Ethics

I choose ethics as my poem this week. The first read through I felt indifferent to either choice the old lady or the Rembrandt painting. I also tried to decide which I would choose at first I thought I would choose the painting because it is eternal and the lady wouldn’t live forever. But then it made me think of in the road how the boy threw away the flute to me was a symbol of the beginning of civilization and the end of civilization in an apocalypse. So from then on I thought of the fire as a catastrophic even affecting the world.
Which lead me to think who even cares about art art? Art is human expression from the artist, well Rembrandt is dead. What if that old lady was Madonna? Would I save her or a painting each is art.
If I was the old lady I could care less about saving the painting to be honest, there has to be a million copies of this painting but no copies of me the old lady. This poem also made me think of the movie The Day After Tomorrow there is a scene where they are burning the books in the New York Public Library for warmth and one of the men sat in a corner holding on to a book for dear life. It turns out the book was a Gutenberg Bible he didn’t want to burn it because it was the first book to be printed and it was a symbol of human life. That makes sense to me if your freezing to death but it wasn’t the actual Gutenberg Bible it was a copy. I think I would choose the person as long as there were other copies if it was only a fire. Now if I had to choose between a old lady or Shroud of Turin I would push the old lady to the ground and trample her to save the Shroud of Turin, and quite frankly if I were the old lady I would hope someone would trample me to save it. I know that’s not the most pc but that is what this poem is trying to evoke in the reader to find the scenarios where they would let the old lady burn.

Those winter Sundays

In this poem the father works all week and no one every thanks him. I thought it was interesting that the one day he has off the father goes and thanks someone else. I thought that Robert Hayden’s tone was hateful and resentful that his father lived a thankless life. Which made me wonder why the little boy can’t thank his father himself? The last line “What did I know, what I did I know of love’s austere and lonely offices.” I automatically thought of The Road and being a parent in general. I think being a parent is full of gratification but you don’t really get thanked in till your children are old enough to fully realize how much you sacrificed and did for them. This poem wasn’t the warm happy Sunday poem I thought it would be but I thought it was still interesting.

The coming with wisdom

“Though leaves are many, the root is one”

This can be taken in so many ways, are the leaves the moments of our lives and the root our birth? I believe that your life is made of a few large moments in your life. I looked as the tree as the root is my destiny and the leaves are significant moments in my life and after I live that moment that leaf die and falls off, eventually my destiny will end and I will die. But a dead tree will leave a mark on the world. I live my life for my leaves the moments that make me who I am, and the flowers are the times I give someone else a leaf, so they can have a siginfact moment to mold to their destiny.

“Now I may wither into the truth.”

With age comes truth. As we die we learn ultimate truths about after life, and if we amounted to everything. In the last moments of our life we gain the most wisdom we ever had. I imagine death to be a panic because you gain the secretes of life and know you cant share them with your children or love ones. Human life has be centered on unlocking this Pandora’s box of secretes, and as you die you have the key only to have it be tauntingly pried from your hands. Death is a final taught to give you the power of the world only to isolate you, to be haunted to death by your new found wisdom. We all have different leaves but are tricked and tortured by death.

A Work of Artifice

To me this poem was very straight forward about the oppression of women. Of course this poem made me think of Janie. The first thing you read of Their Eyes Were Watching God is a blatant slap in the face to the treatment of women. “Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by Time. That is the life of men. Now, women forget all those things they don’t want to remember and remember everything they don’t want to forget. The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.” Why do women need to live imagined lives but can’t imagine their own ship? Later the book states about Janie “She knew now that marriage did not make love. Janie’s first dream was dead, so she became a woman.” Women don’t have dreams only dreams that their children will fulfill their dreams.

This poem raise the chicken and the egg issue did women choose their pretty “pots” and give up their hopes and dreams first or did women decide to want the pots and empty lives because they were forced to? For most of history women have looked to man as protectors and providers. They felt lucky that they have someone to prune them and keep the 9 inches tall. Women have been taught to strive to find a good gardener no matter how sharp his gardening tools are, and do as he says. Nanny speaks of the relation between man and woman "So de white man throw down de load and tell de nigger man tuh pick it up. He pick it up because he have to, but he don’t tote it. He hand it to his womenfolks. De nigger woman is de mule ud de world so fur as Ah can see." No matter how many times a woman is torn down by a man she is still supposed to love him, and be great full. The hands we love to touch hit us the hardest.

