Great Gatsby Timed Write

Brendan McMorrow

Mr. Barnes

+ English III

21 December 2012

Great Gatsby Timed Write

“Goal Setting: A Step-by-Step Guide”. Worksheets such as these can be found in almost every elementary schools nationwide, and for good reason: goals are important. Everyone has goals. From the homeless man who wants a dollar to buy a McDouble to the business executive who wants to take over a company, goals are a driving force in all our lives. Yet they are not always a driving force for good. In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald shows how the American Dream pushed Gatsby to become rich and famous, yet ultimately led to his downfall. Through Gatsby, Fitzgerald argues that the American Dream is both a constructive and destructive force in American society.

From rags to riches, the transformation from James Gatz to the Jay Gatsby is a story many guess at but few know. One thing is certain though; it was made possible by a goal. Even as a kid, Gatsby was already dreaming of a future filled with money and mansions. When he would get home from a hard day of clam-digging or salmon-fishing, “a universe of ineffable gaudiness [would spin] itself out in his head” (Fitzgerald 99). His dream, of becoming successful, rich, and powerful is the seductive promise that America extends to all its citizens. Especially in the 1920s, when new millionaires were popping up like wildflowers, this American Dream captured the minds of many aspiring young men and woman. These men and woman [...]grew up as “shiftless and unsuccessful farm people” yet believed they could achieve greatness. And some of them did. […] The millionaires that the American Dream inspired shaped the 1920s, just as the American Dream shaped the lives of the millionaires, one of whom was named Jay Gatsby. Gatsby’s enormous wealth, his colossal house, “with a tower on one side… and a marble swimming pool, [with] more than 40 acres of lawn” are all the result of Gatsby’s belief in the American Dream (5). Without his “instinct toward his future glory” Gatsby would have wandered aimlessly through life, “as a clam-digger or salmon-fisher or … any other capacity that brought him food and bed” (98). Without goals, what is the point of life? The American Dream provided America with a goal, something to strive for because it promises happiness and success. Although not everyone could achieve it, everyone could try. For this reason, the American Dream was truly an empowering force and responsible for much of the success in the 1920s.

While it was a driving force for America, the American dream was also responsible for a great deal of unhappiness and destruction in the lives of its citizens. Because it is impossible for everyone to be successful, millions of Americans spent their whole lives trying to realize a dream that refused to become reality. The destructive wrath of the American Dream can be seen quite clearly in the dark and […] “impenetrable cloud” that surrounds the valley of ashes (23). “Halfway between West Egg and New York”, the valley of ashes contains the lives of many men and women who’s American Dream have long been crushed. They wake up every day taunted by the success of New York and West Egg, but unable to achieve it themselves. It taunts them; if the American Dream is supposed to be accessible to everyone, those who cannot achieve it must have done something wrong.  They live their lives believing the people next to them with the new car and mansion have everything they could possibly want, that they are truly happy. However, it is not only the poor ash men and women who the American Dream taunts. Even when the American Dream is realized, it does not always deliver the happiness that it promised. Jay Gatsby is the perfect example. Even with his excessively beautiful house and “beautiful shirts” that can bring a woman to tears, […] Gatsby is not happy (92). The American Dream tells people that more money, a bigger house, and a nicer car will bring more happiness. Because of this, it is in the nature of every American Dreamer to always want something more. In Gatsby’s case, his something more is the woman crying on her knees due to the extreme beauty of his shirts. For five years, Gatsby spent countless hours staring at a “green light that burns all night at the end of [Daisy’s] dock (92). His desire for Daisy almost drives him insane, and in the end is ultimately responsible for his death. However, it represents much more than just love for a woman; it represents the greed that the American Dream instills into its dreamers. […] When they finally achieve their dream they don’t realize it. People like Gatsby, whose success most men would kill for, think that what they have isn’t enough. This is the ultimate flaw of the American Dreamer.  […]  Instead of being happy with what they have, they need to have more to be happy.

The 1920s, a time full of lavish parties filled with the countless new millionaires. The American dream was the empowering force of the decade, telling everyone from clam-diggers to taxi drivers that they too can join the rich and famous in their once selective club. But while it was beneficial to America as a country by encouraging hard work, it was destroying the lives of its citizens. By constantly telling people they need more of everything to be happy, they could never have enough. The American Dream was uniquely empowering and destructive, leaving America in a sad state of fortune.

Sivilized

Brendan McMorrow

Mr. Barnes

+ English III

1 April 2013

Sivilized

Thesis: Twain uses the attempts to civilize Huck, the satirization of the southern slave culture, and Tom Sawyer’s civilized knowledge to show that just because something is accepted in society does not mean that it is right.

