The Green Light

The Green Light

The green light on Daisy’s house that Gatsby gazes wistfully at from his own house across the water represents the "unattainable dream." But the green light also represents the hazy future, the future that is forever elusive, as Nick claims in the last page of the novel, "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter – to-morrow we will run farther, stretch out our arms farther…." The interesting question is, if the green light is the future, how is it so tied up with Daisy and the dreams of the past?


The green light is a multi-faceted piece of symbolism in the book. It's most obvious interpretation is that the light is symbolic of Gatsby's longing for Daisy, but that is too simplistic. Daisy is part of it, but the green light means much more. Gatsby has spent his whole life longing for something better. Money, success, acceptance, and Daisy. And no matter how much he has he never feels complete. Even when he has his large house full of interesting people and all of their attention, he still longs for Daisy. He created in his dreams for the future a place for her, and he will not be content to have that gaping hole. So the green light stands for all of Gatsby's longings and wants. 


And when Nick talks about the green light at the end of the book he says "It eluded us then, but that's no matter- tomorrow we will run faster, stretch our arms out farther...." . He connects the green light to all people. Everyone has something that they long and search for that is just off in the distance. That is the green light


http://www.shmoop.com/great-gatsby/symbolism-imagery.html
http://www.homework-online.com/tgg/symbolLight.html

The Men Of Gatsby

Jay Gatsby

Long before Gatsby was “great,” he was a small town kid with big dreams. We learn Gatsby’s real back story fairly late in the game, but when we finally do, it adds infinitely to the real human tragedy of his life and death. It turns out that the pre-West Egg Gatsby wasn’t in fact the “young rajah” he pretended to be; instead, he was just a boy from North Dakota without connections, money, or education.


Gatsby/Gatz is a guy whose sickening wealth, sketchy business dealings, and questionable background make him both fascinating and repulsive – the people at his parties are glad to partake of his riches, but they’re all sure that there’s something not quite right about him. This sense of mystery is a large part of the public persona of the Great Gatsby; people are intrigued by him, but very few actually find out what’s at the core of this enigma.

http://www.shmoop.com/great-gatsby/jay-gatsby.html










Tom Buchanan


Tom Buchanan is Daisy’s husband, an extremely wealthy man, a brute, and an athlete. He’s selfish and does what he needs to get what he wants. Most of all, he seeks control of his life and control of others. When Tom figures out that Daisy loves Gatsby, he forces a confrontation. He is then able to use Daisy’s momentary hesitation to regain control of his wife. Master of the situation once more, Tom dismisses Gatsby – and his wife – giving him permission to drive his wife home. "He won’t annoy you," he tells her. "I think he realizes that his presumptuous little flirtation is over." With that note of condescension, it is clear to all that Tom has the upper hand. Although Gatsby maintains hope beyond this scene, we all know it’s over.






http://www.shmoop.com/great-gatsby/tom-buchanan.html




Nick


We know very little about Nick. The facts he chooses to present are few: he grew up in a respectable Chicago family and went to Yale, he likes literature and considers himself one of those "limited" specialists known as a "well-rounded man," and he works in the bond business (that is to say, in finances) in New York City. He’s connected to wealthy and important people, like his cousin Daisy and Tom, a college acquaintance, but he is by no means one of them. Unlike the people who surround him, Nick Carraway isn't drowning in wealth. His perch on the outside of these lofty social circles gives him a good view of what goes on inside; he has a particularly sharp and sometimes quite judgmental eye for character, and isn’t afraid to use it.

http://www.shmoop.com/great-gatsby/nick-carraway.html

The Women of Gatsby

Daisy Buchanan

She is Nick Carraway's cousin, the notorious Gatsby's only love, but is also the wife of Mr. Tom Buchanan. Her story with Gatsby started before she had met Tom, and at the time they met she promised to wait for him because Gatsby was involved in the war and he wasn't wealthy so he had to show that he had money to lure Daisy into his grasp. As the story goes, she had forgotten about him and found a new love, a love by the name of Tom Buchanan, and sadly broke her promise to Gatsby, thus married Tom because of his wealth and power. Now in the present, Daisy has matured and has lived with Tom in East Egg which is right across from where Gatsby lives. When Gatsby and Daisy reunite once more through the connection of her cousin Nick, she has an affair with him and finds some "lust" for him. In the end Gatsby tells Daisy to tell Tom that she doesn't love him anymore and that she loves Gatsby, in a big twist she doesn't. She tells Gatsby that she did once love him, but not anymore, because she loves Tom and would never leave his side. People may have thought she was like a rope in tug-of-war, but what they didnt realize is that in the end she will only end up on one side all the time.

