Kenneth Kang
Wednesday, June 25, 1997
Verb Phrase Absolute He was walking, pacing back and He was walking, his pen bouncing up and forth. down. He sat, eagerly anticipating his He sat, his uniform shimmering.... game.
Table 1: Class Examples
(c35,40 "I didn't lose")
In a narrative, your structure is chronological organization. We'll be looking at three types of paragraphs:
Written by Harte, Bret, this story fits under Realism and the Frontier. He wrote about the post-Civil War West. His stories were cool and he made money, however, when he went West, he was less successful when he moved East. He wrote as a Regionalism person and tried to capture his region.
Mr. John Oakhurst is kicked out of Poker Flat. The exiles go to the Sierras. Tom Simpson, a young eloper with Piney, a 15 year old girl, joins the group with supplies. They get snowed in and Uncle Billy took stuff. They sing and do stuff because they're trapped. Starting story telling, Piney read the Iliad. The trees didn't have good wood and they were tired. They have lss and less fuel and they die.
The class finds that this story is authentically regional. There are mountains. Granite cliffs were also there. The scale of the landscape was important. The people are social outcasts. This is different from the normal literature in the time which used middle class people. The East thought that the West was lawless.
Sometimes known as the "local color" movement. This includes landscape, people, culture, as exampled by habits, speech, appearances, customs. Questions about regionalism include why, what type of curiosity, is it democratic, where was it, was it multicultural. It worked in the West, the South: Creek and Cajun, and also in New England. People not going West wanted to know about this. The people in the east were curious about the country. There was also this colonization aspect in that the people in the cultural capitals of Boston and New York were curious as people were migrating into the other parts of the country; thus civilizing it and "colonizing" the frontier with their culture. "At its very best Regional writing transcend the region and becomes part of the national literature." -- Kate Chopin, not a regionalist. A lot of the regional literature has remained in the background even today. Those unknown books were then really popular.
This is a story by Crane, Stephen. He is a naturalist and was well acclaimed. His work included The Red Badge of Courage (1895) and War is Kind, an anthology of poems (1899). He only lived to be 28. Realism is where they became cynical and naturalism is where they went ordinary and a little scientific.
(I) The boat is in a storm and compared to a bronco. They head toward the rescue place. (II) They see gulls and encounter seaweed and finally a light house. (III) They approach and remember that the rescue station was abandoned. They don't get rescued. (IV) They contimplate dying. They find a stupid tourist waving about. Night fall and the oiler and correspondent switch off rowing. (V) They go into the night. (VI) Some memories come back. (VII) They find a village. The boat sinks and they swim. The correspondent is in a current. They get rescued.
There was the sea gull eating theory (507) and the shark (515) which threaten the men. The captain was injured and the cook didn't row. The men had a "subtle brotherhood" and they were polite. The captain waves the rescuer to the other men.
Some questions include, identifing passages where Crane says his views, how is it naturalist, and counter the statement that the characters were conditioned. It is naturalist because people were being manipulated by forces of nature beyond their control. See 507 right column first full paragraph. See 513 right column second full paragraph from the bottom. The situtation is significantly screwed up so that it is an environment where visions, revelations, and epiphanies are easily encountered. This such spiritual experience, and considering the environment of the friendly dinghy, the correspondent remembers kindly upon this experience.
Realism and naturalism is defined in the book. Realism tries to reflect reality accurately. Naturalism is a subset of realism and it is fatalist. "They had a comprehensive view of existence." Both styles are pessimistic. Naturalists were a bit more pessimistic. Naturalists wind up glorifying the intrinsic and precious human values
Carl Sandburg served as a soldier and later a novelist. The Great War made the US think more of Europe. Motivating factors included the sinking of the Lusitania where 128 Americans died. The end of the Great War saw the prohibition and organized crime, and even later, unemployment would become rampant. World War II ends this era and the US winds up again, saving the world.
