Honors American Literature (E)

In my life, like many others, I carry the weight of my actions. This could be as little as picking up a piece of trash, to as big as deciding where I want to go to college. The realization of what I can do to my own life lives with me through each breath I take. I understand that what I do has consequences, good or bad. 

When I was younger, I relied on my mother for absolutely everything. Food, water, shelter, you name it. Once I entered middle school, I began to think for myself and have ideas not influenced by her. It was around this time that I recognized that I needed to think about what I said and did because my parents wouldn’t always be there to clean up my messes. If I wanted to succeed in the process of fully maturing, it was vital that I comprehend how to make my own decisions and, if needed, clean up the corresponding mess. My brothers, though, still need some help.
My two younger brothers, Zander and Will, are both immature. I have noticed them saying things about race, religion, and sexuality that lead to negative consequences. Every time, without fail, they have had our parents clean up their messes. Because of this, they have not learned anything, and continue to do the immoral things they do. In my case, I was taught how to solve problems, or just apologize, so that I could do the same in the future. 

More than once, I have gotten in trouble. For my adolescent years, my mom helped clean up my mess, but by the time I was about thirteen, my actions began to catch up with me, and there was nothing my parents could do about that. Although a tough time in my life, I am glad that I went through it. I learned to say sorry, and mean it, I learned to listen, and most importantly, I learned to take responsibility and try to help. Because I was taught how to be a better person, I became a better person. Of course, nobody is perfect though. Learning this was grueling.

In sixth grade, I was introduced to a boy named Trey. I noticed many traits in him that I had previously seen in myself, but more importantly, traits that I saw in my brothers. Above all, he was very racist, homophobic, and also super anti-semetic. Seeing this, I realized how truly important my previous experiences were. If not for them, I could have turned out similar to Trey, and, yes, everyone has their own journey, but he made mine a lot harder. 

From the get-go, Trey started to make fun of me. My height, my nose, my voice, and many other things that he knew I was very self conscious about at the time were his main points. Lots of times it could be that I was Jewish, or sometimes it would just be nothing. Throughout my middle school career, I was berated and beaten by Trey and his friends. The cuts and bruises though didn’t leave as much as an impact on me, the psychological damage did. By the time tenth grade came around Trey and his buddies had moved their focus to other kids, and I had become more “popular.” Trey once came up to me and tried to say sorry, probably because by then I had gained more friends than him, but it didn’t feel good. It felt like trying to put a bandaid on a bullethole. 

Because of that, I learned the impact that I can have on people. I understood the importance of the golden rule, and no matter how cliché, how true it can ring. Because of all my experiences, I now understand the things I carry and what they truly mean. 

There was no noise in this great room, other than the taps of shoes on the marble floor and the quiet interactions between teller and client. When the clock hit precisely 2:15 an astute man wearing a nice suit wandered through the entrance. As he dropped his bag, me and three of our accomplices had pulled out firearms. Thus gave rise to an unpleasant barrage of screams and movement. And ended the peace within our world. 

Every living being proceeded to drop like flies as I marched towards the desk. Seeing as we had guns, the clerks quickly filled our bags with money and, as expected, pressed the silent alarm. 

At least half of the people were crying, and many others just sat blankly. I told the teller to work faster, but they assured me that they were going as fast as they could. I slammed my fist down in retaliation, and they hurried up. 

By the time three-hundred thousand dollars were secure, the tellers have gone to lie along with the others. My group and I, satisfied with our work, came outside to leave. Just then, the cops come, sirens blaring, so we begin to charge towards the car.

As the sirens diminish, darkness begins to envelop the town. As the diminuendo of the sunset finally ends, and the day has been put to rest, we let out a sigh of relief. The drum of our hearts slows, and finally, the adrenaline fades. 

Suddenly, the moon emerges from the clouds like a prisoner from his cell. The sweet beams of moonlight brush through the ruffling leaves and between the branches of the pines. Our lives have begun. 

