Blogging About Blogger

For the past several weeks, my 11th grade class has been using blogspot.com to express our thoughts about the stories or poems we have been reading. I enjoy being able to express my ideas on this website and having access to my fellow classmates’ websites to read about their ideas too.
In addition, blogging really helped me with my writing. It's become a lot easier for me in terms of clarification and expressing my thoughts and opinions quicker. Not to mention this method of expressing our individual thoughts is probably convenient for most of us in the class because we all go on the computer daily, anyway.
However, I didn't enjoy blogging at first. I was actually really intimidated. Having all of your writing out on display for people to see really puts you under a little pressure if you're someone like me, who, use to never really speak in class. I am also not use to having anyone but the teacher read my work. But, in spite of all the intimidation, this started to bring out the best in my writing because I would write knowing others were going to read my entries. And by observing other people’s perspectives, it makes it easier for me to form opinions based off of their point of view, especially if I am having trouble expressing what I want to say or if I don’t know what Mr. Fiorini wants out of this assignment.
By reading my classmates’ blogs, I have also discovered that they are all really good writers as well. They form interesting opinions and mention details about stories that I often overlook.
Thinking back on last year, I have to say I like this English class a lot better. Unlike last year, this class has taught me how to take analytical approaches on simple pieces of writing.
Last year, it was always only about the technical elements of writing, such as identifying personification and learning how to use proper grammar in your writing. But to me, that all means nothing if you don’t understand what you are reading about.
In summary, even though making a website in order to be graded on blogging and having to blog every weekend didn’t really appeal to me at first, I have found that it had positive effects on my writing in the long run.

The Great Gatsby: My Conclusions and Opinions

The Great Gatsby is by far one of the most profound and confusing books I have ever read, full of twists, triangles, and random situations. Here are just some analytical aspects I have come up with while reading this book.

1. The weather in this book often corresponds with events in the book. For example, the day Gatsby and Daisy are reunited, it is raining. At the end of the book, you find Gatsby's dreams (Daisy and wealth) have died after all, so this meeting wasn't intended to have a bright ending, but rather a gloomy, cold, and cloudy outcome, such as that day. In addition, that day, Daisy often cries when she is with Gatsby, such as when Nick walked back in on them after warning then with noises from the kitchen that he is coming in. 

Another example would be the confrontation between Tom and Gatsby, which took place on the hottest day of the year, where the sun is most intense, like their situation. Then, after we find out that Daisy is going to stay with Tom, the weather turns cold, much like Gatsby's anticipated dream, which is now dead. The change in seasons also represents that it is time to move on. The question is, can Gatsby move on?

2. We find in one of the final chapters, that Gatsby started to tell Nick of him and Daisy's past. I believe he did it to try and keep his dream of being with Daisy alive. Sometimes, people often do these type of things because psychologically, it gives them hope, even if it is only a little. If they can talk about it and feel real feelings about the way they do, it must be true, right?

3. I discovered this next analytical depiction from when Nick was contemplating Gatsby's death. The thing is that with people, people often base on what is "meant to be" by means of obvious symbols they notice while living a normal day. However, I myself believe that symbols are created by the mind as Nick does. They don't have any meaning, it's just people invest in their meaning to please themselves. Again, it is to keep their ambitions alive. If you think about it, if that so-called "sign" were to pop up without you feeling the way you do, would you notice them? Probably not.

4. Birds of a feather flock together. Tom, Daisy, Mrs. Wilson, were all had a get together beginning of a book. And, if you can recall, the event had a horrible outcome. A chunk of this book bases it's plot off of their fidelity. However, if you notice, Nick and Mr. Wilson leave the party early. 

5. I have always thought the American dream was to achieve riches because the more you achieve, the better your children will have it. A survival of the fittest sort of thing. At least, I was conditioned to believe this. But, the American dream is the pursuit of happiness of course. I mean, duh. I feel so dumb. Why didn't I notice this before, it says it right in our Declaration. The American dream was originally the pursuit of happiness, but has been reduced to something as superficial gaining as many dollar bills as you can. But, if it's the pursuit of happiness, who can tell me I'm not living the American dream?