Jordan Baker

Daisy’s friend, Nick's so called lover, a girl that he chooses to romance with. She is a competitive golfer, and represents one of the “new women” of the 1920's, which is the typical boy type of girl, cynical, and self- centered. Jordan may be beautiful, but she is also dishonest, she chose to cheat in order to win her first golf tournament and continually "bends" the truth. She also shows that looks can be deceiving, which is  why Nick is only "halfway in love" with her, but she and Nick eventually end up "together" in a way, and Nick tells her how grateful he is that she is not like Daisy, the kind of girl who holds onto the past, a girl "too wise ever to carry well-forgotten dreams from age to age." She is also one of the least important characters, but she is also an important juxtaposition to Daisy.

Myrtle Wilson

Myrtle is Tom's lover, the woman he chooses to have an affair with. Myrtle isn't such a bright one, so she is convinced that Tom loves her and would leave Daisy  for her if he could. Since Myrtle has been unhappy with her marriage with George, she grew a connection with Tom because he is controlling and has authority in what is to happen. Like many typical girls back then, she put up with his physical abusiveness because she compares that to being masculine, which is something her husband doesn't really have. She even tells him "throw me and down and beat me, you dirty little coward!", which shows that she really likes the type of men who are strong and take control. And to her sad demise Myrtle comes running along to see Gatsby’s car, believing that Tom is driving it, thus she is struck and killed, when in reality her killer is Daisy Buchanan.

 

http://www.123helpme.com/view.asp?id=7728

http://www.shmoop.com/great-gatsby/daisy-buchanan.html

http://www.shmoop.com/great-gatsby/jordan-baker.html

http://www.shmoop.com/great-gatsby/myrtle-wilson.html

Old Money vs. New Money

New money = Jay Gatsby

because vvvvvvvv

JayGatsby makes his living selling alcohol illegally. He earns his money quickly and is now showing it off with fabulous parties in his oversized mansion in West Egg.


Old money =Tom Buchanan, 


Because he represents old money being the "scion of those ruthless generations who raised up the great American fortunes." Both act out their dreams
http://www.bookrags.com/essay-2004/5/15/141559/670

Old money refers to families who have been wealthy for several generations.

Almost a century ago in a world inhabited by our grandparents, the chasm between old money and new money seemed unbridgeable, as wide as the Pacific Ocean. In early 20th Century society, old money was viewed as being so much better than new money.
In reality, however, old money in America wasn’t very old. It was simply that the behavior of some individuals who acquired wealth very quickly offended others.


Property in this country is drifting into the pockets of those who can keep it and out of the hands of those who can merely acquire it,”
http://www.fa-mag.com/component/content/article/687.html?issue=32&magazineID=1&Itemid=73

F. Scott Fitzgerald

What is there to say about the author of "The Great Gatsby"?


To many English teachers he is a great novelist who helped show the way people were in the 1920's, but to the students he is some dumb writer who made the book to torcher their lives by doing bios, reports, and projects on the thing, and I personally have to agree, if he were alive I would ask, why did u make a book that schools and teachers like? Then again I am only a teenager like almost every high school student, so my opinions on literature and reading are all in a negative.




Anyways, lets get to the point of this blog, I'm here to let yall know wassup with this guy, so imma spend some time doing research on him and give you a bit of info, k? No responce? It's ok I already feel crazy typing to myself thinking that many people will get to this blog and take the time to actually read it, but at least I can say I tried my best to get out there. Since I'm not wikipedia, I will give you some short quick info about him and writing. He was most influenced by the Jazz Age, and the thing he was most remembered for was writing "The Great Gatsby", which eventually made it into the cinemas. I heard that his book wasn't a big hit when it was first put out, but later on, after decades, it was popular because of the many things he showed about the time he lived in. I am not sure on what else he is known for by teachers, but by students he is the guy that made their lives more miserable by writing "The Great Gatsby".


...still reading? Oh you are, amazing, me talking to you seems to draw you in huh? You just want to keep digging and digging into the heart of my opinion, thank you for caring.
BIO!!!
Yeah, I really thought I'd be done too, but i had to go on.
This guy's name isnt really "F" it's short for Francis, full name: Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald. He only lived to be 44, dying on December 21, 1940... from a heart attack (took me a while to find that out). He was an alcoholic, had two heart attacks get at him in the late 1940's and smoked like the rest of the world at the time.
He was:

A Roman Catholic

The name "Scott" came from his dead sister Louise Scott

Completed four books in total: "This Side of Paradise", "The Beautiful and
Damned", "Tender Is the Night", and "The Great Gatsby"

Married Zelda Fitzgerald (not the video game character)

He had a daughter, named Frances, around when The Beautiful and Damned was published.

