"The Gay Gatsby"

The question of whether or not Jay Gatsby and Nick Carraway are gay is very controversial because it is left unanswered and therefore open-ended. I think that Nick is, though he may be unaware, gay and has a major thing for Gatsby.

I read a Lit. Crit. on The Great Gatsby through a "queer lens" as the author puts it; the author of the text very strongly believed that Nick was gay and provides a lot of evidence. Although some of it is a stretch, some of what it said would support my stance. For instance, Nick wipes Mr. McKee's face with a cloth and winds up in his bedroom where McKee is naked...then leaves at four in the morning with no memory of what happened. Tell me that doesn't scream, "I JUST DID NAUGHTY THINGS WITH ANOTHER MAN!" Now of course, this is just my opinion, and just one interpretation. 

 Now there were also rumors that Fitzgerald was gay; Zelda even accused him of having an affair with Hemingway, his best friend. Zelda may have been right however; not only did Fitzgerald cross dress later in his life, but Fitzgerald and Hemingway liked to joke about "pederasty, anal eroticism, and other forms of perversion." (Mayfield 133) I think that Fitzgerald was using his writing as a way to express his homosexual feelings.

The History Teacher

Little children are born innocent, and most parents try to keep that innocence. For example, if a young child's grandfather dies, their parents wouldn't say, "Oh yeah, Grandaddy's dead. You'll never see him again." Their parents would probably say something like, "Grandaddy went to be with Grammy forever, don't worry though, he's happy now and in a better place."

This weekend, we had to read "The History Teacher" by Billy Collins. In the poem, the history teacher is describing historical events by what it sounds like happened in very mild and kind terms. Some people believe that he was flat out lying to the kids, some believe that he was just protecting their innocence. I side with the people that believe he was protecting their innocence because I tend to see the good in people. I think that because his intentions were good, he shouldn't be criticized. He was just trying to keep the kids innocent for as long as possible because its so easy in this day and age to become very cynical or to go down "the wrong path."

However, the history teacher not telling the kids the whole truth is kind of like growing up not knowing about your past or ancestors; what if you didn't know something about your family's history but everyone around you did? What if it was something important, like the fact that the Enola Gay didn't just drop a tiny atom. How freaky would it be if everyone knew something about you that you didn't?

Guilt

Everyone has felt guilty at some point in their life; whether it was sneaking a cookie from the cookie jar or hurting a friend , everyone has felt the horrible feeling of guilt.

 In The Scarlet Letter, Hester and Dimmesdale commit adultery together and each have their own punishment and guilt. Hester's punishment is more public than Dimmesdale's and is just to wear a scarlet "A" on all of her clothes, though her guilt is more towards Dimmesdale's self-punishment. Dimmesdale feels immense guilt and internally punishes himself for his crime. Because he hasn't told anyone and doesn't feel absolved for his sins, Dimmesdale beings to die inside and later his own mark appears on his chest; Dimmesdale eventually dies because he hasn't told anyone about his sins.


** In the Harry Potter series, Regulus Arcturus Black (Sirius' brother) half-heartedly joins the Death Eaters and lets Voldemort use his house elf and friend Kreacher as a guinea pig for his hidden horcrux. Kreacher is put through hell testing out how well Voldemort's horcrux is hidden and how the defenses affect people. Once he returns, Kreacher tells Black all about it and Regulus feels extremely guilty for joining the Death Eaters and letting Kreacher be tortured. Because he is so guilty, Black goes to the cave where the horcrux is hidden, knowing he is going to die, and drinks the poisonous potion himself; steals the horcrux; and has Kreacher go back without him and destroy it while he is left to die. Guilt really can eat away at your soul, and really can cause people to die.


**In case you don't know, I love Harry Potter and can relate almost anything to it. So I apologize if you don't like Harry Potter or don't get the reference. If you don't get it and haven't read the books or seen the movies, either ask me about it or go read/watch it. Seriously. Best series ever. [:

Men vs. Women

Almost no matter where you go, there is going to be a difference in the way men and women are treated. Whether it's just assuming dinner was cooked by the woman and the computer fixed by the man, or the woman getting a lesser pay for the same job a man does, men and women are not treated equally. 