There was a feeling uncertainity with WWI. This was a departure from the Progessive do it all scheme. Themes were hidden in images. Imagism (1909-1917) went agaisnt the sentimentality of 19th century poetry. Some writers were expatriates and moved to Paris.They statred the stream-of-conciousness narration and other new ways of expression. Americans also were known to the world. Lewis, Sinclair was one honored with the Nobel Prize for Literature. There was also the Harlem Renaissance where Hughes, Langston wrote. This was not a coherent movement. Humor from White, E. B. and Rogers, Will also entered society.
Chapter 1: The narrator is Nick Carraway who graduated from New Haven in 1915. Cynical and accusing of everyone being plagarists, Mr. Carraway imposes his ideas on everyone but Gatsby. He grew up mid-western and lived in the West Egg Village. He went to the East Egg to have dinner with Tom Buchanan and Daisy, his second degree married cousin. He meets Miss Jordan Baker who will play "tomorrow" in a tournament at Westchester (23). The narrator feels uncivilized and Tom points out cynically that civilization is falling apart accoding to The Rise of the Coloured Empires. There is the story of the butler's nose in polishing silver.
Chapter 2: We get introduced to Mrs. Wilson; Mr. Wilson, a photographer; Myrtle, the mistress; Catherine; and Mrs. McKee. Mrs. Wilson changes her clothes a lot. Tom goes with Mrs. Wilson, shopping, buys a dog. Mrs. Wilson is in her mid-thirties and fat but pleasing. Catherine says Tom and Daisy don't like each other but Daisy is Catholic and can't divorce. (Daisy, according to the narrator, is not Catholic.) Tom gives Mrs. Wilson a bloody nose.
Chapter 3: Nick goes to Gatsby's party. It has chauffeurs and Rolls Royces with a hhuge orchestra. People who were not invited came anyway. He found Jordan, but not his host. They chit chat and say that Gatsby was in the army and had killed a man. He chats with a man, not knowing its Gatsby only to find out mid conversation. He talks about books and hydroplanes. The orchestra plays a really new piece. Jordan cries and Gatsby and her walk out and the call her aunt. He sees a small accident where a wheel of a car falls off. Gloomy and lost, Nick wanders, looking at romantic women and just doing nothing really. He meets Jordan Baker and finally recalls the scandal and notes her dishonesty, but he forgets the dishonest part. He's curious.
Chapter 4: Nick analyses who goes to Gatsby's parties. Gatsby takes him on a car trip where he tells his story of his San Francisco family dying and leaving money, going to the war hoping to die but winding up heroically pushing far into enemy territory, and just wandering, trying to forget the pain and sorrow. We learn about Gatsby from Mr. Wolshiem who rigged the 1919 World Series. He learns about Daisy's history and how Gatsby really is obsessive about her. He kisses Jordan.
Chapter 5: Gatsby and Nick arrange a meeting time. While it rains, they talk about how his house looks and Daisy comes. After sending the driver away, Gatsby and Daisy talk and explore the house. Gatsby is nervous and they sit down to hear Klipspringer, Ewing, the room renter, play the piano.
Chapter 6: Gatsby, Jay's real name was Gatz, James who changed it when he was 17. He was making a living fishing and working for rich Cody, Dan. He helped Dan with his yacht, but Dan died after Ella Kaye came on board. She got most of the money. Nick, Tom, and Gatsby sit down and Nick learns about Gatsby and Daisy from Gatsby. Gatsby accepts the "facetious" invitation to dinner from Mrs. Sloane. Daisy and Gatsby dance and they talk about the Sloanes. Nick sees drunk Mrs. Baedeker. They speculate that Gatsby is a bootlegger and Gatsby consults Nick about Daisy and if she was bored.
Chapter 7: Gatsby fired all of his servants. Feeling the hot weather, the characters hang out to chill. They talk about Tom and his girlfriend and his break up. Daisy kisses Gatsby. Tom insists on going to town and seems to know about Gatsby and Daisy. After deciding who rides in whose car, Nick, Jordan, and Tom zoom off. They see the Wilsons at the gas station and Myrtle glares at Jordan, thinking she's Tom's wife. The feel hot at the park. They get to the heart of the problem and ask Daisy who she loves. After initially being stopped, Nick and Jordan leave. There is some greek gu named Michaelis. Myrtle is run over by Daisy.
