dale12’s Blog

     In chapter five of the great Gatsby, the secret plan that Gatsby has been waiting for many years for is finally happening. Nick agreed to invite Daisey over to his house for tea, despite the weirdness of Gatsby trusting in Jordan to ask Nick just that. He should have asked Nick himself, but that is besides the point. When Daisey comes over, Gatsby is introduces to her, but he asks very rudely and does not join in the conversations. He hides himself off to the side until Nick finally leaves to do something, and when Nick comes back, Gatsby had apparently told Daisey who he was because she was in tears. They then proceeded to Gatsby’s house where he gave her the biggest tour ever. He even showed her how he had cut out a lot of clippings about her, and how he could see her house and dock from his window. The funny thing is she did not find that one bit sketchy. This if not everything else proves that she has feelings for him because if she didn’t then she would have totally found that creepy. They retired to one of his living rooms and there they stayed for awhile, just admiring each others company and trying to absorb as much as they could of one another to make up for the other years.

“They had forgotten me, but Daisey glanced up and held out her hand; Gatsby didn’t know me at all. I looked ounce more at them and they looked back at me, remotely, possessed by intense life. Then I went out of the room and down the marble steps into the rain, leaving them there together,” (96).

     This quote shows the strength of their love for each other and how it has not decreased with the passing of the years. We talked a few days ago in class about how Gatsby is definitely lying about his past and all the achievements, and how he is probably involved with drugs and gambling. I have to agree with this statement because he can’t get all of that money without doing something dirty, and he had had a little problem with keeping his story strait. Although I really don’t care if he were to be involved in a shading business. He still has a huge heart and he searched for his love for years and years, and never wavered. He is still a great person to me in this book. Everyone is dishonest in some way, but Gatsby at least has found love and has bent over backwards trying to find her. This bond that he has with her is really cool and not found very often, or as often as it should be. Daisey seems to happy, as shown by the quote above because they are both in a huge daze and loving every minute of it. I really would not feel bad at all for Tom if Gatsby stole Daisey away because Tom tried to have the two parts of life. He had a faithful wife and he had a mistress on the side. It serves him right to think that he was good enough to get away with that. What Daisey and Gatsby have is a beautiful thing and I really hope that they can find a way to be together.

     In reading chapter 4 of The Great Gatsby, it was interesting to see the relationships between Gatsby and Daiseyevolve in Nick’s eyes. With Gatsby and Daisey, it was finally revealed to Nick why Gatsby really needed him, and why he tried to do a lot with him including some bonding attempts. Nick really just wanted to know what was going on, and why he was being invited by Gatsby everywhere. Gatsby finally reveals it through Jordan telling the story of how Daisy and him met and he was in love with her, and her with im according to the fact that when she was sent a letter from Gatsby right before her wedding, she broke down into tears,

“She would not let go of the letter. She took it into the tub with her and squeezed it up into a wet ball, and only let me leave it in the soap-dish when she saw that it was coming to pieces like snow,” — “Next day at five o’clock she married Tom Buchanan without so much as a shiver, and started off on a three months’ trip to the South Seas,” (76).

     This chapter explains why Gatsby was hosting all of those parties and letting everyone go even if they were not invited. He just figured that with all of the people who came to his parties who were from all different types of social statuses and clicks, that he was bound to find Daisey showing up at one them. I really was confused and had doubts that any of the pat events were ever going to make sense, but now I realize that it all had to be the background so that the reader wold read this chapter and know how everyone was related, and understand who everyone was in the different clicks of people. Every single event that happened leads up to this discovery for Nick and the reader. It all makes sense now. And to top it off, Nick is not angry at Gatsby anymore for keeping secrets.

     I feel that this quote symbolizes the history that Daisey and Gatsby shared with one another. It seems that to get such a huge reaction out of Daisey, especially right before her wedding with Tom, she really had to have adored Gatsby. Their little dates really must have meantsomething to not only Gatsby who spent years trying to find a way to see Daisey, and Daisey who is found sobbing over a letter from Gatsby right before her wedding. The love is clearly their. The only question I have now is what happened to the relationship? I really don’t understand why Daisey could feel so much emotion over a letter from Gatsby, and yet go right on with the wedding like her episode never happened. The nly reason I could think of is that Tom threatened her, or Gatsby was not part of her social class, and therefore was not permitted to be with him anyway. It could not be the money because Gatsby has the most ravishing parties of all. The only reasons I can think of are the ones above. We will just have to find out. The book is finally starting to get interesting!