In The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne has committed adultery with Reverend Dimmesdale, and though no one knows that he was involved, they would be treated differently if he was revealed as the adulterer. Hester is a woman, a poor, cheating woman, and Dimmesdale is a priest and a respected man; although they would both be punished for their crime, Hester's punishment would most likely be harsher, and Dimmesdale would probably be let off easier than Hester. Because of gender as well as social standings, Hester would continue to be shunned whereas Dimmesdale would be removed from the church and would lose some respect, but would be forgiven MUCH sooner than Hester.

We see this inequality in today's society in the extremely common stereotype of how women should stay in the kitchen, cook, clean and take care of the kids while men are being taken care of or at work making money. Another example of unequal treatment is that a man and woman can have the exact same level of education and exact same job, but the woman would make up to 30% less than the man. Men and women should be treated the same, as they are the same; men and women are both human beings.

Transcendentalism

When most people hear the word "transcendentalism," they think "ew, that's a long word. It sounds boring." But when I hear "transcendentalism" I think of trees, flowers and forests and how transcendentalists believed nature was true beauty. They were also strong supporters of the whole "carpe diem" theme and believed that everyone should be their own unique individual and live every day like it is their last.


In class this week, I had to read Steve Jobs' commencement speech and relate it to transcendentalism. In his speech, he was basically telling people to go do what they love and be unique and be your own person and live every day like you won't have another, and all of that relates back to transcendentalism. 

However Transcendentalists also believe that death is inevitable so you should live life fully because death will catch up, so embrace it, and don't fear it, as well as that nothing you do is permanent but nature stays constant and continues. In "The Tide Rises, the Tide Falls," the poem has a lot of repetition and parallelism to symbolize nature's consistency.


 Transcendentalism also makes me think of the movie "Avatar;" how the Na'vi are so nature-oriented and how they pretty much worship nature which similar to transcendentalists' views of nature  only one step farther.

Persuasion

Arguments are a natural part of life; almost no one sees everything exactly the same so they disagree, and argue their point. Some of the most important things in an argument are the persuading techniques. 

In The Crisis, Thomas Paine uses a mixture of emotional, and ethical appeals, as well as appeals to authority and association to prove his point and try to convince Americans to join the war cause. He succeeds in doing so because his persuasion techniques were so effective; for example he wrote, "There are persons too who see not the full extent of the evil that threatens them; they solace themselves with hopes that the enemy, if they succeed with be merciful." which is an emotional appeal of fear. He persuades his audience in the same way Jonathan Edwards did in "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God," by using fear to make people think they have to do something.

Using fear to persuade someone is still widely used today. For example, when little kids do something wrong their parents would say something like, "I'm going to count to three, and then you're going to be in BIG trouble missy!" or "You better come here now, or else!" The child, of course, doesn't want to find out what "BIG trouble" is or what "or else" means, so they come running back to their parents. 

Mass Hysteria Feeds on Fear

 Mass hysteria is when a group of people have  hysterical behaviors like anxiety or fear and it can spread extremely fast.

In "The Crucible," the people of Salem go kind of crazy and their fear fuels the mass hysteria affecting the city. Abigail and her "witchcraft" as well as all of her accusations are making everyone in the town afraid that there are witches in Salem. Because they have a Theocracy, witchcraft is a crime because it is against the Bible. So when people started randomly accusing anybody, they would get scared because they didn't want to go to jail or be hanged. This fear kept spreading until eventually most people in the town were afraid, and thus, mass hysteria was created. The mass hysteria only grew bigger as their fear increased and affected more people.

A similar event happened during the "Red Scare" when America was so afraid of Communists taking over. A man named  Joseph McCarthy started accusing people of being Communists, except he had no proof and was just picking people like in "The Crucible." Americans were terrified of Communism taking over the country so also like in the play, their fear spread and created mass hysteria.

Basically it happens like this; something happens that affects people, a couple people become afraid, their fear spreads to more people, and then whole towns become taken over by mass hysteria.