Speaking of the survival of the fittest, I've also realized how the people in this book who have originally came from the West can't adapt to their new environment. They went to New York because of some facade that was embedded into them when they were young, only to find out that the East isn't as morally focused as the West. Therefore, the characters couldn't adapt. They were doomed from the start.

6. Last, how do you deal with your past when trying to build your future? After all, your past is your foundation to a successful future. For example, how do we Americans expect to prevail from our economic and social conflicts when our country's foundation was built upon greed, slavery, radicalization, and bloodshed?

The Great Gatsby Chapters 1-3

For my blog, I would like to comment on and question both quotes and events that happened during my reading of the first three chapters of The Great Gatsby.

“Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages you’ve had.”

Let me start by saying that this quote stuck out to me because this is something that my mother had mentioned to me a number of years ago. I, of course, never really understood what it meant when I was younger because she didn’t exactly word it that blatantly. I don’t remember exactly how she said it, but I remember looking at her like she had ten heads because I was too stubborn to try and decipher her advice. I didn’t understand quite where my mom was getting at until maybe a year or two ago.
I realized many things. One, that people have advantages over me just as I have over them. We use these advantages to get what we want out of life. And most of the time, people have the same dream. But, it isn’t always about spiteful competition and stressing over what that person has over you, and therefore wasting energy trying to tear them down and undermine their talents. It’s about putting all of that energy into perfecting what you have over them because chances are, they stress over that little thing that makes anything you create, you, a.k.a. your uniqueness.
Or, more specifically, plain and simple, just mind your own business and let people do what they want in whatever it is that they are doing. Really, what people should do is know how to give constructive criticism when they really feel like commenting on something.

“Personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures.”

I picked this quote because I like it. It’s so true. I’ve never read anything that defined personality. I always though persona was something that some people had, and some people lacked.
This quote made me think, “how exactly do people gain personality?”. How do you get to know you? I kind of think I lack one. I don’t always play the same card when I react to certain situations. I try someone new everyday...not to sound bipolar or anything I am pretty much normal. (Whatever normal is...people pretty much have their own opinions on what normal is.) What I’m trying to say is I try a different me every day. It kind of narrows it down to who I am each day, but it’s still hard.
And what exactly is a successful gesture? Not everyone likes everyone. How do you know how beautiful your personality is?

Tom: “I’ve gotten to be a terrible pessimist about things.” Daisy: “You see I think every thing’s terrible anyhow.”

I would like to comment on what a terrible impact Tom has on Daisy’s character. His cheating has caused a negative effect on Daisy’s psychological state, and I think that it’s time Daisy divorced him because even though they’re in a time where divorce is a rarity, it comes down to this question: What does she care more about, her reputation and status from marrying a rich man, or her and her baby’s happiness and mental health?

In my opinion, Tom is trying too hard to be an intellectual. He seems too malleable to be able to form any type of “credible” opinion on a profound subject, and is probably only trying to improve his reputation, because he didn’t come off to me exactly as an intellectual thinker. He is probably only doing this because he has too much time on his hands and to make him feel better about himself. In high school he was basically the stud, the star, the epitome of masculinity. But, now that he no longer has anyone to pick on, harass, or undermine, now what? Now, he just tortures his wife to feel superior? Poor Daisy.

“...I was standing beside his bed and he was sitting up between the sheets, clad in his underwear, with a great portfolio in his hands.” I didn’t get this at all. Once Mr. McKee and Nick left all of the commotion of their small get together, this is where the scene took us. I don’t know, it was just weird and strange sounding. I would also like to comment on how comical it was that Mr. McKee just woke up from a drunken nap at the party, started to walk, turned around, looked at his wife (who was in complete distress because her friend and Tom’s mistress, Mrs. Wilson, had just gotten punched in the face by Tom) turned back around, and headed for the door, leaving her to survive the drunken drama all by herself.

“Every one suspects himself at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.”

This quote is kind of trippy. Only you know how honest you are, but how do you know other’s are? Sometimes you only get the virtue of knowing one other person has ever been completely honest to you.

