Insight into Walter

The Harlem Renaissance was a major black cultural movement in which many African American citizens were able to raise their positions in society. Their fights were no longer for freedom, they were to higher their positions in society. However, this shift in ideals was not a smooth transition. In the poem "The Weary Blues" Langston Hughes describes the feeling of black musician. This musician says that "[He] ain't happy no mo'" and that he wished "that [he] had died", showing that he is no longer satisfied with the life that he lives. His case is similar to that of Walter Lee in the book A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. Walter is also dissatisfied by his families conditions and his job. As his mom always says, being a servant is never the right job for a man. He should be creating something for the world. Walter wishes to become as close to a Gatsby-like person he can, and just like Gatsby, he has become too absorbed in materialistic possessions. Unlike Gatsby though, Walter has to battle with society to achieve his goal, something we as readers think will most likely not happen. Personally, I see Walter as a combination of Rex Walls, from The Glass Castle, and Gatsby, from The Great Gatsby. He keeps telling his family of the plans he has to get rich quick and is also an alcoholic like Rex, however he is more absorbed in the perks of wealth than Rex, similar to Gatsby.**SPOILER ALERT**(if you still haven't done your homework) After reading Act II, we find that Walter truly is empty with his promises and is just as reckless with money as Rex Walls. How he will react to this defeat though may set him apart. That remains to be read...

What do you truly have when you have everything?

F. Scott Fitzgerald in the book, The Great Gatsby(1923), implies that materialism is a destructive characteristic leading to a life lacking a true meaning. Fitzgerald supports his claim by ridiculing the sense of mystery behind Gatsby's affluence–no one knows who he is, what he does, or what he searches for in the beginning of the book, not even Gatsby himself. The authors purpose is to reveal how materialism can result in a meaningless life with insatiable desires so that society may no longer epitomize happiness inside wealth. The author writes in a cautionary tone to society in order to warn against the consequences in becoming overly absorbed in the dream that is wealth.

The statement "you don't know what you've got till its gone" has some truth to it, dealing with family members and other strictly irreplaceable items. However in Gatsby's case, he didn't realize that he didn't have anything until he actually had everything. While he was working to become rich and leaving his family to fulfill his dream of being rich, he lost sight of what he was truly doing. He was leaving those that cared about him, his family, for riches. Also, he didn't come back to Daisy as soon as he could because he was afraid she would reject him due to his economic state, again not realizing that if she truly loved him, it wouldn't matter. Through this and our socratic seminar in class, it can be concluded that materialism not only corrupts a person's morals, but also it corrupts and consumes their own purpose.

Color Motif in The Great Gatsby

Throughout the entire novel, colors are used as symbols representing certain meanings. These include gold, which represents wealth, white, representing femininity, green, representing hope, and gray, representing a lack of the other colors. However, in the book, there are many colors that also appear to mimic some of these. For example, yellow mimics gold and cream mimics white. Fitzgerald's purpose behind using these mimicking colors is because they represent the idea of mimicking itself. In the beginning of the book, Jordan and Daisy, two highly regarded women wear white, however Mrytle, not as highly respected, wears cream. She is trying to be like Daisy, is even jealous of her, but she is not quite the same as Daisy. This is why she wears a cream dress the first time she appears in the book. Similarly, yellow represents new wealth trying to mimic old wealth. Gatsby's yellow car is an example of this. He buys it to flaunt his wealth and try to appear like those who live on East Egg. Another example of this mimicry is the two twins who approach Jordan at one of Gatsby's parties. Fitzgerald describes them as both wearing yellow. Again, this represents the new wealth trying to mimic the old wealth, however it cannot quite be achieved. In The Great Gatsby colors of similarity are used to represent one group of people trying to be like another.

Modernism in The Great Gatsby

After reading the first three chapters of The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the question arises about why Fitzgerald narrates the story from the point of view of Nick Carraway. Neither is he the one in the conflict of marriages like the Buchanans and Wilsons nor the mysterious, wealthy man Gatsby. So what is the point of Nick being the narrator? As we discussed during class last week, this time period, classified as modernism, involved increasingly conformist and materialistic values. I believe that Fitzgerald is narrating the book from Carraway's view to show how the previous era would view the now modern society. He resides in a simple house described as an eye-sore next to houses of the ultra-wealthy, and is friends with Tom, who is also ultra-wealthy. Nick isn't concerned with material values, rather he serves as a judge of the new era, proved by Tom's want of Carraway to like him and a similarly mentioned feeling that Gatsby feels towards him. Another new characteristic of this new era was the flapper, or strongly independent woman. This role is played by Jordan Baker. Carraway describes her as appealing because she is "self-sufficient", showing society's overall approval of the new-found independence of women. The Great Gatsby serves as a great representation of the new characteristics found in modernism, such as a judge of materialism and of the new identity for women.