Chapter 8: Nick wants Gastby to take a vacation so that his car isn't implicated in the Myrtle run over. Gatsby hangs with Daisy and doesn't really know her other than being "married." There is the history of their relationship. Conversing with Jordan, Nick ponders the situation. George Wilson and Michaelis talk about the family. Mr. Wilson is found dead in Gatsby's shrubs.
Chapter 9: Gatsby's dead and Nick aids with the post mortem arraigments.Tom and Daisy went away and Wolfsheim can't come. Mr. Gatz comes to in response to an article in the Chicago newspaper. Nick meets Mr. Wolfsheim and hears the story. Wolfsheim won't come and Nick and Mr. Gatz see the last resolves of Jay Gatsby. No one but a thick glassed person comes to the private funeral. Nick notices that everything had been a sham and that they were all from the West. Jordan is going to marry another person. He talks with Tom who thinks Gatsby was a trickster and messed up everyone.
There are a lot of ways to approach this book. The class feels that the first few pages were boring. There is really a lot of good stuff, good writing in the first chapter. One must understand the narrator because he is the one telling the story. He isn't a third person narrator because he details his life and Gatsby. Tom, Nick Carraway (narrator), Daisy, Jordan, and Gatsby are the five main characters. Get into groups of three and find for each of the five main characters, three observations or insights into their character. You may have to infer their character. There is also general wisdom in the first chapter. Find three aphorisms.
This is taking place in the east and he is telling the story while being in the midwest. The west is anything beyond the Appalachians. Nick lives in the poorer less fashionable West Egg. They all came from the West.
On page 6, there are some mysteries posed. It said that Gatsby represented everything in men of unaffected scorn. Do we know enough about Nick yet to even guess what he's talking about? No, we don't, it poses a mystery, but Gatsby represents this. There is a contradiction, if Gatsby represents everything of unaffected scorn, then why should Gatsby be exempt from Nick's reaction. What is "it" that preyed on Gatsby. We haven't really met the guy yet. These are mysteries related to the whole heart of the book.
A lesser mystery is hidden in the meaning of the sentence. The sentence, "If personaliity is an unbroken series of successful gestures, the there was something gorgeous about him..." is the other mystery. This tells that Gatsby is a smooth and slick guy. Gatsby had an extraordinary gift of hope. He opitomized the man of his decade.
This book takes place in the Jazz Age which was an era of possibility and aspiration.
Memoir or observer narration is where the narrator is telling the story in first person but the focus is on a third person. This is the point of view used in The Great Gatsby. An observer narration is "told by someone who knows the third person's story and resonates with it to the point of mythifying. This resonance is the key to why one person tells another story."
Rumors about Gatsby include that he killed somebody. He could be a German spy and a relative of Kaiser Wilhelm and he went to Oxford. We do know that he has a huge house and lavish parties. He was in the same division in the US army as Nick. (52, "he smiled understandingly") He's all fluff and he isn't sincere. He's impersonal (57, "Don't mention it").
Nick wants to laugh because the story sounds like it's from a cheap novel (Page 68). Gatsby hasn't been real. He carries a medal and photo. Gatsby wants to meet Daisy (Page 72). Mr. Wolfshiem was a Jewish gambler with human molar cuff links who rigged the 1919 World Series. He is sentimental and mobster.
Nick who is one of the few honest people he knows and Jordan who is incurably dishonest make an odd couple (Page 62). Also she says she's careless and it is implied that Nick is careful, maybe too careful. Can we trust the narrator? Jordan had told of Daisy and Gatsby and hookin' 'em up (Page 84). Daisy liked Gatsby when he was in the army. She married Tom and gets drunk.