Throughout the novel, people are constantly trying to force their personal beliefs onto Huck. Or as he calls it, “sivilize” him. Within the first few pages, Miss Watson is already to teach Huck about religion, but Huck quickly decides that he “don’t take not stock in dead people” (Twain 2). She also tries to make him behave the way she wants, making sure he doesn’t “gap and stretch” the wrong way (2). Regardless of Miss Watson’s attempts, Huck “[likes] the old ways best” and reverts to them as soon as possible (15). With these failed attempts at civilizing Huck, Twain is establishing that Huck isn’t afraid to go against what society accepts as correct, wether it be religion, manners, etc. Huck’s ability to make decisions for himself based on what makes sense to him, not on what society tells him, allows Mark Twain to highlight how ridiculous some parts of civilization are.

Twain uses the slave culture prominent throughout the South to show just how wrong society can be. During Huck and Jim’s adventures down the Mississippi River  Huck starts to realize that Jim is actually a person and not just a n*****, as society would have him believe. Huck says he “knowed [Jim] was white inside”, meaning he respects Jim as an equal (276). Jim’s love for his family, and willingness to sacrifice his freedom for Tom’s safety make the slave culture seem absurd to the reader. Huck seems to be the only one who can see this. In what some consider to be the climax of the entire novel, Huck decides, “Alright then, I’ll go to hell” (215). This is Huck’s shining moment. He outright rejects everything society has tried to force upon him—slavery, religion, morality— because he believes that his friendship with Jim, a black slave, is more important that what white society tells him is right. It is almost humorous because it is so obvious to the audience that Huck is right. This is Twain’s best example of a societal flaw, and clearly shows that Huck is able to ignore what society thinks and determine right and wrong based on his own ideas.

The concept that what society accepts as right can be wrong is not unique to slavery. To prove this, Twain uses Huck’s ability to make judgements independently and his foil, the “sivilized” Tom Sawyer. 

The Birthmark and Rappaccini's Daughter

Brendan McMorrow

Mr. Barnes

+  English III

25 September 2012

The Birthmark and Rappaccini's Daughter

            Society is constantly telling us that we are not good enough. It is hard to go anywhere without seeing an ad selling something that would make you a better person, whether it be makeup to make you look better or a drink that helps you lose weight. WIth all of this pressure to become a more perfect version of yourself, it is easy to lose sight of what really matters. In the romantic stories The Birthmark and Rappaccini’s Daughter, Hawthorne explores the dangers of trying to create a perfect human in an attempt to illustrate that our imperfections do not make us bad, they make us human.

            In The Birthmark, Georgiana is described as “nearly perfect from the land a Nature”, her only “visible mark of earthly imperfection” being a birthmark on her cheek (Birthmark 2). This one “defect”, as her husband Aylmer calls it, drives him to concoct a potion that would remove the mark from Georgina’s cheek. If he were to succeed, he would have created something almost inhuman; a perfect human. In fact, in a Bioethics seminar with scholars from around the country, it was noted that “to remove the birth-mark, [is] to remove mortality itself” (Whitaker n.p.). Aylmer is trying to create something more than human. Georgina is reduced from a human and wife to on object to be perfected, it is obvious that Aylmer cares more about her looks than he does about her. His desire to perfect her eventually leads to her death; only when she is gone does he realize what he has done. He “flung away the happiness which would have woven his mortal life of the selfsame texture with the celestial” (Birthmark 12). By trying to perfect his wife, he sacrificed the years of joy him and her could have had if he overlooked her minor physical flaw and saw her for the beautiful women that she is.

            Another of Hawthorne’s stories, Rappaccini’s Daughter, also revolves around man trying to create a human better than nature has. When doctor Rappaccini’s daughter Beatrice was born, he used a plant from his garden to both make her “beautiful as the day”, but also “filled [her] veins with poison” (Rappaccini’s 16). Her breath kills bugs and flowers, and it infected Giovanni, her lover, with the same poison that runs through her veins. As Dr. Millington from Smith colleges observes, Beatrice’s own father “erase[s] Beatrice as a human being and reduce[s] her to the object of an experiment” (Millington n.p.). It becomes obvious that Beatrice is regarded by her father as an opportunity to perfect nature rather than as his daughter, a human being with feelings and emotions. While it is her lover Giovanni who is directly responsible for her death by offering her an antidote that would supposedly cure the both of them, the blame for her death can only fall on her fathers shoulders, for he was the one that poisoned her. Instead of regarding his daughter as a daughter and something to be loved he viewed her as an object of experimentation. Once again, the happiness that comes from a loving relationship is sacrificed in order to try to perfect something that has no need to be perfected.