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An American Poet: Anne Sexton

http://www.americanpoems.com/poets/annesexton/635


1) Anne Sexton lived a complex and overall depressing life. Although she was living comfortably, her life was completely different behind the doors of her Newton, Massachusetts home. Her father was an alcoholic and her mother’s literary aspirations often were distracted because of affairs at home. Anne often felt her parents were hostile toward her and feared that they would abandon her. She found refuge from this drama through her Nana.
Her later life was followed by fame, infidelity in her husbands absence, therapy, medication, the death of her Nana, the birth of two children, the unexpected death of her parents, several attempts at suicide, and finally, a divorce. During her struggles, the only road to stability seemed to be through her poetry, art, friends, and affairs. She died due to asphyxiation of carbon monoxide in her Boston home.
In her poem, she wished to die among the stars. In other words, to exceed fame and escape her profound lifestyle. With all of her drama, she probably had to fight everyday to succeed in separating her life as a celebrity from her complicated life at home. Reading her biography, her life sounded really exhausting. The way she described the stars that night gave some insight into her faith that when she dies she hopes to be at peace.

2.) Anne Sexton’s imagery is the main rhetorical aspect that contributed to my reading of her poem/ She uses colorful adjectives and suggestive verbs that really create a source of vivid imagination within the reader’s mind. Some examples are “the night boils”, “the moon bulges in its orange irons”, and “the old unseen serpent swallows up the stars”. In my opinion, the arbitrary actions she describes are what kept the poem moving for me.

http://www.poemhunter.com/anne-sexton/
In her poems, it is often difficult to decipher what she is trying to depict in her writing. At least, the first time around. However, in her poems, Sexton has a lot of emotion and expression. She often describes a scene, and then warps it in some way. If she were an artist, I would guess she was a post impressionist. Well, actually, she was an artist, and even quoted Vincent Van Gogh in her poem (another post impressionist), so maybe she was. In that case, I think she is amazing to have the same affects in her writing as a post impressionist has in their paintings.

4) What makes Sexton’s writings distinctively American is the fact that she writes about whatever she wants, and expresses herself in the best way that she can. The fact that she is a poet is also distinctively American because in her life, she wanted to live it the best way she would, and the best way she thought she should live her life was through expression. She isn’t just an idle day dreamer coming up with crazy scenarios and metaphors, she made her imagination a profession.

Part Two....Realism vs. Romanticism

2) In Cather's story A Wagner Matinee, she was probably trying to communicate two main themes: never to waste time and to never let someone take away what you love the most because sometimes you can't get it back. In this story, Aunt Georgina (as mentioned in my last blog), didn't necessarily waste her time, but more let it pass her by because she lived such a constant routine doing chores. So basically, you can say by just always trying to do her chores and pelase her husband by doing so and never allowing her to do what she loved for her own pleasure, she wasted her time. It's like writing, you can writefive pages and say nothing. It's meaningless text. So, all of her hard work on her homestead is meaningless work. She accomplished nothing in the long run. However, if she would of just allowed herself to practice for five minutes each day and go for listens and plays monthly, she would acocmplished a lot more for her mental and physical health. She would of turned out different. Instead, she has authoritis in her fingers and can never really play piano again.
Which leads to the second theme. She let her passion be taken away from ehr by moving to a homestead with a younger man, and now she seems to ahve no depth to her mind and doesn't seem to percieve much.
A social theme that is communicated through her writing is the issue of aging. This women is also dealing with the afct that not only did she waste her life away, but she can't get it back. It isn't like she is a young women either. It is just harder to start over when you are so old.
In Conseqences, it is hard to say what Cather is trying to communicate. Maybe it is to work hard a little more then we play. In this story, Eastman has a friend named Cavenaugh who was a big social butterfly, while Eastman would prefer to get done his work. In the long run, Cavenaugh kills himself, as good as his life was. But, we don't know if Cavenaugh killed himself because the stalker that was driving Cavenaugh crazy was there, apparently. But, did this stalker even exist? No one has ever seen him really. This story is confusing.

3)In a Wagner Matinee, Cather could be writing for a family member (or anyone really) that went through the same trauma as Aunt Georgina, communing that she feels bad. Who knows, maybe Cather has an Aunt Goergina. Anyways, in a Wagner Matinee, she is communing to young artists to never let go of their passion for anything because they posess something most people can't even touch.
In Consequences, maybe it is a memorial for someone she knows who went through the same thing. AS far as she is writing to, hard to say. She could be writing to young people who live in apartments to caution them about stalkers and playing mroe then you work.

