and yet these people own them as if they were clothes. As the narrator, Nick, says, his neighbor Mr. Gatsby owns 40 acres of land in one of the most expensive and prominent places in America. Similarly, Daisy Buchanan is a white blond woman who was wearing a small white dress. Though these people seem to have attained the unattainable on the outside, in reality, they have many more problems then one would think. It seems that since Tom Buchanan has everything from polo horses to speedboats, he has started to go for a goal of just pure power. With power over his wife being easy, Tom turned to other women to suffice for this need. It is quite ironic that these people with everything and more actually have nothing.

]]> http://mahjae05.edublogs.org/2008/11/17/chapter-1/feed/ 0 http://mahjae05.edublogs.org/2008/10/27/chapters-88-99/ http://mahjae05.edublogs.org/2008/10/27/chapters-88-99/#comments Mon, 27 Oct 2008 21:22:49 +0000 mahjae05 http://mahjae05.edublogs.org/?p=18 Each of the crewman’s descriptions about the doubloon in Chapter 99 showed many of the conflicting views held upon the Pequod.  The megalomaniatic (if that’s a word) views of Captain Ahab just saw the coin as a symbol for himself.  Due to his great experience at sea, and himself being the only one “brave” enough to hunt Moby Dick, Ahab feels there is no one even close to his level.  Each of the mountains are him, the “firm tower” is him, the “volcano” is him, and the “courageous, the undaunted, and victorious fowl” is also him.  Not only does Ahab hold this high opinion of himself, but I also saw something that struck me in his description of the coin.  Though Ishmael describes the coin as having a mountain with a torch on it, Ahab sees it rather as a volcano.  This seems striking to me due to the hellish associations which volcanoes very often hold.  With Fedallah the devil on board as Ahab’s right hand man, Ahab’s somewhat satanist views about everyday things such as a coin really stir things up.  Ahab constantly talks about how his soul was torn out by Moby Dick along with his leg.  Maybe this means that he has sold his soul to the devil in order to capture Moby Dick, but without Moby Dick though, Ahab does not exist.  I’m not sure but I’m going to venture that Ahab has to die in order for his soul to be found again.  Something like that.