Gatsby's motivation was to show off the house and possesions and thus win over Daisy. He wants to be somebody and thus have Daisy, who had been unfairly taken by rich Tom. Gatsby wanted Daisy to say she didn't like Tom anymore (116). Tom wanted to acquire something. Nick remarks that Gatsby dreamed more than Daisy (101). He wanted to be somebody from a fisherman to being great Jay Gatsby. [Look at the line "Daisy, you make me feel so uncivilized."] We see his self-invention and his aspirations on page 104-105. "This came from his culture during the 1920s where money and success was the key." [Perhaps Dan Cody] Horatio Alger wrote Ragged Dick which was a rags to riches stories. Speaking metaphorically on Gatsby's heart, Fitzgerald tells us that his heart is riotous with imagination and dreams (105). On page 117, Gatsby kisses Daisy and she is the incarnation of his dreams (117, last paragraph). Daisy's voice is money (127). It makes it seem like fairy tale. "He is son of God" (104). Gastby wanted to have a chance at Daisy.
The symbols of Daisy's voive has references on 13 "I looked back...voice," 114 "Daisy began to sing," 111 "They arrived at...voice," 90 "the exhilerating ripple," and 19 "The butler...voice." The symbol of the house has references in 43 "The music," 86, "When I came home," 96 second paragraph and on, 103 about the theory of Gatsby's house, 9 last paragraph, and chapter 3 on page 43.
A description of Daisy's house and Gatsby's reaction. (Page 155) It's acutally a bit like the paradox where Gatsby might love the house or might love Daisy. He knew he was in the house on accident and socially he was out of place. He likes the porch (page 157). Tom had allowed Daisy to go with Gatsby because he had deflated the Gatsby image (hotel).
Ash heaps and Dr. Eckleburg are found on 167. This is where Michaelis is chatting with Wilson about Myrtle. There is another reference on 27, 163, 131. Other possible titles were Among the Ashheaps and Millionaires, Under the Red White and Blue. Dr. Eckleburg seem to be omniscient. It's a wasteland and a place where dreams have turned to dust or maybe there weren't.
Only his dad on page 176 calls him great. Gatsby followed an ideal and sacrificed himself for it. Nick said Gatsby had an extraordinary gift for hope and devoted unselfishly (or selfishly) to an ideal. Contrasting him with Tom and Daisy, he has many more ideals than them who are more self indulgent and self protective. Paradoxically, Mr. Gatsby is a criminal.
The theme of waste is found in the book. It is a common theme for American writers as a result of pessimism and cyncism. "It's great potential squandered." A power for good is somehow corrupted and diverted to false goals. This stems from materialism. On page 189, the second paragraph reflects Gatsby and the initial discoverers of the New World. This contrasts with the images of ashes and wasteland. Nick saw some of his dreams in Gatsby and sought morality. Gatsby had entered Tom and Daisy's world and found nothing there. Jordan and Nick broke because they would have been like Tom and Daisy and Jordan was a cheat.
"Once aboard the Lugger (I)" is a very symbolic story. It deals with Joe, Pete, the Captain, and the nigger. It was during the time of teetotaling. They go to an island and land on it to dig lumpy sacks covered in metal.
"Nympholepsy" is where a guy runs after a nymph. He dives in water and does all sorts of wierd stuff.
"The Bear" is where a kid goes after a mythical bear. He eventually finds it and doesn't kill it.
She's southerner and she had Lupis and was religious. She's disturbed by hypocrasy. Using irony, she writes about society
"A Stroke of Good Fortune" is where Ruby, a fat 34 year old, goes up four flights of 28 step stairs. She has a fortune teller, Madame Soleeda. She encounters a toy gun and Mr. Jerger, a loud trivialist. Then she meets frivoulous Laverne Watts. Finally she slips on the steps.
"The Life You Save May Be Your Own" is where there is an old woman and a daughter, Lucynell, who is 30 years old and can't speak. Mr. Shiftlet comes and does some work and winds up with the car, $17.50 and Lucynell. He just wanted the car and drives and puts Lucynell in some wierd place and he goes to Mobile.