Didn't like film work, but in desperate need of money, he turned to it.

Had very bad health.

Legacy lives on in "The Great Gatsby"
...
..
.
Well with all this research, that's pretty much all that is important about him, but on the real, I wouldn't ask him anything because it would waste my time for more important people. But thank you for taking your time to actually get to this point, it's really appreciated. F. Scott Fitzgerald will always be remembered, just like Macbeth stuff.

~*~

http://www.shmoop.com/f-scott-fitzgerald/alcoholism-death.html
http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/fsfitzg.htm

$ELFish People

Selfishness is an inexplainable thought in the mind of everyone, Unless you are God, or Jesus Christ, you are selfish no matter what you say.

Selfishness can be expressed in many, many different ways: getting money out of people because you don't want to spend your own, being the first to grab the food at the dinner table without asking if anyone would like to take some first, commiting suicide, even murder. Why suicide?Think about it, suicide can only be done upon someones will, it doesn't just happen. People who commit suicide never think about the people that actually care about them, they usually think that life as they know it would b better off not lived, when in reality it's better to fall and have a helping hand up. Society should learn about that, that the decisions they make ultimately affect the people around them, even the smallest decisions can make the biggest difference.

Murder... another example of selfishness. It's an easy explanation onto why it is a reason for selfish ness. When someone kills/murders/assassinates anyone/anything they don't consider the consequences or the other factors behind it. Murderers dont care about people's families, neighbors, or feelings. Not only is it illegal but it is also unethical and inhumane because taking one's life is disturbingly wrong. Some people find it ok to commit murder because they see it as payback, karma, revenge, even vengeance. But to stoop down low enough to become something you hate is contradicting, making the situation a paradox, so why kill?

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The only time I see selfishness as a good thing is when it's in a relationship, if both partners are selfish and want each other badly, it's totally fine in my book, but of course there would have to be limits to this relationship because if things were to get out of hand, everything would fall apart. In the end you can say selfish is both positive and negative, like everything else in this world. There's always a pro and a con to things, you just have to open your eyes in order to find out what or who they are.
.

http://www.objectivistcenter.org/showcontent.aspx?ct=406&h=42
http://www.positivelypresent.com/2010/03/guest-post-3-reasons-you-should-be-selfish.html

Unrequited Love

Unrequited love can be awkward no matter what the situation. In fact, it has ended many friendships because problems develop when one person wants to keep the relationship strictly platonic, and the other person wants to act on their feelings that cross the boundaries of friendship.

When unrequited love develops in the work place, it can be especially tricky. People have been known to change jobs in order to avoid this type of situation. It can often be more awkward for the person to whom the affections are directed at. Although it may be nice to receive the attention at first, it can become difficult to handle and spiral out of control.

Celebrities are often the focus of unrequited love. Some people develop serious feelings for others which they have never met. This happens more commonly with celebrities, as their lives are played out in the media. A misguided person may actually feel as if they know a celebrity whom they have never met.

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-unrequited-love.htm

Time is a great healer when it comes to healing a broken heart, and though it may feel like agony at first, the more time that goes by the easier time you will have dealing with unrequited love



When you feel ready, it's important to talk to someone (a close friend or family member, a therapist, a spiritual figure, etc.) about your feelings. This will help you to remember your previous interests, open your mind to meeting someone else, and help you to get some joy out of life again.
http://www.sedona.com/index.cfm/id/44/lang/english/sidenewsid/613/Unrequited_Love

**1920's**

The 1920's was a decade full of changes, changes that involved art and literature all the way to the way women dressed, acted, and rebelled. Two big art movements began life during the 1920's: surrealism and artdeco. Surrealism specifically started around the time of World War I. The point of this type of art was to show the element of surprise showing many juxtapositions, contradictions.
Surrealism: a style of art and literature developed principally in the 20th century, stressing the subconscious or nonrational significance of imagery arrived at by automatism or the exploitation of chance effects, unexpected juxtapositions, etc.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/surrealism

Along with art changes came the changes in music and dancing. Jazz arrived thanks to the African Americans at the time, adults may have disliked this movement, but the young people of the time liked it and danced the way they wanted to in clubs. A great example for showing this lifestyle of the young people in the 1920's is the novel by F. Scott Fitzgerald, "The Great Gatsby". With the novel came the movie which revealed many more things about the 1920's, like how women were more promiscuous and the contact of the body in dances. Another not so noticable innuendo were the secrets that men and women alike bared within themselves. Knowlege of a colleague having a wife and a mistress, not letting anyone know who, or what is really going on with the man beneath the mask.