4) A Wagner Matinee holds a lot of relevence to my feelings for two feelings. Number one, I always would rather draw or play something when I'm doing what I'm suppose to be doing. In addition, I can connect to Aunt Georgina's feelings. She let something be taken away from her and didn't even realize how much she missed it until later because she repressed it so much for so long. This is how I started feeling about playing violin this year. I never cared, and then I saw how good people were getting at playing whatever they play and how I could of been like that if I would of practiced. I wasted a lot of time. Now I have to make up for it. The only difference if that I have more time to make up for it.
Consequences was just fun to read. It didn't hold a lot of relevence like A Wagner Matinee did. It did make me mroe cautious though.

5) A Wagner Matinee drew me right away because I knew it was about music, and how sometimes people would rather be doing other things then what they are suppose to be doing, such as practicing music. This is how I feel when it comes to homework, like right now. Anyway, it was fun to read because I knew basically all of the musical references.
I liked Consequences because it was a big mystery. You knew something weird was going to happen because Cavenaugh's life seemed too perfect. The ending was alittle predictable, but I love it when a story such as this one leaves you with questions.
For example:
Was the stalker real?
Why did Eastman think of his work as a delightful place at the end?

Romanticism vs. Realism

For my blog, I have read the following two stories by Willa Cather: A Wagner Matinee and Consequences. A Wagner Matinee is a story about a boy who takes his aging Aunt Georgina to a concert, and her reaction to the music after so many years of living in a constant routine and sheltered life. Consequences depicts the story of man named Eastman, whose neighbor Cavenaugh is stalked by a mysterious man.
As far as Consequences goes, American literature has made a vast change from Romanticism into Realism. This story isn’t one whose narrator reached enlightenment through a walk in the woods, talked about nonviolent resistance, or was approached by some shady demon with an axe. It instead focuses on a frightening but real world issue of how people are sought out not by shady demons, but by shady characters instead, as they are obsessively shadowed and in the end are pushed over the edge. However, (I just realized), the stories of Eastman’s neighbor and Tom Walker have interesting similarities. Both characters become friends with an unlikely being in a strange place (both Walker and Cavenaugh met their “friends” in a woodsy type place), and drive themselves mental after spending so much time under the influence of these “characters”. For example, Cavenaugh cracked and committed suicide while Tom Walker , as he got older, tried to routinely go to church and pray really loud, not to mention the obsession he had with carrying around bibles with him all the time. There are only a few differences, such as of narration (Tom Walker is narrated by the author and Consequences is narrated by Eastman), how they met their “friends” (Tom Walker happened to stumble upon the demon while Eastman was stumbled upon on by his “friend”), and how you define suicide (it is assumed Cavenaugh killed himself and technically Tom Walker killed himself by saying “the devil take me” however sarcastic that was).
And, thinking about it, A Wagner Matinee has realistic and romantic aspects about it. American Realism depicts that humanity's freedom of choice is limited by the power of outside forces. In A Wagner Matinee, Aunt Georgina is limited by her environment. She lived in Nebraska on a homestead, where instead of going to see orchestra’s and practice her scales, she had to attend to chores and limit herself to the hymns of her Methodist church. Methodists themselves are rigid. Her life was reduced to a boring routine. And her ability to turn her life around is limited by her age. She is too old to start completely over.
Romanticism is an artistic, literary, and intellectual movement that was embodied most strongly in the visual arts, music, and literature. It also stresses strong emotion through experience. In A Wagner Matinee, it stresses the vast emotions of Aunt Georgina watching an orchestra as they come pouring out through every bow stoke of a violin strong. In her experience, she suddenly comes to terms with her passion, and decides that she doesn’t want to face her reality.
In synopsis, I don’t think there is much of a change. Realism just doesn’t focus so much on demons and mythology. Both of these different genres of writing (Consequences and the Tom Walker Story, that is) focus on the same story lines and morals. In addition, a Wagner Matinee contains elements of both romanticism and realism.