Adventures at Post Oak High

Since The Great Gatsby is such a complicated novel, even though it is quite short, it is a little challenging to pinpoint one exact theme for the book. But out of all that we chose, "Death of the American Dream" is the most prominent. Firstly, and most prominently, are the last two paragraphs of the entire book. They read: "He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.  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 faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . and one fine morning... So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." Since these are the closing paragraphs of the e...

After finishing The Great Gatsby, I can safely say it is one of the greatest novels I have ever read, likely the greatest. Part of what makes it great is it's complicated conflict. You really can't pinpoint exactly one central conflict for the novel. Here we have a man struggling with himself, constantly asking the question "is this really who I am?" Sure, he has riches and parties, but inside he is a lonely person, searching for freedom in Daisy. However, a byproduct of living in West Egg is complicated interpersonal relationships, as seen when Gatsby is blamed for the hit-and-run killing of a young woman named Wilson (the "death car", as the newspapers called it, didn't stop; it came out of the gathering darkness, wavered tragically for a moment, and then disappeared around the next bend.") and subsequently killed for it (even though it was actually Daisy Buchanan, Gatsby's unattainable goal, who was driving the vehicle. So here, we have man...

In Chapter 6 of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, we learn the supposed backstory of the novel 's title character. Supposedly born James Gatz as a farm boy in North Dakota, Gatsby attended St. Olaf in Minnesota. However, he was tired of the work he had to undertake as a janitor, "dismayed at the ferocious indifference to the drums of his destiny". So, he went back to Lake Superior, where he had been wandering aimlessly before he went off to college. That is when he saw Dan Cody on his yacht, and Gatz met him in the water to warn about a torrential wind that was coming soon. Now known as Jay Gatsby, he accompanied Cody on trips to the West Indies and the Barbary Coast. When he was denied Cody's inheritance, Gatsby sought to reinvent himself. In this particular passage of the novel, it seems that Fitzgerald is commenting on the supposed vigor of the American dream, how anybody can reinvent themselves if they really want to. He also seems to be making a s...

Well, the short answer to this question is no. I would assume Fitzgerald did this on purpose, but Nick is judging Gatsby in particular, as well as other characters. Throughout the party scene, Nick makes comments about Gatsby, primarily good. I mean, does this not sound like judgement? He smiled understandingly - much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. So, yeah...not to mention that Caraway manages to judge Tom, Daisy, and the poor fellow who crashed his fashionable automobile in a fit of drunkenness. Nick is definitely going to not reserve his judgement throughout the novel. And, for better or for worse, the characters and the world of East and West Egg are going to be revealed through his eyes.

Recently in ELA, I had the opportunity to read A Midsummer Night's Dream by none other than William Shakespeare himself. The play is most often seen as a comedy, and I really have no problems with that statement. It's funny, whimsical, and it fits the other requirements that most comedies do. First off, there are two worlds: Athens, or the "normal world", and then the woods, where most of the action takes place (a comedy must have some sort of connection between these two places). A requirement of a comedy is that it has to end in a feast, a birth, a marriage, or some other sort of happy ending. A Midsummer Night's Dream differs from this slightly, where Puck causes a lot of trouble for the play's characters (albeit in a funny way), but promises the audience that he will restore amends, and besides, this was all a dream! I think A Midsummer Night's Dream fits the bill of 'comedy' pretty well. Between this and The Merchant of Venice, it definit...

I am actually very proud of my response project for ELA. My presentation, although completed in a short amount of time, was sufficient in proving its point and I don't think that it needed any more or any less to convey said point. I do think that I should have practiced maybe a little-bit more in order to polish the few run-on sentences and minor slip-ups that occurred, but in terms of the actual content of the presentation, I think I did great. In terms of the essay, I am a little opposite of Nathan Commissariat on this one. I actually think I did better on the presentation than the essay, and if I had to change anything about it, I would definitely make the transitions a little bit better and flesh out some of the awkward structure of it. I thought The Merchant of Venice was a fascinating read, and I can't wait for the Great Gatsby , where I will be doing a creative project.

On the surface,  The Merchant of Venice seems like any old Shakespearean play. The characters are dynamic and have depth put to them, the setting features ordinary people thrust into some unordinary situations, and sarcastic, witty humor abounds. But, upon looking deeper, it must be significant in some way if it has managed to spark debates over its perceived anti-Semitism and homosexual undertones. And it certainly is. I don't think Shakespeare necessarily intended for it to be any more significant than his other works, but I, of course, have no way of saying so for sure. Personally, I find it funny and cute in some instances but it does have a lot of things that bore me. Ultimately it comes down to the nature of Shylock and Antonio themselves that grabs me. However, if you were going to choose a Shakespeare play to read for fun, I would suggest Macbeth.