Link: http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=for-the-brain-status-is-better

     During chapter three of The Great Gatsby we finally get to meet Gatsby himself. He throws one of his huge parties that happen on a regular basis. He is a very suspicious character. Everyone knows him, and so they all seem to show up to his parties, even without an invitation. This is very peculiar to me because I would consider this act, and act of bombardment and snooping. They seem to find it their right; not a privilege to go to one of Gatsby’s parties. It is interesting how he can afford all of these extravagant parties, and butlers and maids, and a huge library. He lives right next to Nick which means that he is considered to live on the poorer of the eggs, even though both eggs seem to be very well off. The more important thing is that people do end up coming to these parties even if they just know someone who is going. Gatsby accepts this too which is funny because everybody and their cousin comes to the party and he takes this responsibility, and throws the best parties around. You can tell that all the it people come because they get bussed in from New York, and the other egg. It was said that,

People were not invited – they went there. They got into automobiles which bore them out to Long Island, and some how they ended up at Gatsby’s door. Ounce there they were introduced by somebody who knew Gatsby, and after that they conducted themselves according to the rules of behavior associated with an amusement park. Some times they came and went without having met Gatsby at all, came for party with a simplicity of heart that was its own ticket of admission. I had been actually invited (41).

     Even though everyone who is any one comes to these parties that are hosted by Gatsby, this quote proves that they still feel sort of above him; they bring all of their friend without consent, and they gossip about him all of the time. He is trying more than anyone to be friends with everyone. He never complains about when people tear his house down while getting insanely drunk. This quote shows that American characteristic of acting disrespectful to people and their belongings just because they can, and they feel that they have the right to abuse their privileges because they feel above it all.

A link to something having to do with what I am talking about…

http://www.goodcharacter.com/pp/respect.html

This link is for children in kindergarten through 5th grade, but I really think that it would be worth while for the people in this book who invade Gatsby’s party. It provides a series of rules on how to be respectful of others.

     I have now just begun to read The Great Gatsby by Scott Fitzgerald and I have to admit that I am a little confused about what the book is and the details were there about the characters, but were a little hard to quite rap my head around. It is only the beginning though; and as in many books, it takes a while to get used to the new characters and plot. After all, it is a little bit of a jump from Moby-Dick with no plot. I was very pleased to hear that there is a story line in this book, unlike Moby-Dick and the many Witness of the Whale chapters that Melville put in his book, simply describing how metaphoric the white whale was. You can see my reaction to this chapter and the many others like it in my previous blogs. It seems like one of the main themes this book is going to have that has already been seen is how well off you are. The main character named Nick is from West Egg, where houses are for less money than East Egg but there is still a beautiful view in the countryside. He had a maid and a house, but yet was still not considered to be wealthy because he lived in the west and could not possibly afford a house in the east. He said, “I lived at West Egg, the – well, the less fashionable of the two, though this is the most superficial tag to express the bizarre and not a little sinister contrast between them,” (5). Clearly where he lives, money is a issue that either makes you or breaks you. Money is always a good thing to have, but it seems that the only way Nick can describe the difference between the two eggs is the people with money live on one egg, and the people with more money than them live on the other egg. It is not a huge difference but the fact that Nick brought it up shows that it is a big deal to some people, and those people tend to think that they can walk all over the rest of the less well off people. This side is shown in Tom who lives with Nicks cousin Daisey. They live on the eastern egg in a beautiful house and they are pretty well off. What Fitzgerald shows in his book about American Character through Tom is that some people who have a lot of money and are more well off than others around him or her think that they own them or are some how better. They become snobby and in many ways try to separate themselves from people who are less well off and cling to their click of wealthy people. It does not happen very often, but can definitely be seen in American literature and it does reflect human characteristics.