Most classic story tales have damsels in distress and the prince always croons over them. That damsel is always so lucky to be saved. Even though men might be the problem women are a driving force. Women are their own and each others harshest critics. We find value through beauty and have high expiations of what beauty is. Not only do we need our hair in curlers we need to be dainty and graceful.

Women have been starved of knowledge for most of history. Even in some countries today women aren’t aloud to go to school. Our brains have been starved of knowledge and crippled with lies. Like the lie Janie believed that with love comes marriage. I watched a episode of Bewitched the other day and Samantha’s husband was trying to teach her to drive, and she told him “These new gadgets scare me!” even a empower female witch lied to the little girls of America.

The Secret

“Two girls discover the secret of life in a sudden line of poetry. “
As humans we are always searching for the meaning of life, it only makes sense that we would find our answers in poems. We often experience things that we think are the keys to life. Lots of time people think music is the answer to most questions. Or even in religious text like the bible people choose a verse that represents them. We really define who we are through our writing and artistic impression.

“No doubt by now, more than a week later, they have forgotten the secret.”
As time goes on things loose importance to us. We always find new secrets. People always treasure their newer treasure more because of the illusion it is original.
“I love them for finding what I can’t find.”
When we are around children we often find that they have a different view of the world. We don’t always agree with each other but the only way society moves forward is if find new ideas. ]
“For forgetting it so that a thousand times, till death finds them.”
I love when you hear a song you use to love when you were little and you feel like you rediscovered a part of your life. Life is often described as moments that define your life, and you relive those moments over and over.

Disillusionment at Ten O’ Clock

I thought I was being clever by picking a short poem but, it turns out that was a bad idea. I read Disillusionment at Ten O’ Clock and was completely confused. I finally conclude that this poem is about how you live your life. In the beginning Stevens talks about “The houses are haunted, by white night-gowns” This means the houses “society” are haunted by white plain normal night gowns. We are cursed with our own normalcy. I took in to account the time the poem was written in 1915 WWI was going on. Lots of times during war lots of literature has the ideas that we are zombies to routine and I could see how you could interpret this poem in the sense that even during war we are still in our routines. The part with all the colors I thought was silly and was part of the poem to show how normal and boring we are, because as I read it I was genuinely shocked and confused. I also thought it was interesting the colors went green, purple, green, green, yellow, yellow, blue. When it should be green, green, purple, purple, green, green, yellow, yellow, blue. But by me noticing that part of the poem which wasn’t to important it proves Steven’s point we strive for normalcy like patterns.
I looked up ceintures and I found out they were types of sashes. I thought socks with lace was normal and sashes were out of the ordinary. “People are not going to dream of baboons and periwinkles.” We are so normal we even dream normalcy. While in society sailors have often been looked at as strange outcast. The sailor is different but his dreams are interesting. The red weather part made me think of the red scare even thought that was after the poem was written. That line really made me think of how people acted in the 1950’s. There was so much fear of not being normal because of being accused of being a communist. Many people looked at the ones who stood up as strong enough to catches tigers.

I'm gonna be lazy...

I'm taking this week off. :] Hope you all have a good candy haul!

Acquainted with the night.

This poem had an ABAB rhyme scheme. This poem had a less romantic tone and was very blunt. When I read this poem I wondered what the night symbolized. At first I thought that maybe it was society and then I thought maybe death. Then I ultimately decide that the night was self awareness. The saddest city lane is the dark times in your life and the struggles. The watch man was is Frost older self or maybe his soul. By frost saying he was aquatinted with the night he had been aquatinted with his true self.

The Snow Man

To me winter is the best time of the year; I have a fantasy of living in the harsh winters of Alaska. So clearly when leafing through the new semester’s packet of poem my eyes made a b line for The Snow Man. I really enjoyed and all of the visuals, even though the first time I read through it I was left confused.

“One must have the mind of winter”

Looking at the years Stevens lived I noticed he lived during a time period in America that many think is innocent. When we think of the 1879-1955 we think of house wives and children happy to get to watch one TV show or to have a slice of pie. When you think of the early 1900’ you imagine large dinners and festive holidays, complete with roasting chestnuts, ice skating, and lots of innocent winter activates. Then I thought maybe he could mean that having the mind of winter means a cold harsh mind. I kept reading on to find my answer.