Character narration skews readers’ opinions on other characters. Nick narrates through his own thoughts and emotions, which may exclude factual information. Nick’s observations about his friends are, however, not wrong. Daisy, although she tries to play the victim, is in her own way a malicious character by feeding into her obsessions of money and status. Daisy values money and status over a real relationship with love. Tom is a corrupt person in all ways, he is self centered, careless, shallow, and never feels remorse for anything.  Finally, Gatsby, the novel’s main focus. Gatsby is corrupted by money, status, and obsession, which leads to his tragic downfall. “For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.” (1 Timothy 6:10 ESV). The theme of this novel surrounds the idea of materialistic greed which leads to the corruption of characters. 

Daisy is one of the many characters that is corrupted in the Great Gatsby. Her obsession for money and status worked against her in many cases throughout the novel. “She wanted her life shaped now, immediately—and the decision must be made by some force—of love, of money, of unquestionable practicality—that was close at hand.” (Fitzgerald, Chapter 8). Daisy’s corruption has been prominent throughout her whole life. As the novel develops, the readers learn that Daisy has always been motivated by status. When Gatsby first meets Daisy he reads her assumptions of his character. Gatsby feeds into her assumptions by presenting himself as the same status as her.  Daisy shows her selfish characteristic grow throughout the novel. “Oh, you want too much!’ she cried to Gatsby. ‘I love you now, isn’t that enough? I can’t help what’s past.’ She began to sob helplessly. ‘I did love him once – but I loved you too.'” Daisy never thought about Gatsby’s feelings, she only considered hers. “Isn’t that enough?” (Fitzgerald, Chapter 7). shows Daisy’s lack of emotion and empathy towards Gatsby’s feelings. 

Tom is also a corrupted character. He has no remorse or sympathy for anyone. Daisy and Tom’s characters go hand in hand. They often feed off of each other’s selfishness. He blames Gatsby for Myrtle’s death even though Daisy was the person who was driving the car. When Tom tells Mr. Wilson that Gatsby owned the car that hit his wife, he had no remorse or second thought of how Mr. Wilson would react.  He believes Gatsby got what he deserved “He broke off defiantly. ‘What if I did tell him? That fellow had it coming to him. He threw dust into your eyes just like he did in Daisy’s, but he was a tough one. He ran over Myrtle like you’d run over a dog and never even stopped his car.’

“There was nothing I could say, except the one unutterable fact that it wasn’t true.” (Fitzgerald, Chapter 9). Tom is expressing his opinions about Gatsby, this is more to show the readers Tom’s personality in more specific detail. Tom, along with Daisy, often was described as careless. They had status, therefore, their actions didn’t mean as much to them. Nick notices the couples behavior as unacceptable, he expresses their insensitivity towards others then describes them sinking back into their money and status without a worry. 

“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.” (Fitzgerald, Chapter 9). 

Gatsby, like the majority of the characters in The Great Gatsby, is corrupted by his money and obsession with his status. Materialistic items hold more of a value to him rather than the truth. He often changes his character in order to impress Daisy no matter the price of his actions. As the novel progresses, his character develops on a greater scale to evolve into the Buchanan’s despicable behavior.  Unlike the Buchanan’s, Gatsby’s drive didn’t solely revolve around money and status, he was only truly obsessed with the idea of impressing Daisy with the money that he didn’t originally have. ““Her voice is full of money,” [Gatsby] said suddenly. That was it. I’d never understood before. It was full of money—that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals’ song of it.” (Fitzgerald, Chapter 7). Gatbsy makes an observation about the sound of Daisy’s voice, but he doesn’t describe it like most people would, he mainly focuses on the tone presented within her voice. Money. The novel focuses on many themes throughout the course of the book, but one is very prominent in almost every character. The theme of money, greed, and the love of materialistic objects shine through other themes revolving around morals.  “The Great Gatsby’s central theme tells us that materialism is the main source of moral downfall, distorted reality, and the society’s plutomania.” (The Theme of Materialism in The Great Gatsby) Gatsby changes the person he truly is in order to impress Daisy whom he truly loves. Daisy, being her character, solely looks at his status along with his money. 

Corruption is something that the world deals with on a daily basis, whether it is through bad people or money. Nick is correct in his observations that the characters of The Great Gatsby are corrupted in their own ways and ideas. The most common denominator of corruption throughout this novel is money and greed. “Money is the root of all evil.” The theme of materialism strikes hard in almost every character we encounter. 