Something that people may not really have discovered is that around this era was booming in the developement of medicine and research done to the human body:

The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine: Laureates 1920 - 1930


1930 Karl Landsteiner - "for discovery of human blood types"

1929 Christiaan Eijkman, Sir Frederick Hopkins - "for discovery of various vitamins"

1928 Charles Nicolle - "for work on typhus"

1927 Julius Wagner-Jauregg - "for healing general paralysis by infection with malaria"

1926 Johannes Fibiger - "for elucidating Spiroptera carcinoma and artificially inducing cancer in an animal."

1925 The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section

1924 Willem Einthoven - "for the discovery of the mechanism of the electrocardiogram"

1923 Frederick G. Banting, John Macleod - "for the discovery of insulin"

1922 Archibald V. Hill, Otto Meyerhof - "for research on muscles, especially their generation of heat and the relationship between oxygen consumption and lactic acid metabolism "

1921 The prize money was allocated to the Special Fund of this prize section

1920 August Krogh - "for showing that the gas exchange in the lungs is ordinary diffusion"
-http://www.1920-30.com/medicine/
I personally am thankful for Mr. Alexander Fleming for rediscovering penicillin because without it many people would have died sooner.Without his rediscovery of penicillin, then the team of researchers at Oxford University wouldnt have made the significant progress in showing penicillin's amazing ability to kill infectious bacteria which would eventually have led to commercial production of penicillin. 

http://www.1920-30.com/

Mafia/Gangsters

 'Gangsters'

The American Dream: The Rise of The Criminal Businessman

With the passage of prohibition in 1919, the twenties marked a huge shift in the way gangsters went about their everyday business.

No longer was it good business sense to beat someone over the head with a pipe to rob them of their pocket watch and loose change.

Instead, the mob organized and integrated itself throughout the neighborhoods of Chicago, Detroit, and the boroughs of New York City. 

http://www.1920s-fashion-and-music.com/1920s-gangsters.html

It was more common for gangsters to carry guns in newspapers. Due to the large size of certain US newspapers in the 1920's and the early part of the 1930's (papers were almost twice the size they are today - this applied to Britain too) even a machine gun could be concealed relatively easily. Bullets could be fired from rolled up newspapers much more efficiently than from a violin case.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/notesandqueries/query/0,5753,-23460,00.html

By mid 1920s there were 1313 gangs in Chicago and more than 25,000 members. Gang warfare in Chicago was
widespread and fighting took place along ethnic, cultural and racial lines. Some gangs had no noticeable cultural,
ethnic or national ties and consisted mostly of whites.

http://ghettogangster0.tripod.com/michelle/id2.html

'Mafia'

http://ghettogangster0.tripod.com/michelle/id2.html

The origins of the mafia phenomenon dating back to the Middle Ages, when Sicily was under foreign domination and obedience wealthy families obtained through formal social control of land. The Mafia, organizationally, did not have a hierarchy, but was composed of autonomous groups who called themselves "men of honor." In those years, the landed aristocracy allied with social leaders and created a conservative power structure and stable, a strategy that allowed it to retain its dominance in Sicily thereafter.

Guided by a code of conduct called Omerta, the Mafia has quickly become an organization completely outside the law. The mob forced the code to be against justice, and also avoid any contact with her.In the early twentieth century, some members of this organization migrated to North America, specifically to the United States, thus spreading internationally clandestine criminal organizations.