“and not to think of any misery in the sound of the wind, in the sound of few leaves”

Stevens is telling us to not look at winter negatively. The snow man wouldn’t think about how cold he was he would appreciate the dancing sparkle of ice stuck to pine needles. It is fascinating that most would say winter is the most beautiful season, because it has no color, there is no life.

“For the listener who listens to the snow”

The listener is the snow man but could be Mother Nature. I could picture a lone snow man standing in a clearing in the forest. Now here’s where you really need to read closely.

“And, nothing himself, beholds nothing that is not there and nothing that is”

Did Stevens steal this from Yoda? After reading this a thousand times I came to the conclusions that the snow man owns nothing that is there and nothing that is not there. Just like winter there appears to be nothing there and that’s why we love it for nothing. Steven’s is asking us to mot beat his poem for the nothing that is not there, and the nothing that is.

Begining Again

I talked about this poem a lot in class so I thought I would just pick one line that stood out to me the most. "Off all alone again performing brain surgery on himself" When I first read this I actually visualized a twisted man in scrubs performing brain surgery on himself. But then I thought of how I am constantly devoted trying to perform psychological exams on my self. I can think the most simple thing. "Oh I like that girl's shirt." Then I immediately think do I really like her shirt or do I think that to hide that I'm subconsciously think shes ugly? Why do I feel the need to think every one is pretty to raise their self confidence in my mine when in its only in my mind and it wont really help at all? Did I just think shes ugly because I am threatened by her for potential mates? Am I really this shallow and mentally back stabbing? Why do I automatically search for the darkest evilest parts of my personality? Do I want myself to be evil? I will eventually drive my self crazy with my bombarding questions, all because I liked her shirt. Then I wonder dose any one else do this or am I completely crazy, so when Raab mentioned this I felt less crazy and more human.

The title of the poem related to these thoughts as well, because every time I do this I make some goal to work on my personality. I will also make impossible goal to change my life, like oh I'm going to study for this test every day and not be judgemental. These goals are just lies to myself because every time i make them i think this is the new me I'm beginning again, but I all ways stay true to my flaws and not follow through.

The Hallow Men

“Or rat’s feet over broken glass
In our dry cellar”

We always think that rats are lowly and dirty. So I thought that I was interesting whenever T.S Elliot speaks of things we find valuable like crystal or wine cellars there are always rats near. But on a deeper level since we are hallowed and transparent soles, but since we are so empty we can be filled with evil and shattered. The idea of disguises popped in to my mind to because our fake personas eventually shatter.

“Remember us – if at all – not as lost
Violent souls, but only
As the hallow men
The stuffed men”

At first when I read this I thought that he was speaking to prosperity or humanity. My mind jumped to WWII did the Nazis want us to see them as hallow men? But then I thought is this the dying thought of a man pleading to god? Is he asking to not judge their souls as harshly? Eve did eat the apple is he asking to be saved. When I read this I also thought of Author McCarthy’s quote “Soldiers never die they just fade away.” If we don’t remember these souls fondly do they want to be forgotten? Is it better to be infamous or forgotten? When you look at Hitler do you see a hallow man stuffed with hate or a man who lived for something even if it was for evil?

“Eyes I dare not meet in dreams”

This can go many ways. Are the eyes the eyes of men you have killed? But to me I pictured those cheesy scary movies where the killer looks in the mirror to discover that they were the killer. As a human I know I deny the evil inside of me and repress it. If we acknowledge our evil self’s do we become full? Or are the eyes of you self the rebel that wants to break conformity and you dare not acknowledge that? Is being different really what gives our lives meaning? Or are the eyes the eyes of the lord, or the devil? Could the eyes be the eyes of truth, death? You could write a novel on just these seven words.

“Of death’s twilight kingdom
The hope only
Of empty men.”

These were my three favorite lines in this poem! To me these lines mean that mans greatest hope is to ascend to heaven. The next line implies that this is what makes us empty. Does this hope make us empty because we live our lives on earth to prepare for the next? To many religious people that hope and faith is what gives us meaning and substance, but does that faith blind us and leave us hallowed? If that is true then how the faithless live knowing do they are bound for an eternity of nothing. What do they live for? If they arrive at hells gates would they regret not being hallow would they change? Which to me going to hell is the worst thing ever so I raise the question is not being hallowed really worth it? I would rather have faith and be as transparent as air.

“Between the conception
And the creation”

I thought of Adam and Eve, Eve ate the apple dooming humanity to darkness. Do humans not have the choice to be full or are we doomed to putter around this universe for no reason at all. Life is very long I thought this was interesting because we strive to live as long as possible but why? If we have no reason to be here then why would you want to try and keep yourself entertained for longer?