What did they really carry? In Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried, O’Brien describes the horrors of war and the effects it had on himself and others. One technique that he uses is called “meta-fiction,” which is defined as writing about the act of writing. It makes the reader really think about the novel’s authenticity. Another technique he uses is story-truth vs. happening truth. Story truth is what the writer feels like happened, in turn being more effective in portraying emotion. Happening truth is what really happened, but it might not feel as drastic for an outside reader. Because of the frequent use of meta-fiction, the reader begins to question what is true and what is storytelling. In almost every story, there is a hint of happening truth vs. story truth, which are easily mixed up or too believable. One example of this is Norman Bowker due to the fact that the story is written from his perspective, not from O’Brien’s. 

The use of meta-fiction impacts the readers understanding of Norman Bowker. Bowker was a soldier who served with O’Brien in the Vietnam War. After the war he couldn’t keep a job or talk about his experiences in the war to anyone. A mix of those two things and PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), caused Bowker to take his own life. Before he did, he had asked O’Brien to write a story for him, and a little bit about him as well: “I’d write it myself except I can’t ever find any words, if  you know what I mean, and I can’t figure out what exactly to say” (O’Brien 151). In this story, “Notes,” O’Brian is told not to use Bowkers real name. Although a small detail, this mixed with the other uses of meta-fiction in the chapter makes the reader question lots of things. “Is Bowker his real name?” “Is this story true?” “Is Bowker even real?” All questions O’Brien himself wanted to invoke in the reader. But, does O’Brien even know himself? This question is very important because it makes the reader question what is story truth and what is happening truth. 

Story truth is vital in an instance when the writer himself cannot recall some of the events that happened. “The thing about a story is that you dream it as you tell it, hoping that others might then dream along with you, and in this way memory and imagination and language combine to make spirits in the head” (O’Brien 218). This quote is O’Brien describing how important story-truth is, as he wants to evoke a special kind of emotion similar to one felt by O’Brien at the time. As stated, the ‘spirits’ are the result of the story, the story truth. In instances like these, it seems as though O’Brien telling us about the story that he is writing makes him unsure of reality vs. storytelling. Another example of this happens after O’Brien tells the reader about the man that he had killed. After going into great detail about the dismemberment and happenings of the story, he later goes on to say “It’s time to be blunt. I’m forty-three years old, true, and I’m a writer now, and a long time ago I walked through Quang Ngai Province as a foot soldier. Almost everything else is invented” (O’Brien 171). In saying this, he admits the storytelling in his novel. He does this just enough for the reader to question almost everything that he says because he has become an untrustworthy narrator. Because of all the questions raised, we begin to question O’Brien himself. 

O’Brien will portray a story, and then tell the reader that more than half of it was made up. “A thing may happen and be a total lie; another thing may not happen and be truer than the truth” (O’Brien 80). He deliberately tells the reader this to confuse them. But, that is the intention. He wants us to know that whether or not the story is true, it’s real. Like the story when he killed someone. He tells us that yes, it was a lie, but he was there, so he might as well have killed the man. This is the effect of story-truth. It can evoke feelings in the reader that some other stories might not be able to. It can also highlight the importance of a certain story. This is seen in the story where Kiowa, another character who served with O’Brien is killed. “Like murder, the boy thought. The flashlight made it happen. Dumb and dangerous. And as a result his friend Kiowa was dead” (O’Brien 70). This quote is important due to the fact that O’Brien first tells this story in first person, antagonizing feeling of sorrow in the reader, but later tells us that it was another character goes through this story, and O’Brien was only there. 

O’Brien’s main intention in his use of story-truth is to elicit an emotion or feeling similar to one felt by him and his peers while they were out in the field. It can especially recreate a feeling of disorientation and confusion, emotions many soldiers feel. This is especially important in regards to story truth vs. happening truth, and can make the lines between them very blurred. Not only does O’Brien successfully blur the lines, but he metaphorically draws some new ones just to make the reader think a bit harder about a story. O’Brien’s use of meta-fiction in the The Things They Carried take the reader into Vietnam with the soldiers, and then bring us out, changed and re-born. 

