The Spoon River Anthology

http://animoto.com/play/O7V0HDPD5P3xC0MdhWh1QQ

http://animoto.com/play/5CGmDNwC0vep6bTsk5hXDQ

Themes in The Great Gatsby

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJZwPIJylhM


   The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald had many prevelant themes throughout the story. I'm sure that there were more than I could detect, but the two main ones that I could see was the decline of the American dream in the 1920s and the emptiness of the upper class. The main scope of the story was the love story between Daisy/Gatsby/Tom, however Fitzgerald had a much larger theme in mind. Fitzgerald lived in the 1920s and so he saw first hand how the American dream slipped away from many people. He describes in many instances a world of decayed moral and social values. I saw this most in the adultary that happens throughout the novel between Tom and Myrtle and later Daisy and Gatsby. Also, I see the decaying American dream in Gatsby's "empty" parties. The parties were social highlights, however Gatsby rarely knew anyone in attendance, and he threw parties just because he could. Where is the enjoyment in that? Also, both Tom and Gatsby, as well as other characters throughout the book, are incredibly greedy and money-minded. This is where the American dream becomes corrupted. Another evident theme was the emptiness of people in the upper class. As I just mentioned, Gatsby threw parties just for the fun of it. This gives him no real satisfaction, and leaves him empty. Gatsby was the main person aimed with this shadow of emptiness and the lack of social grace and general kindness. His comparison was Tom and Daisy Buchanan. Their tasteful home and lovely lifestyle was much different than Gatsby's money revolving-social climbing minded lifestyle. This is actually very clearly defined--Gatsby lived on East Egg, Tom and Daisy on West Egg.
    Along with themes, there were a few important symbols throughout the novel. One was Dr. T.J. Eckleburg's eyes. This was an old advertisement on an old billboard advertising the doctors' services. The advertisement was eyes with glasses around them. They looked over the valley of ashes (a symbol for the fallen American dream). The valley of ashes in the story was just a desolate land that was a spot industrial smog and ashes happen to fall. Anyway, his eyes, in my opinion, symbolized God. They are often given the impression of being spooky and eerie and untouchable. The residents of East and West Egg had to drive or ride the train through the valley and ashes and Dr. T.J. Eckleburg's eyes always caught their attention. They seemed to be watching everything, just like God does. It seems to see all the things that happen throughout the novel-the adultary, the hit and run by Daisy killing Myrtle (which actually happened right in the valley of ashes), and the numerous lies in the novel. You could even say they were judging all the characters in the novel for "Judgement day". A second symbol was the green light at the end of Daisy and Tom's dock. Gatsby could see the light every night from his mansion. The green light symbolizes Gatsby's hopes and dreams for the future, specifically with Daisy. He looks at the light every night as a way to keep connected to Daisy. Carraway describes the the significance of the light to Gatsby as it must have been for early settlers to see America for the first time (Also, like what the Statue of Libery symbolizes for new immigrants). People were coming over to America to experience the American dream--and Daisy was Gatsby's dream.

Quotes!

http://cdn-img1.imagechef.com/w/120509/3dc34c7cab40477f.gif

I did this before on another post, but I love quotes. I collect quotes in a notebook...from song lyrics to random things I see in movies, books, magazines, or on the internet. Most of them have no real creditor to it, I just find them randomly. But I'm going to flip through my notebook and find quotes that remind me of things in The Great Gatsby and then explain how!

"Be soft. Do not let the world make you hard. Do not let the pain make you hate. Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness. Take pride that even though the rest of the world may disagree, you still believe it to be a beautiful place."

   This quote really reminds me of Daisy's outlook on life. She has had a lot happen to her. She lost Gatsby and now has a husband who cheats on her and she is well aware of it. However, she always has this positive way about her. She is sunshine, really.

"The biggest mistake you can make is drifting apart from seomeone who you once had the time of your life with."

    This quote reminds me of how both Daisy and Gatsby probably felt at one point or another. They were once each other's entire world's. They were so in love. They indeed had the time of their lives together, then Gatsby left to war, and it ripped them apart.

"The only truly painful goodbyes are the ones that are never said and never explained."

    This is probably how Gatsby felt when Tom took Daisy away without telling anybody with full intention of ripping Gatsby and her apart again. This is also how Daisy must have felt after she found out about Gatsby's death--she never got to say goodbye, never got to tell him she loves him.

"All our lives we search for someone to love, someone to make us complete. We choose partners and change partners. We dance to a song of heartbreak and hope, all the while, wondering if somewhere, somehow, someone perfect is searching for us too."