#Punctuation

Thesis: In a rapidly changing world, the rules of grammar are constantly being morphed into ever-changing symbols carrying a meaning which is soon forgotten; however, some form of grammar is still needed in order to allow people's thoughts to be read in the form of words.

As source A describes punctuation, "as technology continues to evolve and innovate, the way in which we communicate needs to change as well"(Source A), citing examples of how a exclamation comma or a snark are no longer are recognized in society. Henry Hitchings believes that punctuation no longer holds as prominent of a niche in today's "literary world". However personally, I disagree. In "On Punctuation" by Elizabeth Austen she states how most of punctuation is a "tight-lipped fence" or a "prissy formality"(Source B), however she also mentions many punctuation marks that she would use if  "[She] must"(Source B). Austen brings to light in her poem that even though a lot of punctuation marks may just be fluff, it still is a vital part of writing. Taking it one step further, Lewis Thomas in "Notes on Punctuation" bluntly states "There are no precise rules about punctuation"(Source C), more like there shouldn't be... While I believe that he is incorrect in stating that there are no precise rules of punctuation, I believe this statement should be made true, leaving in the most important rules of punctuation – the period, the comma, the question mark, etc. – and allowing the fluff, described by Austen, to be open for any interpretation of use. While a lot of punctuation continues to evolve in a ever-changing world, these marks are mainly fluff, however the most important rules of it are already engrained into the writings of society.

Nature's Innocence

In all of the books that have involved children that we have read in 11 AP, they have always symbolized pure, truthful, and unbiased judgement. For example, in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, Huck and Tom are both untainted by the racism in society, and decide to help Jim become a free man. In The Glass Castle, by Jeannette Walls, when Walls and her siblings are young, they believe in everything their father says. Walls believes that her father is good at heart, which he is, however as she grows older she decides to try and leave the family for a better life. Walls' change of judgement was due to her siblings influence on her however. In the book The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne, the child, Pearl, does not symbolize innocence. Actually she symbolizes the exact opposite. Pearl is a constant reminder of punishment and even compared to being a "demon child." I believe that Hawthorne's purpose in deviating from the norm of children in literature was to emphasize how Pearl is a result of sin. Although, the child doesn't serve as a symbol of innocence in the book, there is still a feeling of innocence radiating from nature. Hester and Dimmesdale find refuge in the woods together for a couple of hours, knowing that nature will not judge them. Pearl, though not a symbol of innocence by herself, is also seen as innocent while in nature. In The Scarlet Letter, nature takes the place of a child's mind in symbolizing purity to emphasize Hawthorne's dissent from Puritanical society and movement to Romanticism.

Physical vs. Psychological Punishment

In the novel The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne juxtaposes the characters Hester and Dimmesdale to display the effects that guilt can have on a person. On one side there is Hester. She has admitted her guilt and therefore is punished by society for her sin, yet at the same time, purges her mind. On the other hand, there is Dimmesdale who chooses not to expose his sin, and while he doesn't face the punitive measures of society, he does face the consequences in his own mind. In the book, Hawthorne constantly implies that the emotional punishments are much worse than those of society. Chapter 13 tells the reader that Hester has actually gradually become accepted back into society through her many good deeds, such as making clothes for the poor. In contrast, while Dimmesdale is still accepted by society, because in their minds he hasn't done anything wrong, he is suffering a much worse fate than Hester. His mind is slowly deteriorating to lunacy and is now also affecting his physical body also. Hawthorne also displays through these characters that how people judge themselves is always more important than how others view them. Towards the beginning of the book, Hester is in shame, however she knows that everyone knowing her sin is for the best. This is proven by her interesting way of stitching the scarlet letter onto her clothing. Dimmesdale doesn't release guilt, and is therefore tortured by his own mind judging himself. Clearly by Hawthorne's descriptions of the two characters, Hester is better off than Dimmesdale. Suffering the judgement of society is better than suffering the judgement of one's own mind.

Perfectness in the Imperfect

Nature has a way of soothing people. Through running cross-country, I have gained insight into why the idea of Romanticism begun, and why it proliferated. The perfectness of nature when it is imperfect is the cause of the beauty it holds. The other day while running a race in cold, rainy, and muddy weather, I questioned myself, asking if there was a reason why I run. I realized that even in these weather conditions that society has termed horrible, there lay a refuge inside of it all. Any worries of the modern world were erased during those 16 minutes of the race. Covered in mud, and in pain from running, there I was actually having fun. Even in The Scarlet Letter it is suggested, using the example of the rosebush, that nature is an escape from, in this case, a life of condemnation. Besides purging many worries, when nature is at its best, it has an aesthetic beauty to it also. From seeing the Northern Lights in Alaska, or watching the sunset on a beach nature is truly inspirational. Also, nature has a major influence in most people's lives. For example, temperature influences what we wear, seasons influence activities we do, and so on.  The major role that the environment plays in our lives, from being a refuge, an inspiration, or just a factor of our lives, is the reason for Romanticism.