In the years to come, I hope that education will be more widespread. I hope more people will have the opportunity to learn about people that are different from themselves. This would result in less racism, homophobia, religious hate, and political bias. I know that not only would people be able to have meaningful conversations, but also would have the ability to calmly and effectively debate others, using active listening skills and non-aggressive language. I hope that one day, instead of screaming slurs or hate, people will be able to talk about what they are feeling and their opinions rationally. That people who are LGBTQ can come out and not have to worry about their safety. That woman can get equal pay. That people of color don’t have to worry about carrying their belongings in fear of being shot. That people will get along no matter race, religion, creed, or sexuality.

I also yearn for a world where governments are not seeking money or fame, but rather peace and happiness throughout the world. A world where governments are not feared and hated, but respected because they are also respectful. A world where there are people who do not fear their elected officials to the extent that they don’t get life saving vaccines. A world where you are not afraid of cops, but protected by them. 

If we could achieve this, people would trust each other. Not only that, but people could trust science and reasoning and facts. It would be nice to walk outside and not see people so intent that the earth is flat or that the vaccine causes autism or that the government is reptoids, and instead see police protecting citizens or the government helping people and doing the things that would stop the distrust before it has even started. If the cracked wall of the government is repaired and kept, we will have successfully gained equality and we will have inched closer to a fully productive society. 

If we can achieve that, all of the people who perished fighting this injustice will not have died in vain. Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Malcolm X, Rosa Parks, and many, many more will not be forgotten when this comes, because once we get there not everything will be “fixed.” We are still human, we make mistakes. And all that means is that their practices and teachings will need to be exercised, so we can keep the harmony we hopefully will accomplish. If we continue to hate and distrust one another, how can we say that we respect these people? We can’t. To truly admire these people we have to fulfill their dreams for society. 

But, in the great words of Dr. King, there is a “Fierce urgency of now.” If we don’t address the problem now, will it ever get addressed? If we don’t begin to accept others, will we ever? Will we ever change, unless we begin now? I don’t believe so. If this is to continue, it will take generations to re-pave this devastating road of hatred that we have laid down before us. 

In fiction, the protagonist almost always wins. In reality, no one does. As seen in Stephen Crane’s Maggie: A Girl of the Streets the impendingly doomed protagonist, Maggie, draws the shortest of life’s sticks. Although sweet and innocent, her naivety ends up beating her. As sad as it is, this is the reality of life in America. Before Crane, no one dared comment on the negative customs and realities of America. To explicitly create a work that shows what happens in the shadows and how hard it is to climb out into the light was ingenious. Crane wanted people to accept that maybe life is not always fair.

To deliberately show the reader this, he ended the novella with Pete, rich and almost in a state of drunken comatose, surrounded by beautiful women whose only intention is getting drinks. At the other end of the spectrum, Maggie winds up on the streets and, in time, dies. By contrasting the rich and poor, Crane expresses the underlying pain that, at the end of the day, everyone has. Pete, now unable to form a full sentence, clearly regrets the way he treated Maggie, and tries to make up for it by spoiling these other girls. Maggie regrets the way she acted in her and Pete’s relationship and pushes the blame onto herself, therefore destroying her self-worth, but not before it destroyed her reputation and mental stability. 

Pete, although quite wealthy, wastes his riches on drinks and loses it to women. “Overwhelmed by a spasm of drunken adoration, he drew two or three bills from his pocket, and, with the trembling fingers of an offering priest, laid them on the table before the woman ” (126). Many people believe that money is happiness, but Crane knew better. By displaying Pete’s extreme wealth and the drunken state he is in, Crane illustrates the fool that Pete is making out of himself. The underwhelming amount of respect Pete gets from these girls shows the reality of how the world really works. 

Nearing the end of the novella, Maggie is only referred to as “the girl.” In the eyes of the reader she has lost all individuality and could be one of many. “A stout gentleman, with pompous and philanthropic whiskers, went stolidly by, the broad of his back sneering at the girl” (107). No longer is she special, but now sad, lonely, and creeping closer and closer towards the inevitable. “Crossing glittering avenues, she went into the throng emerging” (106). Only a few lines after: “She went into the blackness of the final block” (112). After wandering down streets of decreased lighting, she ends up in “the blackness.” Not only is this foreshadowing her death, but alluding to her past and how the lighting represents her journey through life. 