            In both of these stories men try to perfect naturally created women, and both cases lead to the woman’s death. Aylmer’s obsession with Georgina’s imperfection and Rappaccini’s obsession with science cause both men to lose sight of what is really important. If Aylmer had been content with the mortality of his wife, and Rappaccini of his daughter, then both the men and the women would have lived much happier lives. However, the temptations of creating something more than human were too great. Aylmer went so far as to convince his wife that her birthmark was a horrible defect, and that it would be better to be dead than to let it remain on her cheek. Beatrice eventually risked her life to reverse her father’s experiment, and it ended her life. While both have a slightly different ending, the main message remains the same. We were created the way we are for a reason and attempting to create the perfect human does more harm than good.

            Even though both stories were written in the 1800s, the underlying message in each remains true to this day. In our society we are constantly bombarded by advertisements that try to make us look better, become stronger, lose weight, or any other improvement that you can think of. Being told everyday that who we are is not good enough, perhaps we all should heed Hawthorne’s idea that nature created us with imperfections for a reason; it is our imperfections that make us human.

Brendan McMorrow
Mr. Barnes

+ English 3

24 August 2012

The Catcher in the Rye Timed Write

            Although some may argue that Holden Caulfield would be a good candidate for Nuevos Amigos because of his love for children, Holden should not be accepted into the Big Brother – Big Sister Program (Nuevos n.p.). While he does show compassion towards certain people, his negative qualities would prevent him from helping the new students adjust to high school. He does not fit the criteria of being optimistic, tolerant, or dedicated, and for these reasons his participation in Nuevos Amigos would be detrimental to both the school and his student buddies.

            In the novel The Catcher in the Rye, Holden spends the majority of his time complaining about his life and the people around him. By the fourth page of the story he has already called his brother a “prostitute” (Salinger 4), says his parents are “touchy as hell” (1), called his school “strictly for the birds” (4), and says that he hates the movies. This behavior continues throughout the novel, ranging from Holden complaining about people stealing his gloves (116) to their word choice (138). Just reading Holden’s thoughts can be depressing, with him calling every other person a phony and how everything killed him. At West High we want to start our incoming freshmen off with a positive attitude, not tell them how horrible of a school we are. No doubt Holden would find something in our school to complain about and give the incoming freshmen a negative outlook on our school before their first day even started.

            Besides having a positive attitude, another thing we look for in our Nuevos Amigos candidates is dedication. While Holden was devoted to his sister Phoebe, in almost every other aspect of his life he has shown a lack of dedication. He was kicked out of Pencey Prep because he failed all of his classes except English, showing a clear lack of effort and commitment to his classes and schoolwork. Besides Pencey Prep, he also left in Whooton School (15) and Elkton Hill (19), once again showing a lack of commitment to his school. Because Holden has not shown dedication to any of his previous schools, there is no reason to believe that would be any different at West High. Nuevos Amigos must commit to their buddies, calling them two to three times before orientation and two to three more times throughout the school year, and it is unlikely that Holden would be able to commit to his buddies (Nuevos n.p.). We want our freshmen to take pride in our school and be committed to better both the school and themselves. Nuevos Amigos are supposed to be role models for the incoming freshmen, but Holden Caulfield would be setting a poor example if he is accepted into the program.

            Holden clearly does not have a positive attitude and has shown a lack of commitment and dedication, but some would argue that his love for children would make him a good candidate for Nuevos Amigos. They point to his relationship with his sister Phoebe as an example of his compassion for children. While Holden is certainly capable of compassion and truly loves Phoebe, he is not tolerant of people with differing viewpoints. He constantly calls people who do not share his views “phony” and judges just about everyone that he meets. He even calls his friend Luce a “pain in the ass” (193), when Holden was being the immature one. This clearly demonstrates how Holden thinks that he is always right and views anyone who doesn’t agree with him as phony and annoying. In West High we strive for tolerance and accept everyone for who they are (Nuevos n.p.). If Holden was accepted into Nuevos Amigos, incoming freshmen would likely not be accepted by him and would give them a poor start to the school year.

            A Nuevos Amigos buddy should have a positive attitude, tolerant of others, and devoted both to the school and to his or her buddies (Nuevos n.p.). Holden has demonstrated time and time again that he does not posses these qualities, and is a poor candidate for Nuevos Amigos. His negative attitude and intolerance would give the new students a poor view of West High and be a horrible way for them to start the year, and his lack of commitment means he would not be likely to call the students. These reasons make it evident that Holden Caulfield would make a poor Nuevos Amigos buddy and should not be accepted into the program.