Footprints on the Sands of Time

So far in 11 AP we've focussed on important literary moments in American Culture. These have been "footprints on the sands of time" as mentioned by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and they have shaped American Culture into what it is today.

We started by looking early colonial influences of literature, and found that religion played a major part in molding this country. It has had some consequences when taken to extremes such as the Salem Witch Trials, shown by the play The Crucible. However, the "footprints" of religion left by colonists also gave us strong morals and systems of education. We've also looked at the battle against racism and slavery through our analysis of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and the battles soldiers had with themselves after Vietnam through The Things They Carried. These are all major footprints in time, and now we are starting to learn about more recent occurences in history(excluding TTTC).

This week, we looked into the women's suffrage movement, and learned how through clever speech writing, such as mimicking the Declaration of Independence, people such as Elizabeth Stanton have made their impacts on history. A recurrence throughout most of these major events show the uses of appeals to strengthen their points in history. The Declaration of Independence and of Sentiments both include a variety of appeals, even Abigail in The Crucible made appeals to emotions of the people of Salem and of association to other girls of the village. Another recurrence in these events is that most were part of some kind of reform. So if society is always changing, what will happen in our generation? What will be our footprint in time?

Shutter Island Psychology in Salem

In the movie Shutter Island, a man named Teddy Daniels arrives at Shutter Island, a mental hospital, to investigate the disappearance of a patient and also to find the murderer of his wife. As the movie progress it is revealed that he is actually the murderer of his own wife, and to cope with is, he has essentially gone crazy. He is able to convince himself that he didn't commit the murder, and convince others that he only did it because he is crazy. Being crazy, he is able to shift the blame of the murder off of himself and to keep his old reputation safe(before going crazy).

This can be related to the judges of the Salem Witch Trials, who have often been regarded as horrible people, even monsters, for allowing for the false accusations to continue after the lies began to be exposed. However, I don't believe the blame is on the judges, but rather on human nature. Given the choice between believing that they were saving the village from witches or killing innocent people, the judges naturally chose to believe that they were saving people-as would most other people given the choice. They chose to live as good men in their own minds for as long as they could. However, eventually they had no choice but to admit their mistakes due to all the proof given to them(when the girls run away). Shutter Island can also be applied to those in the trials that didn't admit to witchcraft. They had the choice to admit to being witches and live, or to not admit and die with their integrity. In this case, there were some who admitted to witchcraft to live, however important characters, such as John Proctor, chose to die as good people.

Besides choosing the option that allows them to remain good people, in all these cases, the choices the people make protect reputations. In Shutter Island Teddy is able to safeguard his reputation by blaming his murder on insanity. In The Crucible the judges protect their reputations for as long as they can by allowing there to be no question of witches in Salem. Finally, Proctor protects his reputation in the eyes of the most important person to him, Elizabeth. Even though others of the village will have seen his death as his refusal to admit that he was a wizard, Elizabeth sees it as Proctor finally clearing himself of sins in front of God. That is what Proctor believes is protecting his reputation. "Which would be worse - to live as a monster? Or to die as a good man?"(Shutter Island)

Salem's Syndrome

False memory syndrome is defined by Paul R. McHugh as a condition in which a person's identity and interpersonal relationships are centered around a memory of traumatic experience which is objectively false but in which the person strongly believes. Note that the syndrome is not characterized by false memories as such. We all have memories that are inaccurate. Rather, the syndrome may be diagnosed when the memory is so deeply ingrained that it orients the individual's entire personality and lifestyle, in turn disrupting all sorts of other adaptive behavior...False Memory Syndrome is especially destructive because the person assiduously avoids confrontation with any evidence that might challenge the memory. Thus it takes on a life of its own, encapsulated and resistant to correction. The person may become so focused on memory that he or she may be effectively distracted from coping with the real problems in his or her life(McHugh 66-67).

In The Crucible, by Arthur Miller, the character Mary Warren is victim to this syndrome and she serves as an exaggeration to the mob-mentality being exhibited by Salem. The town is in hysteria. Following everything the "bewitched" girls say, they form a sort of mob. Parallel to this, Mary cannot stop herself from believing the witchcraft to be true. To stress the mentality of the village, Miller adds the false memory syndrome to Mary Warren as its comparison.