Crane, by providing the reader varying paths and endings of life, shows that in America, everything plays a factor in life. Gender, origin, race, appearance, wealth, and personality all play a factor in where an individual ends. Maggie, a poor immigrant girl, too naive to understand her choices, was destined to lose the game of life in America at the time. Having been dealt a bad hand, fate overpowered her free will. Many events in Maggie: A Girl of the Streets could very realistically have happened. Despite the backlash Crane received, he was right, and that was why many people despised the book.

By the way Maggie: A Girl of the Streets was written, the reader can infer that Stephan Crane did not have the most positive outlook on life, but a quite depressing perspective instead. Although dreary, most of the events in the book were quite realistic in the hardest way possible. Even though the length of the book is sparse, it touches on many compelling topics such as birth, death, living, sadness, love, guilt, abuse, and many more aspects of being human. 

By showing an inside look at the life of an American, Crane emphasizes the lie of the American dream. Not only for foreign people, but the denizens of America. Many immigrants were told that no matter who they were, in America, they could thrive. Instead, they were met with hard labor, bad living conditions, low pay, discrimination, and overpopulation. Crane, even if somber in writing, reveals the reality of America at the time and how immigrant families were treated. He tells the story of deceit and corruption, using Maggie and her companions as his vessel.

The boy has lost all innocence. After experiencing the true horrors of the road, the boy begins to mature. This is seen when the boy tells his father that he threw the flute away, when they find the bunker, and, most importantly, after they leave the bunker. This change in character is a result of what happened on the road and could change the course of this boy’s life. 

When the boy throws his flute away, the text seems to bring no real meaning to this passage, but if read into has a big impact on the story. “What happened to your flute? I threw it away. You threw it away? Yes. Okay” (McCarthy 159). The flute represents the boy as a child and his innocence objectified. Now that the flute, or his innocence, is gone, the boy can mature and begin to become independent. 

A more vivid showing of this is when the boy follows his dad into the bunker. Although it took some time to convince him, it seemed like a more mature decision than ones previously made by the boy. This is important because this is the first sign of the boys growth and the start of his journey as a mature adult. 

The most vital information in context to the boy’s lost innocence is his decisions and language after his stay at the bunker. “What are our long term goals? he said” (McCarthy 160). This shows that the boy has begun to think about their future and survival. “The boy is going ahead with a broom and clearing the way of sticks and branches” (McCarthy 156). This passage also shows that he is thinking about the future, and planning ahead, in this case to not break the cart.

After the loss of the flute, and the boy’s innocence, the boy begins to change, and becomes more mature. This can help him in the long term, more importantly the short term, because in The Road, tomorrow is never promised. The boy now seems to understand that, and will now be able to grow independently. 

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s Gatsby is a man driven to madness by himself. His riches, no matter how lavish, could not buy his sanity or happiness. Along with those arbitrary ideals, his money also couldn’t buy the love of the object of his obsession, Daisy. His relationship with her is twisted and their love is toxic, harmful, and feudal in the end. Not only have both parties changed, but so had the world and society, something that neither of them seemed to completely grasp. Gatsby, even after a failed second attempt at their relationship, was consumed by the thought of her, hopelessly believing that he could win her back. Insanity, in this case driven by love and wealth, is a gripping enemy that plagues and overtakes the mind of Jay Gatz, ultimately leading to his demise.

Gatsby is a man who believed that his money could buy his happiness, and even more so, love from Daisy. “Her voice is full of money,” Nick states, in which even Gatsby can tell she is swayed by money (Fitzgerald 100). Because of his lavish parties and extravagant lifestyle, it can be inferred that Gatsby shows off his money, thinking that it might fulfill him. Along with the raging parties, are stories that involve Gatsby, from being a spy to a cold-blooded killer. Because of his anonymity as well as his disconnect from other people, it seems as though Gatsby relishes in the stories, and leeches off of the mystery. Because of this, very few people even know what he looks like or really who he is. Even after he and Daisy are reunited, it seems as though she also does not know who he has become. 