“This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.”

We always imagine the world ending with spewing volcanoes the earth ripping open at the seams consuming skyscrapers, zombies roaming rapid, not as a slow aging reaching death. What if the fires ignited by cave men are the flame of humanity that is slowly dying? Why dose humanity think that to destroy us there must be an epic apocalypse? Why do we think we are so special?

My Analogy Poem

I stood in the line at the DMV.
Waiting for my glorified piece of paper,
I had all my credentials
birth certificate, social security, economics.
As I looked around, everyone was impaticanlty
fiddling with their phones making
plans for after the dreaded crusade.
I was envious of the ones that stormed out,
I wonderd where they were.

I draged closer, and the warden reached out a decaying hand gripping the scroll.
As I retrieved I thought I would be happy relived that I had received my precious.
But I only found I was late for work and annoyed I had wasted so much time at the DMV.
I even wonderd why I had even gone.

Uneffusive Circumspect Wallflowers

I thought this poem was really fun and light. I didn’t have to beat this poem with a pipe to understand it. This poem was about words and how often we use them. I know this is really random but when I was little I always personified my stuffed animals and wanted to make room for all of them. That why I never had too many because I would become so conflicted with having to sleep and play with all of them equally and didn’t want to exclude anyone. I know I only use big words when I’m trying to impress someone. On a deeper level I did realize that as a human I do want to get picked to. Everyone wants to get picked sometime, and feel loved. There is no rhyme scheme to this poem. The poem is also is full of commas and questions.

Mr. Fear......................BOO!

The first thing I thought was who Mr. Fear is is he scary or a scardy cat? As I started to read "He follows us, he keeps track each day his list are longer." From my American childhood I automatically think Santa! But were in AP lit and I doubt we would get a poem on Santa. I also think of the lord because, he is always watching us and keeping track of our sins. "Maybe he smiles when he finds the right one. Maybe he’s sorry." This made me think of the lord to because when he see us starving, hurt, diagnosed with cancer, and all the other pain, is he happy because he know that is what will make us strong or sad because we are broken.

Personally I don't believe in free will, so to me the lines "and he looks through his sack, his black sack of troubles" I pictured fate personified. He reaches his hand in and pulls out, who you are and how your life will be. "Make it small please." Everyone always hope that they have a small amount of hardships and troubles to deal with in their life. This poem is an allegory and a personification.

Mr. Fear has taken vacancy in my mind and refuses to leave thanks to Lawrence Raab.

In Blackwater Woods

Today in class Toni presented this poem and, I really like it and wanted to blog it while it was fresh in my mind. You asked in class if we thought this poem was literally about a forest, I think this poem is about life and how much you need to appreciate it. To me a forest is a perfect symbol for life and death.

The first stanza "Look, the trees are turning their own bodies in to pillars of light..." I can of course as a native to Colorado I can picture the pillars of light between trees as the sun goes down. But to me this makes me think of how towards the end of my life I always picture my view of the mortal world fade in to the gates of heaven. For that split moment I hope that the two worlds overlap. To me that one hope alone is almost enough to want to live for.

In stanzas 5 and 6 "Every year everything I have learned in my lifetime leads back to this..." shows how in your life if you are a master at physics or a trash man your life always leads you to an end. No matter how much you try to avoid it death comes knocking. That reminds me of a quote I love from Futurama "Thanks to denial I’m immortal!” I know personally one way to cope with death for me is through complete denial. That brings me to the three things "love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and when the time comes to let it go, to let it go." These are skills to confront your own mortality. To love what is mortal, you must love life and not be bitter that it will be taken away from you, and to love life in general. To me what makes life worth living are images I am very fond of images from nature, these beautiful natural sanctuary’s are mostly mortal and will perish but with an image I can forever see the beauty in what once was, just like human history. To hold it against your bones you must embrace life and experience it. The last is the hardest when time comes to let it go let it go. I'm sure we have all wondered what our last thoughts will be and what death is like and that’s the most relatable thing in the world. Every human on earth will know what it is like to die, and we will all be forced to let go. I really enjoyed this poem and even though the content is so dark after reading it I felt
*The pictures are of natury things I took that just make me think of life :]