     It is very sad to see Moby-Dick end like this. I enjoyed the action in the last few chapters of the book. It seemed to go a little to fast for me though. At one point they had Moby Dick and then the lines would get tangled. Things like that would happen in one sentence, and I have to admit were a little confusing. I am definitely looking forward to the movie for this section of the book because so much happens and the action is a little hard to fallow in this part. I think Melville should have taken a few pages of how to catch a whale, and used it for the last few chapters. It was great to see all of the forshadowing that was through out the entire book all come into play. The Parsee had foretold of two coffins, one made of wood and the other of something not made by man. This was huge  in the last chapter because when it all came together you found that the coffin that was not made by man was the Parsee’s coffin, entwined in the ropes of the harpoons, severed to pieces. The other coffin was one of wood and that one was the Pequod itself. It sunk after Moby Dick rammed its head into it with full force. It sank to the bottom with the entire crew in it, except for one. That one individual was Ishmael. I think that Melville chose to have the last only person alive be Ishmael because he was the narrator, and he had to witness the entire event. I also think Melville did this because Ishmael really did not play a part in the book, besides to get the ball rolling at the beginning. He was insignificant, and therefore could be the one to survive because someone had to tell the story, and who better than the guy who found himself surrounded by the huge mess that was the Pequod. It was also interesting to see at the end how Ishmael got picked up by the Rachel. He was alone yet again; the same way he started in the book. The entire book was one huge circle, with a bunch of stuff shoved in the middle to make Moby-Dick a monumental piece of American Literature. Over all I enjoyed the book. Some ofthe middle was hard to really get into, but it was worth it in the end. I my only regret was that Queequeg did not survive with Ishmael to live happily ever after.

     In chapters 126-130 of Moby-Dick, there were many things to talk about. First I would like to address the fact that the title of chapter 126, The Life-Buoy, should have been the name of the chapter in which Pip was left all by himself just bobbing in the middle of the ocean, with no one in sight. Stubb had just abandoned him to go after a whale and there Pip was, bobbing like a buoy, all by himself thinking about how alone he is. Another thing that I would like to address which I think is very important is at the end of the reading in chapter 130, where it describes everyday life on the Pequod as far as Fedallah and Ahab are concerned. If I understood it correctly because it was a difficult paragraph to read, Ahab and Fedallah separate themselves as much as they possibly can. They stay on opposite sides of the ship and try not to cross each others paths. The narrator also mentions that Ahab keeps an eye on the crew and puts fear into their eyes, and Fedallah makes Ahab fearful. This is interesting because in the beginning of the book, Ahab seemed to be the captain of the ship and the head guy, and Fedallah was just part of his crew as a great harpooner. Now though, it mentions that Fedallah is looking down over Ahab. This must mean that Ahab and Fedallah are on different missions, and Ahab was in fact forced to bring Fedallah because owes him something. It is very questionable, but I definitely think that Ahab did not merely bring Fedallah and his crew onto the Pequod just to be his extra crew so that he himself could have a boat and go harpoon Moby Dick.

     In chapter 110 of Moby-Dick we get a chance to see Queequeg getting sicker and sicker as the days go by. He looses a lot of his fat and becomes nothing but bones and skin. He was as least to me one of my heroes in Moby-Dick. He really cared for others and realized that the world was not about just him. He was hardly a savage; the way he respected his elders and the authority. When he got sick, I definitely saw his weaker part come out. It was almost that I thought he could not be brought down because of how strong he was mentally and physically. He did weaken physically but, that was not going to stop him from being the best man that he could be. He did not bother anyone with his pain, and accepted the fact that he would die. He even laid in his coffin that was made for him and filled it with trinkets that he would want to be buried with. He then consulted his god, and a miracle happened, “he had just recalled a little duty ashore, which his was leaving undone; and therefore had changed his mind about dying: he could not die yet, he averred,” (chapter 110). Queequeg basically is saying that it is up to you to live or die at certain times. What I think he means is that people must have the will to keep going in order to stay alive and healthy. If they do have this drive, like Queequeg and his business he has to attend to when he gets to shore, then you are more likely to survive because you are working hard to stay. The sailors ask Queequeg about this and his answer is this, “He answered, certainly. In a word, it was Queequeg’s conceit, that if a man made up his mind to live, mere sickness could not kill him,” (chapter 110). I understand Queequeg’s reasoning here, and wish that it were only that easy for people to live, but unfortunately many other factors like cancer and accidents play key roles in whether a person lives or dies.