Mr. Shiflet and the old woman are all fakes. He claims a "moral intelligence." There are always references to the car. Irony involves where they talk about cars and the daughter. He has one arm and her daughter is deaf. The lady "protected" her daughter yet he doesn't want her. She says she won't let anyone take her daughter. Shiflet takes her daughter away.
"The Glass Mountain" is a post modern story. He hates symbols and throws it away.
"How I Write My Songs" is satire.
"Nothing: A Preliminary Account" is just some idiocy on how to get nothing and why nothing is impossible.
"Engineer-Private Paul Klee Misplaces an Aircraft Between Milbertsofen and Cambrai, March 1916" is the dual narration by an "omnipotent" secret police and the engineer-private Paul Klee. It just documents a "normal" occurrence when an airplane gets stolen.
"In Another Country" starts off in a hospital and then proceeds to talk about the restraints of marriage.
"Indian Camp" is about a caesarian birth in the Indian fronteir. The father kills himself. This story is about Nick who seems to be about 7-10 years old. This is the "struggle" for life and death. The screaming was unimportant because it was normal. It probably was set in Michigan.
"The Killers" is where two people come and call the guys bright boy. They come and threaten to kill Ole Anderson for a friend. Nick escapes and tries to warn Anderson but Anderson does nothing.
He was a modernism writer. Modernism involved people's quotodien strugges and captured the essence of modern life. Writers tried to keep their stories meaningless and they are uncertain and bewildering forcing us to draw our own conclusions.
"The Magic Barrel" is a story about Leo Finkle, a seminary student. He goes to Salzman, a matchmaker. He is setup with tons of people but finds no good person. Leo goes for Salzman's daughter, Stella, maybe a prostitute. The Magic Barrel is the container with all the profiles.
"The First Seven Years" is about Feld who has a daughter. He wants to hook her up. He I a shoemaker and tries to get her with the college student Max. He has an assistant Sobel who reads books. He finally at the end finds out that Sobel likes Miriam.
They both deal with matchmaking and failures, they are all jewish. One is from the caller and the other is from the POV of the father. Both have bittersweet endings.
"The Slump" makes everything everyday and stuff. Once you get on the field, he gets worred. This is the opposite of his early years where he felt nervous off the field and relaxed on the field. There is a blind spot where he can't see what's affecting him.
"In Football Season" everything is descibed in terms of scent. It is another story about loss especially youth.
She writes stories in short simple sentences and thinks this forms a better sense of realistic chaos. "Imagined Scences" had no point.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi," he replied succintly.
"I haven't seen you that much."
"Me too."
She pondered silently how she could confront him. "I was wondering ... I have a weekend off pretty soon ... We could spend some time with the family." Family, cousins, brothers, and parents, they were the only reason to get off work and celebrate something like Christmas. "Maybe we could go and take a vacation, alone? Just around here."
David hesitated, "I feel really bad, but I can't get off work, we have to get several projects done before the end of the month."
A desparate silence surrounded them. It seemed as though the silent air had disrupted the initial intentions. She decided to try once again, but later.
Absolutes, 2
Additions, 1
Adjective Phrase, 2
Aunt Sally, 5
base clause, 1
Boggs, 3
Buck, 3
Col. Grangerford, 3
Colonel Sherburn, 3
Crane, Stephen, 13
dense texture, 1
diction, 8
expatriates, 14
facetious, 5
Gatsby, 17
George Peters, 3
Harlem Renaissance, 14
Harte, Bret, 12
Imagism, 14
irony
verbal, 10
Jazz Age, 17
Jim, 2
Judge Thatcher, 2
Judith Loftus, 3
Klipspringer, Ewing, 15
Memoir or observer narration, 17
modernism, 19
naturalism, 8, 13
Noun Phrase, 2
picaresque, 5
Prepositional Phrase, 2
Realism, 8, 13
regionalism, 8, 12
roman fleuve, 5
satire, 8, 10
Sherburn, 6
Verb Phrase, 1
Voice, 8
Watson, 2, 3
West, 17
Widow Douglas, 2
Wolfshiem, 17