To Myself

Let’s be honest here I picked this poem first because, it is one of the shorter poems but, the title also caught my eye. The skeleton of the poem is a single 16 line poem (we don’t have the word for 16 lines). For the rhyming scheme, this poem is a free verse because none of the lines rhyme. Although what I did notice is six of the lines end in you. This poem is about staying true to yourself. The lines “Even when I forget you, I go on looking for you” (lines 1 and 2) explain it all to me. I think when all humans feel they’ve lost their true self’s they often go searching for it. The poems lines that stood out most to me were most 3-4. I like how the lines talk about remembering. This poem made me think of how I often remember some events in my life as how I want to remember them, and how often I remember other people as I want them to be. Another part of the poem I really enjoyed was lines 4-7, Merwin is talking about how in his memory it is as if he was still there but it was long ago. To me those are the most enjoyable memories where you can live completely in that moment. To me it’s like where you have a dream and it is so real you almost question if you are awake or not. These memories are so emotionally powerful to me this poem is a pathos. Another part of the poem I liked a lot was lines 14-16 to me these lines mean you are a true individual and not what people say you are. Even when you lose yourself and change, you are not lost; you are yourself undefined and beautiful. Over all I really enjoyed this poem because of the dreamy flow from line to line, and the poems marvelous ideals. *The pictures are pictures I've taken that made me feel how I felt when I read the poem.

1943

1943 was an interesting poem. It was somewhat of a narrative poem because it told a story of a soldier going from the life he knew at home to war, specifically War World II. It mostly transitioned from one setting to the next, telling something about the soldier's lives before the war and then a detail about the war. In the first two couplets of the poem the theme was mostly about Dominick Esposito and in the last three couplets the theme was about milk.
The author created Dominick Esposito as an example of how Dominick's life transitioned from his normal life as a boxer to a solder in World War II. He especially described his life in the war with the line, "and ten months later Dom died in the third wave at Tarawa."
We considered milk another theme because it was frequently mentioned in the last three couplets.
As for the structure of the poem it was made up of entirely couplets and had no rhyme scheme. We considered the poem both an ode because it was written about a dignified subject and an elegy because it wt mourned the loss of the solder's previous lives before they went to war.
The last line of the poem, "with frostbitten feet as white as milk.", was the climax of the poem. It tied in the author's reference to a soldier's previous Mamore of getting milk delivered to his home in Connecticut. then in the winter how the milk froze and, "lifted the cardboard lids of glass bottles." The words before the last line, "-what could we do?-", builds up to the climax line because it is the soldier seeing the deaths of his fellow soldiers, how they got frostbitten feet, and thinking that he could do nothing but continue on with his tasks and think of better times from his life before the war.

The Kite Runner

Wow! I loved this book from cover to cover. It was not a light hearted book but this book was stuffed with scenes that cause you to self reflect honesty. This book made me truly search myself to see if I could practice the blind loyalty Hassan had for Amir. I think the main reason of why I loved this book is the harsh honesty lacking any sugar coating.
Of course being human I felt empathy for Hassan through the story, but I could not help but wonder was his loyalty honorable or foolish? His loyalty lead to his and his wife death, his sons attempt at suicide, the only gain was a blue kite and a life of guilt and shame for Amir. In the end I think Hassan’s loyalty was his love leading him to his ultimate down fall. As for Amir’s love for Baba and Hassan’s love for Amir made me think of how most people work hardest to receive love they do not receive. Humans strive for what they cannot posses. Another human concept I saw was that as hard as you try you cannot forget your past. You can only blissfully believe you have buried your past and pray that it does not resurface soon.
Since I have read all three books now I thought I would discuss key themes I saw, in the books. In all three novels there was decimation in The Great Gatsby and The Kite Runner there was strict separations by wealth, and in The Kite Runner and Heart of Darkness there was separation by race. All three books took a look at the darker side of human behavior. These books also questioned if man is ultimately good or evil. Some books also had journeys leading to redemption; Jay’s redemption of love, and Amir’s redemption of shame.

A video

I finished The Kite runner today and will post my blog for it tomorrow but I wanted to learn more about kite fighting, and I found this video.I thought it was the perfct video for The Kite Runner http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYCLyNvFSDs

Where is The Heart of Darkness?

