Journal 21

The stories of Some Like It Hot and The Great Gatsby are similar and different in many different aspects, especially the utilization of characterization, theme, and conflict.  Moreover, there are characters in both works that relate to each other through characterization such as Gatsby and Joe because they belief that they need money to establish a relationship with the girl that everyone wants who is Daisy and Sugar.  Another example of characterization is with Jerry and Nick Carraway chiefly because they are the characters that often get in the middle of other's personal life by helping them through situations like Nick helping Gatsby meet Daisy or Jerry allowing Joe to take Sugar on the yacht.  Though characterization offers a lot of similarities in the two works, theme also is a key in comparison.  For example, wealth is a theme throughout both stories especially in the fact that both Daisy and Sugar are interested in marrying men with a lot of money.  Also, love is a strong theme in that it is the reason why Gatsby becomes a rich man and moves to West Egg, and it is the reason why Joe disguised as a man born into the oil business.  Though the theme of love is shared, the difference is that love fails in The Great Gatsby and Joe is able to win over Sugar in Some Like It Hot.

Journal 20

All throughout The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald uses imagery and symbolism as a device to help the reader understand ideas such as superficiality or life spent living in the past.  For example, Nick Carraway reflects on the Dutch sailors that had formerly discovered the island and draws a  connection between the history of the island and Gatsby's lack of understanding about the past.  The green light most likely symbolized a dream of which Gatsby could not achieve, that dream being reliving the past with Daisy. The light is a valid symbol because it is distant and unattainable like his relationship with Daisy.

Journal 19

Nick Carraway is simple because he is a middle class man from the West who contrasts with many of his wealthy friends.
Tom Buchanan is aggressive in his personality and his physical appearance.  Daisy claimed that since she married a "brute" of a man, he was responsible for bruising her finger.  He is also very hot tempered and physical when it comes to dealing with others, for example, when he strikes Myrtle.
Daisy Buchanan is superficial, because first, she marries Tom instead of Jay for financial reasons; second, she is interested in Jay once he acquires money; and third, she retreats back to Tom after the murder of Myrtle seeming to forget that she claimed to have loved Jay.
Jordan Baker is independent because she is an athletic woman.  Nick describes her as appearing more masculine that most girls.  Also, it is absurd for a woman at her age to be touring the country when she is expected to remain at home with her family.
Jay Gatsby is eccentric in his appearance because he is often noted as wearing outrageous clothes such as a pink suit.  His personality is eccentric because he goes to the extent of buying a gigantic home in West Egg simply to reunite with his former love, Daisy.

Journal 18

1. What is the significance of the story’s title?  

The title is significant because it describes how each of the characters feels in a territorial, mental, and physical sense.  The men are literally in another country because of World War I.  Physically, because the men are injured, they are in an unfamiliar state; they are unsure about whether they will ever return to the same physical being ever again.

2. Which character do you think best represents the “Hemingway hero”? Why?

I think the Major best represents the Hemingway Hero because he seems to experience the most pain emotionally as well as physically.  In Hemingway’s writing, he often depicted sadness and loss in many of his characters to reflect how many felt after the war.  The Major shows sadness because his wife had died and he lost his hand.  The loss of his hand is important because he was known to be the best fencer in all of Italy.

3. What can you infer about the photographs the doctor hangs up?  What is the significance of the major’s reaction? 

I can infer that the photographs the doctor hung up were simply intended to trick the patients by giving them a false sense of hope.  This false sense of hope is due to the fact that Hemingway and the other men knew that the pictures were not real because they had been previously informed that they would be the first patients to use the machines.  This causes the men to be doubtful of their possible recovery, and like in many of Hemingway’s works, they find that there is no hope.

Journal 17

1. What is the significance of the poem’s epigraph?  How does it relate to Prufrock?

The significance of the poem’s epigraph is that is talks about the afterlife.  It relates to Prufrock because he is reflecting on his life and all the experiences he missed out on.  The epigraph is informing the reader that as he tells his lifestory, he is not ashamed because he is no longer on earth.

2. Make a list of questions that Prufrock asks.  Do you see a pattern/theme to these questions or are they random?  

He asks many questions throughout the song that show a theme of uncertainty.

What is it?

Do I dare [disturb the universe]?

How should I presume?

Should I, after tea and cakes, have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?

How should I begin?

Shall I part my hair behind?

Do I dare to eat a peach?

3. What do you think is Prufrock’s main flaw/problem?

Prufrock’s main problem is that he was very ordinary, often seen as unimportant.  His personality is protrayed when he refers to himself not Hamlet but as an adviser to the prince.

4. Why do you think this is called a love song?  In what way is it a love song?

I think this is called a love song because it often mentions women, and missing out on the opportunities he had to love in his lifetime.  I think it is a love way in a lonely, depressing way.

Journal 16

Determinisim in “To Build a Fire” and “The Blue Hotel” plays a very large role.  Outside factors such as heredity and environment are essential to both naturalistic literary works.  The characters in the works lack free-will, so the plot takes an inevitable course.

            The Swede is the character in “The Blue Hotel” that experiences the central conflict.  The conflict he deals with is his discomfort in the hotel.  One factor that contributes to his discomfort is his inherited character traits.  The Swede is seen as strange to the other characters because he is an immigrant from New York.  At one point, they wonder if he is really Dutch due to his awkward nature.  Another contributing factor is the environment.  All of the characters in the story are confined in the hotel because of a snowstorm.  This shows determinism because the snowstorm prevented him from going anywhere else.  If the Swede was able to leave, he probably would have survived.

            In “To Build a Fire” the main character struggles to survive in the harsh Alaskan environment.  Throughout the story, he builds multiple fires that fail to keep him satisfied.  Determinism governs the course of action in this story because the man is unable to defeat the extreme environmental conditions.  Also, he is succumbed to his inexperience to the terrain.  His inexperience is a character trait that caused him to make the bad decision of not listening to a native.

Journal 15

1. "Editha," the short story, has an overall message about the evilness of war.
"It isn't this war alone; though this seems peculiarly wanton and needless; but it's every war--so stupid; it makes me sick. Why shouldn't this thing have been settled reasonably?"

"A man that hasn't got his own respect intact wants the respect of all the other people he can corner."

"I felt I must have been helping on the war somehow if I hadn't helped keep it from coming, and I knew I hadn't; when it came, I had no right to stay out of it."
2. Editha makes George believe as she does about the war by using religious tactics.  She often mentions God in her reasoning.  Also, she calls the war a "sacred war."
3. Editha is sad after her fiance's death, but I do not think she ever feels like she did him any wrong by encouraging him to join the war.