Mary Warren also serves as another comparison to the people of Salem. She attempts to address the truth of how the girls were acting in pretense, but she finds it very difficult to acknowledge(part of the False Memory Syndrome). This leads to her regressing back to believing that the witchcraft is actually true. This compares to the people of Salem because, they are also finding it very difficult to believe that the girls can only be acting in pretense–partly due to the reason that the court doesn't want to acknowledge the errors made. Parallel to the mentality of the people of Salem, Mary Warren's actions serve as a symbol of the town's mentality.

The Invisible Hand of Religion

Many have criticized Jonathan Edwards' belief and lectures about how there is slim to no chance for salvation in the afterlife and that God is actually a punishing being. However, I believe that Edwards' had an ulterior motive in promoting a sense of fear in his lectures. This motive was to arouse more attention for Puritanism. Around his period of time, people had started to lose interest in religion, as a result people such as Edwards started the Great Awakening, in which they brought attention back to religion. The way Edwards went about accomplishing this was through fear. Now the question is: was it justifiable to use fear just to promote religion? Personally my answer is yes. This is because religion usually has a way of guiding society with correct morals, because after all, that is what religion is supposed to teach. Now while some morals taught by religion may be flawed such as the Puritan belief of intolerance of other religions, the pure morals, such as the Puritan belief in the importance of education live on. As time passes, the flawed morals become forgotten, yet those that remain true, live on to guide future generations with the "Invisible Hand of Religion". Another example of the invisible hand is Karma. Prevalent in Hinduism and Buddhism, is causes a practitioner of the religion to always think before acting, or doing wrongs. To conclude, although the use of fear to promote attention for religion may have been a flawed means, the cause it fulfilled completely justified the use of it. This brings to attention another question, however. What morals, if any, would the world have without any religion at all.

The Real Reality

The title may appear redundant, I know... But through Sherman Alexie's collection of short stories in The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, this statement's meaning can be found. In the collection of stories, Alexie quickly figures out that the societies of the Indians and white people are completely separate. His realization of this, and how through the society of Indians he would only be stereotyped and shunned from the other society, is shown by his constant stereotyping of his own people. While Alexie realizes that he cannot live in isolation from the white society, his Indian classmates are not able to realize this. They live in their own reality that the two cultures can remain isolated from each other, for example Alexie recalls that one of his classmates said that they didn't need a school reunion because "'My graduating class has a reunion every weekend and the Powwow Tavern.'" He acknowledges that to be successful, he needed to merge his own culture with the other and this result in him being where he is today. One thing that Alexie surreptitiously implies is that the reality of the Indian's situation is that either they must assimilate or be constantly barraged by stereotypes. He also points out that his Indian classmates have not found this truth about reality yet, and are hence living in a false reality where they isolate themselves from the other culture. However, even though Alexie realizes that he must assimilate, he maintains as much of his old culture as possible, one purpose of this is to show other Indians that they can also assimilate without losing their cultural identities. In The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Alexie describes how he found two different societies, one progressing into the future, and one in which ". . .they look back toward tradition."

How Heritage Helps

Does heritage determine who we are as people? 

Heritage is thought of to be a major factor of a person's character. Many stereotypes circulate due to people's heritage, and are used to generalize about a population. These generalizations will never be able to determine who people of a certain population are, because most of them are not true. However, this leads to another thought - what is true about this population? There must be some similarities. While heritage cannot be used to characterize a person, it should at least be a small part of who that person is.

As the world becomes increasingly uniform, enticed by popular culture, it is important for people to hold on to their cultural differences to keep the world unique. In the book, The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls, Walls and her siblings try to escape their heritage by getting away from the crazed lives of their parents. However, after finally escaping, Jeanette cannot find peace in her new life in New York. She must move to the country to try and find a similarity of how she grew up, to be at peace with herself. Just as Walls holds on to pieces of how she was raised, people should not forget how they were brought up. Still, Walls was not defined by her childhood heritage. Growing up, it was her choice to work hard enough to escape her old life, while another person in her position might've just accepted that life and might've become just like their parents. Although, heritage cannot be used to describe a person's character, it should be remembered to differentiate oneself from the conforming culture of the world.

The Harlem Renaissance is a great example of how heritage should be used. It was a flourishing of arts of African American heritage. No single person could be defined by the Renaissance, but it showed cultural differences. People must stop fearing stereotypes and celebrate their cultural differences freely. Walt Disney once said, "Our heritage and ideals, our code and standards - the things we live by and teach our children - are preserved or diminished by how freely we exchange ideas and feelings."(Disney) Heritage isn't for generalizing about a culture, instead it allows for the opposite - to be different.