     I love how much this quote reminded me of the overall flow of the book. Gatsby spent yearswaiting for Daisy to just walk right back into his life. I especially like the metaphor "dance to a song of heartbreak" because of Gatsby's parties--full of dancing, all the while Gatsby is heartbroken, waiting for Daisy. Gatsby spent those years just wondering and waiting and hoping Daisy still loved him back.

"Sometimes you just need someone. Someone to make you smile when you're sad, to tell you you're beautiful. Someone to look forward to seeing you every day. Someone to call you every night just to say I love you and mean it."
 
   This quote reminds me of how Daisy could have been feeling. Tom neglected her to a point because he had another woman. Therefore, Daisy's self esteem wasn't at peak, and she very much just wanted to be loved and wanted to be enough for anything. I also think Gatsby would have done everything for Daisy that the quote suggests.

"Don't ever use someone's past against them. You're just reminding them of the mistakes they made back then. If you watch their facial expressions carefully, then you'll see the hurt in their eyes as they reminisce everything that happened. Never use emotion as a weapon, it strikes deeper than you can imagine."

   The past between Gatsby and Daisy was an extremely touchy subject even for the two of them alone. The past had been buried in Daisy's life while the past was very much alive in Gatsby's world. Therefore, it was hard for both of them to think about how things used to be, and to realize they may never be the same again.

"I wasn't looking for someone to make me feel happy. Of course I can be happy on my own. But I wanted to be someone else's happiness. Do you know that feeling? To be someone's first thought when they wake up and to put a bright smile on their face just for saying "hello". Whatever it's called, it's a feeling I can't feel on my own, it is a a feeling I was looking for, and it is what I meant when I said "I can't be alone"."

    Nick Carraway and Jordan Baker become romantically involved throughout the story. This quote reminds me exactly of something Miss Baker would say to Carraway. She was incredibly independent and strong, however she wanted to be loved. She could do things on her own, but she didn't want to-and she had thought Carraway was her answer even though he has much bigger things to be dealing with.

"What they say, life goen on, is mostly true. The mail is delivered, and the Christmas lights go up and down from the houses, and the ladders get put away, and you open yet another box of cereal. In time, the volume of my feelings would be turned down in gentle increments to near quiet, and yet the record would still spin, always spin."

   This is most likely how Daisy felt for a long time after Gatsby's death. She had a husband and a daughter to take care of, she couldn't just stop living. She had to accept things and keep living her life no matter how deep her mourning may have became. She probably understood that life goes on, even if pain is constant.

Vlog!

This is just a short Vlog about my fourth quarter book The Great Gatsby and my general opinion on it. Enjoy! :)

The Great Gatsby animoto

http://animoto.com/play/k079EShP28ucZAyqTohWIw
     This animoto was meant to be like a movie trailer for a movie based on The Great Gatsby. Although the plot is much deeper than the love story between Daisy and Gatsby, and Tom and Daisy, and Tom and Myrtle, that theme seems to be what would compel readers into the story. So, that's the main point of this animoto. I really liked how this one turned out, my past animoto's haven't been able to get a point across like I wanted them to, but this one was much better! Enjoy! I hope this makes you want to read the book! It's a classic!

F. Scott Fitzgerald (short) Biography

    F. Scott Fitzgerald is the author of my fourth quarter book, The Great Gatsby. Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896 in Saint Paul, Minnisota to a upper middle class Irish-Catholic family. Interestingly, he was named for his distant cousin, Franicis Scott Key--the author of the Star Spangled Banner. He spent his first ten years of life in Buffalo, New York and attended two Catholic schools. His schooling at these schools revealed to teachers that he was a boy of unusual intelligence with an extreme interest in literature. When he was ten, his father was fired from his job and they returned to Minnisota. There, his first literary publishing was published when he was 13 in the school newspaper; it was a detective story. He entered Princeton University in 1913 and wrote for the Princeton Triangle Club and the Princeton Tiger. He met Zelda Sayre, whom he called "the golden girl", and they married after much convincing by Fitzgerald. They had their first child in 1921. Fitzgerald's most famous novel, The Great Gatsby, was published in 1925 in the heart of the Jazz Age. He went on many trips to Europe and became good friends with Ernest Hemingway. Zelda was struck with schnzophrenia and Fitzgerald spent much of his time caring for her. He had been an alcholic since his college days, which left him in poor health by the late 1930's. He survived tuberculosis and suffered two heartattacks and died eventually on December 21st, 1940. He died believing himself a failure, although he is highly regarded as one of the best writers of the 20th century.
    In reading F. Scott Fitzgerald's biography, I saw many similarities between his life and The Great Gatsby. Jay Gatsby was supposedly born into a wealthy family, and when his family died, he inherited a lot of money. This is similar to Fitzgerald's upper-middle class birth. Fitzgerald lived a lot of his life on the East Coast, which makes me think he preferred there over his hometown in Minnisota. This is also like both Gatsby and Tom Buchanan, who adored living on the East Coast. Fitzgerald's name for his future wife "the golden girl" made me think of Gatsby's adoration for Daisy in the book. The fact that The Great Gatsby was published in the Jazz Age explains much of it's plot and storyline-such as Gatsby's extravaggant parties. I feel like F. Scott Fitzgerald drew a parallel to Gatsby in this book. He viewed himself as a character like Gatsby's--amazingly popular, but misunderstood. Both loved a woman very much and both had a tradegy among their characters and especially their deaths. After reading F. Scott Fitzgerald's biography, I can see many similarities between his life and the plotline of The Great Gatsby.