Gatsby had changed since he last saw Daisy, and had become somewhat deranged and delusional about Daisy and his unreasonable standards show the true delusion in his mind. His expectations for Daisy are completely impossible for anyone to achieve, even though his are on the floor. Because of the irrational way Gatsby thinks and views the world, these standards are completely just. He expects Daisy to agree and side with him always, even though he is a criminal and an all-around pretty bad person. Daisy, also unacceptable in behavior, still deserves more realistic standards. Even after he loses her, he still believes he is right in setting the bar so high.

In his disillusion, Gatsby still tries to “win” Daisy back after he has clearly lost her forever. Even after she had ultimately left him for Tom, “He couldn’t possibly leave Daisy until he knew what she was going to do” (Fitgerald 124). This is because he had become so overly obsessed that he needed to make sure that he had at least come to control something about the situation, which in this case (and ultimately in the entire book), was nothing. He yearns for a sense of control not only over his life, but also over everyone in it. He seems to desire Daisy’s love because he thinks it’s how things should be, not because he wants the best for her. He wants to be able to control her into genuinely believing this, making obvious actions to do so. The only thing differentiating him and Tom is the timing in which they met Daisy. Although Gatsby swears that he is nothing like Tom, in reality, they are almost identical.

Gatsby winds up deranged and in a state of permanent refusal about his relationship with Daisy. He seemingly has no control over himself, as he show’s a view of his fractured mind overtaken by obsession. A liar, gangster, and a cheat, are all words that accurately describe tGatsby, whose fate was ultimately determined by his actions and wrongdoings. In the love that he had for Daisy, the man seemed to also have a deeply rooted yearn for a second chance, even though he had already gotten one before. Gatsby becomes a shell of a man who has too much money and not enough real friends, and is the direct product of the events that transpired within the pages of The Great Gatsby. 

One evening, my friend and I were playing video games together. We were laughing and having fun, until I started to lose. Our once playful banter became hurtful. 

Like everyone, I have made choices in my life that I regret. One was the time I called my friend fat due to my anger whilst playing this game. Not only is it personally offensive, but because I said it in a derogatory way I made it sound as if that were a bad thing. 

I had called him that after a small dispute between the two of us. I knew that it would get under his skin. He was vulnerable with me and I used that for my own personal gain. Instead of thinking about this, I was thinking about “winning.” In a fight, there are no winners, especially if it is your friend.

I am very disappointed in myself that I had said something that I knew would specifically hurt another person. At the time, I felt bad, but was too insecure to say sorry. I still look back and regret my actions, but without a moment like this, I would never have changed. 

That night, I tossed and turned while trying to sleep, but for some reason I still insisted that I didn’t need to apologize. 

Looking back, I realize that this was due to the mean things that were said to me, none of which was followed by “sorry.” I had been so focused on him, that I never realized that I was projecting myself onto him.

The morning after, we had school. My friend and I had done things like this before, so we kind of just went on our day normally. By the time lunch had come, he and I were back to joking around and having fun. The weight of my actions still stuck with me. 

Promptly at 3:00, just when school ended, I ran up to him before he left. I explained my feelings and expressed my guilt. He thanked me for my honesty and told me that it was ok, and just to respect him.

On the ride home, I thought about what he said. I then thought back to every time I had called my parents, brothers, friends, peers, and even rivals any mean thing. Whether I meant it or not, I said it to them. The fact that I couldn’t ever go back to any moment and stop myself paralyzed me. As I thought about what I said to other people, I also thought about what was said to me. I had experienced sadness, yet only then I realized that I had given people that same feeling sometimes. 

It might sound simple, yet I had never even imagined that this could be true. After taking a much needed look into myself, I realized that I can take two paths. I could continue to hurt people, or I could live through my actions and respect people. 

The only way to prove to myself that I can be better is to do better. Doing better for others, in turn, was doing better for myself as well. I became happier, friendlier, and more willing to do good for the people around me. 

Hi! I am Jake Paderewski, and I am from Savannah, GA. I came halfway through the year to Hebron, but so far it’s been great. I love to climb and play music, mostly guitar, but I went to school for the upright bass. My favorite book is 1984 by George Orwell because of the dystopian future it depicts and the emotions it evoked in me.