Over time, the U.S. became the center of all crimes of the Mafia, since this country was restricting gambling and alcohol, which led to a large smuggling.The history of the Mafia has served to understand the source, structure, functioning and control mechanisms of criminal organizations, which has been a useful tool to study how they operate smugglers, murderers and drug cartels in the world more dangerous.
http://ezinearticles.com/?Mafia-in-the-1920s&id=3615522

FLAPPERS

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3svvCj4yhYc

Flappers were northern, urban, single, young, middle-class women. Many held steady jobs in the changing American economy. The clerking jobs that blossomed in the Gilded Age were more numerous than ever. Increasing phone usage required more and more operators. The consumer-oriented economy of the 1920s saw a burgeoning number of department stores. Women were needed on the sales floor to relate to the most precious customers — other women. But the flapper was not all work and no play

By night, flappers engaged in the active city nightlife. They frequented jazz clubs and vaudeville shows. Speakeasies were a common destination, as the new woman of the twenties adopted the same carefree attitude toward prohibition as her male counterpart. Ironically, more young women consumed alcohol in the decade it was illegal than ever before. Smoking, another activity previously reserved for men, became popular among flappers. With the political field leveled by the Nineteenth Amendment, women sought to eliminate social double standards. Consequently, the flapper was less hesitant to experiment sexually than previous generationshttp
://www.ushistory.org/us/46d.asp




http://media.photobucket.com/image/flappers/gettxphyched/flappers.jpg?o=3



http://media.photobucket.com/image/flappers/kpie2010/flappers-1-1.jpg?o=22

Flappers were young women in the 1920s whose dress, hair style, and attitude were much different than the Gibson Girl, the image of the ideal woman just a generation earlier. Flappers dressed somewhat like a boy; they tightly wound their chest with strips of cloth in order to flatten it and chopped off most of their hair. The waists of flapper clothes were dropped to the hipline. The hem of the skirts also started to rise in the 1920s. At first the hem only rose a few inches, but from 1925 to 1927 a flapper's skirt fell just below the knee.
http://history1900s.about.com/od/1920s/qt/flappers.htm


http://media.photobucket.com/image/flappers/laethh/flappers.jpg?o=44

_JEALOUSY_

Jealousy is a natural occurance in the human mind. We all get jealous of something no matter what it is, or who it is, it just happens. The reasons of jealousy all depend on what we love and hate. "Jealous is a resentful envy as of someone's success, achievements, advantages, etc."-http://www.allaboutlifechallenges.org/what-is-jealousy-faq.htm


Jealousy is a state of mind in which one cannot flee from, but can actually try to overcome or at least deal with an issue. Jealousy can be developed anywhere and everywhere, such as in relationships, personal belongings, wealth, and one can be jealous of anothers intelligence. It has sometimes been said that jealousy isn't a bad thing, but actually good. Like http://www.allaboutlifechallenges.org/what-is-jealousy-faq.htm says, it can be healthy in a relationship to make it stronger or where the each lover can learn more about each other.


From personal experiences jealousy is good and bad in it's ways. I was able to learn that i should sometimes swallow my pride and let things be, while sometimes things get out of hand and something, and even someone breaks. One time I was jealous because someones name was just mentioned, I don't know why, but it did, and i hated it(being jealous). My anger took over me and yes something broke, from that point I was filled with stupidity and embarassement, a gut killing feeling was inside me. I had to apologize to the one i had scared, shown my anger to, i reacted too harsh, i made myself look like a brash little boy, but really i didnt mean to. I felt as if I betrayed my friend, sorrow is all i felt afterwards. Begging for fogiveness, wishing i hadnt done what i had done, but it did, and all I was able to compensate for that was a "sorry". Since we were the best of friends, she had forgiven me, and things became better, i was relieved and uplifted from my sorrowful hours. I guess you can say my life is like an example for the relationship type of jealousy. I did somethingstupid, i reacted dumb, but learned that i shouldnt even be jealous because the guy doesnt get to see her or touch her the way i do. So, in the end our relationship was stronger, and things were better.

PROHIBITION

Prohibition, the government just wants to keep us on lockdown, trying to keep us from "carpe diem". I would like to seize the day because we are unable to tell when death will hit us, and prohibition of anything is really getting in the way of our day seizing. If it were possible, I'd allow true freedom here in America, where we can do what we want when we want, the only real set of rules that should actually be applied are the first ten ammendments.


Because we the people give the government power, we are also able to take it away, so why not do so? I believe we are afraid, but we should learn that we function like the muscles in the human body, we need each other to do everything and anything. If the government wanted to put us down, we should flex, and show them who has the real power, seriously if it wasn't for us as a whole, the government would be nothing.


Prohibition, what is there to hide from the people. Why does the government limit us? Doesn't the saying go "no pain, no gain", well let the pain be the downfall of the country's people and let the gain be the ultimate rise of us be the greatest gain. Without knowing what's bad how will we know what good is? Maybe pulling off a little bit of stupidity won't be as stupid as we all think, it can probably become the smartest thing we've done.