Fourth Quarter!!

        For fourth quarter I read The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. I wanted to read a classic for one of my books over the year. I have heard great things about this book and so I went for it. I loved it. It was definitely my favorite book out of the four I read this year. I really didn't know much about the plot before I read it, despite its infamous position in literature, so I was happy I actually got a surprise while reading it. The other books I read were completely predictable or there was no big ending, therefore making them boring. All I knew about the book is that there was some sort of love story throughout the plot. But there was so much more to it!
       The book is narrated by a sort of third-party witness- Nick Carraway. He is involved right in the middle of everything that happens in the story. He is Daisy Buchanan's cousin. He is Jay Gatsby's neighbor. He knew Tom Buchanan from college. So he is tied to all main characters in the entire book. He tells the story through his point of view. The book takes place in the 1920's in different places in and around New York City, New York. Daisy and Tom are married and live on East Egg- the glamorous "egg" while West Egg, where Gatsby and Carraway reside, is less glamorous except for Jay Gatsby--with his marvelous mansion that hosts extravagant parties almost daily. Daisy and Gatsby are past loves. They were madly in love until Gatsby left for the war, in which in that five year time frame, the pressure became to much to handle and she fell in love and married Tom. Gatsby came back from the war still deeply in love with Daisy and lived his life in accordance to winning her back and in ways that would please her. He bought the huge house and had fun, classy parties in hopes she would wander in one of those days. She never did. Gatsby was fully aware that she was married and also knew that she lived in East Egg. He could see a green light that was on every night at the end of the Buchanan's deck and he would look at it every night, longing for her. A friend of both Daisy and Gatsby- Jordan Baker- first meets Carraway at a tea at the Buchanan house. Soon enough Gatsby found out that Carraway was Daisy's cousin and used him to get to Daisy again. Later in the story, he finally asks Carraway to have a tea and invite both Daisy and Gatsby only. He did, and that's when their love rekindles. Before you know it, Daisy and Gatsby usually with Carraway are inseparable. Tom eventually picks up on what is going on. However, Tom has a mistress- Myrtle Wilson. He has been with her for quite a while now and Daisy is fully aware. But, Tom is not the sort of man to let his wife be stolen away from him...so he is very upset. Jordan, Daisy, Tom, Gatsby, and Carraway take a day trip to New York soon after Tom realizes what is going on. Confrontation begins and everything is out on the table. Daisy is incredibly distressed and doesn't know what to do. Gatsby doesn't realize that Daisy did actually love Tom. Tom doesn't realize Gatsby and Daisy's past. So she is faced with a choice that she can't decide on. Daisy and Gatsby leave together from the city in a seperate car from Tom. On their way back, Daisy wants to drive to try to calm her nerves. As she was driving through a town, she hits Myrtle Wilson, Tom's mistress, on total accident. She hits and she runs. She is terribly distraught. Tom drives through the town later to see the scene and finds out it was Myrtle who was hit. He soon figures out it was Gatsby's car who hit her and tells Mr. Wilson this. Mr. Wilson seeks revenge and shots Gatsby a few days later at his home. Carraway is left with the load of Gatsby's life--which is a lot. He holds a funeral for him but only his father shows up--a father Carraway understood to be dead. After all the people who appeared in his life through his parties, none of them showed. Tom took Daisy away after the incident and was never heard from again. I really loved this book.