     In chapters 100 and 106-107 of Moby dick it talks about Ahab and his whale bone leg. It explains how Ahab gets to have this particular whale bone as a leg in chapters 106-107, but it is more important to look at chapter 100 where one can really see the struggles of Ahab. As he consults another ship, he finds that they have seen the white whale and proceeds to climb aboard the other ship in order to talk about the ships findings. When Ahab goes to get onto the ship he realizes one very important thing. His ship has special things that help Ahab get up the ship side and onto its deck. This ship is lacking such a contraption because everyone still has their legs, although the captain is missing an arm. Ahab attempts to climb the ship with the waves crashing around and the instability of only having one leg makes it impossible, “So, deprived of one leg, and the strange ship of course being altogether unsupplied with the kindly invention,Ahab now found himself abjectly reduced to a clumsy landsman again; hopelessly eyeing the uncertain changeful height he could hardly hope to attain,” (chapter 100). One can see the disability that Ahab has when this commotion occurs. What is interesting though is how Ahab becomes a common person because of his found flaw. He thrived on being the most wise, powerful, and dangerous man that he is, but by showing his weaker side, by not being able to do what many others around him could, he showed that he does have flaws and weak points. He even felt embarrassed by the whole thing because he is used to being so mighty and fearless, tat when he finds himself in a situation where he needs help from others and can not control what he is doing, it scares him and makes ora of godliness go away. This happens a lot in real life where a person may be on top of the world practically and is used to being the boss and controlling everything gets into a situation which is out of their hands and they need to call on others for assistance. This lowers their esteem and the thought that they are untouchable which is just what Ahab is feeling.

     In chapter 94 of Moby-Dick, we finally get to see Pip, the little African American who talks to himself in the third person, and gets almost choked to death by a whale. He seems to have very little self esteem, and it is not really a surprise considering that everyone is always yelling at him, and he is considered to have one of the lowest jobs on the ship; along with the dough boy. When he gets rapped up in the line after jumping out of the boat and entangling himself in a line that almost suffocates him, it is a wonder why Stubb did not just tell him to stay on the boat. But not only does he go out again, as an attempt for an oarsman, but Stubb gives him pointers on how to do things the right way like, “Never jump from a boat, Pip, except – but all the rest was indefinite, as the soundest advice ever is. Now, in general, Stick to the boat,is your true motto in whaling; but cases will sometimes happen when leap from the boat is still better,” (chapter 93). It is interesting how Stubb would give him this advice after he just cost the entire ship a whale. When Pip goes out again, he jumps out of the boat scared again, and falls into the water. But because he was not tied to any lines, he is left out int ocean because the rest of the crew is still trying to catch the whale. In the water Pip finds himself alone in ocean with no sign of the boat coming back. His esteem goes down because the crew does not care about his life in general. It is true when Stubb says, “a whale would sell for thirty times what you would, Pip, in Alabama,” (chapter 93). The loneliness that is through out Pips body is not uncommon. When you find yourself in a huge place and picture yourself as only one small part of this place, sectioned off from the rest of the world with no one else around who care at all about you, only then do you find ture loneliness. And what better place than the ocean to be alone and forgotten. Poor little Pip has gone through so much pain!

     In this blog I would like to address one solitary quote in Moby-Dick. This quote occurs when Ishmael is thinking about the spout of a whale and how beautiful it is to see. He also in mentioning right beforehand about the importance of both doubt and intuition in ones life to balance out the other. Once you find this balance then you can make a better decition because you are listening to your initial reaction based on things that you already know, and you can think about the consecuences of each possible decition. The quote is, “Doubts of all things earthly, and intuitions of some things heavenly; this combination makes neither believer nor infidel, but makes a man who regards them both with equal eye,” (chapter 85). Any one can look at the facts and base their conclusion on that, and everyone can put those facts together while reasoning witht themselves and put their past experiances into acount, but not all choose to do that. Melville explains that you have to look at things through different eyes, like your thoughts of doubt and your knowledge of things. He might be trying to say that just to doubt and then dismiss the doubt is not enough. You need to use piror knowledge to make the best analysis of the issue at hand. For example, when Starbuck first thinks about Ahab going overboard about the capture of Moby Dick, and putting the crew on the line, he doubts Ahab’s intentions are good. When we meet Ahab’s new crew, Starbuck was the only one who really brought his well thought out ideas from his doubt and his intuition to Ahab and realized what Ahab was going to pull everyone through in order to kill Moby Dick. He is the only one who put two and two together by looking at his doubts about seeing the crew in the first place, but also thought about what Ahab has done in the past, like offering gold in order to get his men rallied up to catch the white whale. Thinking clearly and differently is important to come up with the best thoughts about life issues, and to do this you must use your doubts and intuition.