Going in to this book my biggest questions were who or where is the heart of darkness and what does it symbolize?
The method of reading I chose was reading-to-writing connection for heart of darkness. As I was reading I tried to focus on how Conrad was telling this story. I noticed he used a lot of descriptive words to describe to scene. He used lots of questions to convey Marlow’s thoughts. Conrad’s style of writing seems to be is very dark, so I thought I would look in to his life. Most writers have tragic or hard lives and I found Conrad was no exception. Orphaned at 17, he started sailing on British ships. This explains the advanced boat terminology used in the book and some character strong nationalism for Brittan. Conrad sailing into the Belgian Congo made me curious, as prepare the Heart of Darkness was related to his experiences?
Part One
The one single word has stood out the most to me is savage. Although Marlow does show compassion towards the savages, I still find that the story relates to the natives as more of an idea/symbol than as humans. When Marlow is talking to the brick maker the brick maker speaks of the new gang of virtue, I automatically assumed that the morals and virtue would be light, and that would make darkness conquering and consumption. I realized that darkness symbolized the mysterious forest and the unknown.
Part Two
One of the similes that stood out to me was Marlow relating the dense jungle of Africa and its inhabitants to the prehistoric earth. But the main idea I had was that darkness opens your eyes and light blinds you. The darkness of the forest opens your eyes to the unknown. But light blinds you like the fog that surrounded the ship. Light blinds you by having a false security and can blind you to reality. As I was reading I also noticed a line about women “…we must help them stay in a beautiful world.” This made me flash back to The Great Gatsby when Daisy says she hope her daughter would be a “beautiful fool”. I also found a connection to The Great Gatsby because Marlow did not like the people he was surrounded by just like Nick Caraway.
Part Three
As Kurtz slowly dies in part three, I realize where the heart of darkness lies. Man has the heart of darkness. Even with the new gang of virtue and the good intentions of white man’s burden, in the center man was a heart ruled by evil. I personally don’t believe that man has a heart of darkness, but a center of faith and hope. So, to me, I found it comforting that Marlow uses light to blind Kurtz’s woman, by telling her that his last word was her name.

The Great Gatsby (and his not so great friends)

By annotating this book, the method I chose was text to text connection, I was forced to summarize and, stop and really think not only about what is happening but why the author made it happen.

While reading chapter one for the second time I realized that Nick Caraway gives away the whole plot line by hinting at events that happen, and the personality of the main charters. Did Fitzgerald want to purposely give the plot away like Shakespeare did in Romeo and Juliet? Why did Fitzgerald choose to make his characters so unlikeable? I think any woman would be angry if they were compared to selfish, reckless Jordan, or ditzy Daisy who is constantly trying to convince Nick she’s deep. Why did Fitzgerald include the scene with the clock during Jay and Daisy’s reunion? It was a very awkward moment and not important to the plot. Does the clock falling represent his desire to travel back in time to when he and Daisy first met falling to pieces? Is this why Gatsby’s obsession with recreating the past put in to the book? Is this is an idea that people of the 1920’s could relate to? Was that a popular idea in the 1920’s, did people want to recreate a past before WWI?
One of the characters that I found most important was Doctor T.J Eckleburg. His eyes witnessed account of everything that was important. I wondered why Fitzgerald would choose to add this essential character as a billboard. Did Fitzgerald mean for Dr. Eckleburg's eyes to be the prying eyes of society, peering in to the lives of the rich and famous? Or are the glasses are as Wilson believes the eyes of God watching our every move and moral miscommings? If Eckleburg’s eyes are the eyes of God is he judging all the sins that took place in his sight? Would he punish Daisy for Myrtle’s instant death or Tom’s lust for Wilson’s wife?

My final thoughts on this book (since I know you have to read a bunch of these) are that I did not care for the charters or what they represent. This book is an exclent reprentaion of the roaring 20’s.On the marking of the book what I liked about this method was renaming the chapters from roman numerals to An Absolute Rose or Valley of Ashes which helped me remember what each chapter was about.

My next book to tackle is Heart of Darkness. :]

My first post ever!

Today I got my class information and am excited to start reading for class. Of the three books I have read on The Great Gatsby. Since I've read this book I thought that it would be perfect to annote it first. I remember the Great Gatsby's plot vividly but most of all I remember how the ending made me feel. I was so angry that the only charters in the whole book who had moral integrity die. I am a high believer in fidelity and if you truly love someone you could wait forever. So from the get go I never liked Daisy. I also remember that even though Myrtles husband killed Jay I all ways felt his pain and fustration over his unfaithful wife. So I am all ready to re-read this American classic and give my hand at annotating. :]

Shelby Edwards. (soon to be a book worm)