Wealth and Its Side Effects

People believe wealth will solve all of their problems. They think being rich will result in happiness. I used to have this same opinion myself but pieces like The Great Gatsby and "DBAR" have changed my mind. I realized that there were consequences that followed with owning an extreme amount of money. Things like greed and imprisonment could easily consume an individual and cause them to live an unfulfilling life such as Gatsby and Braddock Washington.

In The Great Gatsby, a man with everything one could want is reduced to watching a woman in between two bushes. Even though Gatsby has a house that's "a factual imitation of some Hôtel de Ville in Normandy" (Fitzgerald 7), his life is actually filled with emptiness. As the book progresses, the readers are introduced to Gatsby's unrequited love for Daisy and how he "stretched out" (24) for her. The extent of his fondness for her can be seen when he chooses to "wait all night if necessary" (154) between some bushes in front of her house. Also, he throws all of his lavish parties just to impress Daisy. Gatsby doesn't live life for himself but to impress a single person. He can't enjoy life until that person is in his possession, but since he will never achieve his dream, he will forever be a hollow individual void of enjoyment. It's ironic as wealth in this time period should allow a person to be free and do whatever they want but in his case, it imprisons him and keeps him from moving forward.

Washington can also be regarded as a rich white man who is confined to his wealth. His diamond that is "as big as the Ritz" (1) causes him to become greedy and store it all for himself. He spends his life guarding his diamond mountain by murdering all his guests and any pilots that attempt to scout his land. This ultimately leads to his demise as he has to blow up his "house of jewels" (25) and effectively killing his motivation to live, literally. Just like Gatsby, Braddock was restricted to keeping watch over his mountain of wealth. Both of their lives had no true meaning, and none of them lived life to the fullest. They died without really living at all.

 

The Unescapable Past

Up until this point in the book, Jay Gatsby's past has been nothing but rumors and gossip. The readers don't know what's true or false. Even though this isn't the turning point in the novel, I believe it's the turning point of how the audience sees him as a person. We can finally observe what influenced Gatsby to become the man he is today.

Jay Gatsby actually turns out to be a fake name he created in order to shake of his low social standing and to envision himself as a wealthy man. He rechristens himself from the name James Gatz in order to leave all his humiliation of his poor self behind. It's seems odd that the Gatsby in the present who throws lavish parties every night is the same person as the seventeen year old who had to do "janitor's work with which he was to pay his way through" (Fitzgerald 105) college. We also learn that Dan Cody is the epitome of what Gatsby wants to become. Dan is basically his "God" because after "he saw Dan Cody's yacht drop anchor over the most insidious flat on Lake Superior" (104), Gatsby began to avidly follow him. This moment in his life was essentially the chance he needed to achieve his dreams. The passage above emphasizes how social class was very important in this time period and how Gatsby's sensitivity towards status is his determination to succeed.











However as I read The Great Gatsby, I kept wondering why Gatsby allowed rumors like how "he killed a man once" (48) or how "he was a German spy during the war" (48) to circulate, because his status would surely have started to become damaged if people had start to believe these words. But after examining this part in the book, I feel like I have come to a conclusion: he let's those fake rumors spread and keep the citizens interested in order to hide his true past.

The Underlying Truth

Nothing is perfect in this world. Nobody can be a "perfect" human being and no city can be classified as "perfect." Everyone and everything has an underlying flaw. It can be small or big, but it is always there. Take the students of Troy High as an example: Some may seem like happy go lucky kids on the outside, but in reality, many of them constantly worry about their grades and especially their future.












In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, Jay Gatsby is seen as a rich gentleman who has a marvelous mansion with "a marble swimming pool and more than forty acres of lawn and garden" (Fitzgerald 9). From this description of Gatsby's magnificent house, the readers can assume he has an easy life filled with relaxation and parties. However, when Nick Carraway first sees Gatsby, Nick notices that his neighbor "stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way" (25). Nick quietly observes a minute green light far away which leaves the readers to conclude that Gatsby was stretching for this single light at the end of the dock. This illustrates how even though it seems Gatsby has all he could want, he reaches for that light which actually represents Daisy and how he strives to be like her. This perfectly imperfect man shows that no matter how much an individual has, he or she will always want more.

Nick also mentions the area between the West Egg and the East Egg. He meets Tom Buchanan's mistress in this "desolate area of land" (27). West and East Egg are both perceived as beautiful areas for the old and new rich. Even though this valley of ash is in between these two areas, the people who inhabit either Eggs are completely oblivious to this absolute desolation and poverty. This neglected space represents the moral decay hidden by the fanciful facades of the Eggs. It depicts how under all of the ornamentation and mannered charm lies the same ugliness that is in the valley. Just like how "an impenetrable cloud which screens their obscure operations from your sight" (27) in the valley, atrocious events are hidden by the glamor in the Eggs.

Sacrificing Innocence

We all see childhood innocence as a beautiful thing. Children cannot grasp certain ideas like death and live in a world where Santa Claus and the tooth fairy exist. Even the word "innocence" itself sounds so pure. Maybe this is why parents try to hold on to their kids' innocence for so long. They attempt to shield them from violence and drugs while never having "the talk" with their children. As a result, overprotecting a child hinders their growth in the world. This leads me to question when does innocence become a bad thing? When is it essential for a child to lose their innocence?

When I finished reading MAUS, The Bluest Eye, and "The History Teacher," I noticed that all of them touch upon the topic of innocence in some way. In MAUS, Vladek's "mother killed herself (she left no note)" (Spiegelman) which devastates him and makes him feel extremely guilty. Even though the Holocaust slowly chips away at his innocence, the death of his mother impacts him the most. It meant that he is no longer has a caring mother at his side to help him get through tough times. Pecola Breedlove in The Bluest Eye literally loses her childhood innocence when Cholly, her own dad, rapes her. She had no idea what sex was or that incest is looked down upon so during the act, her blissful ignorance can be seen through "the rigidness of her shocked body, the silence of her stunned throat" (Morrison 162). Lastly, "The History Teacher" really emphasizes a teacher's effort to protect his kids from the tragedies in the past. He tells them "the Ice Age was really just the Chilly Age" and "the Enola Gay dropped one tiny atom on Japan" (Collins) which are huge understatements. The supposed history teacher makes the most important events in history seem very inconsequential. Even though the classroom became a very innocent place, "the children would leave his classroom for the playground to torment the weak and the smart"(Collins) which shows how the children are bullies who became destructive and ignorant because of the teacher's method of teaching.

MAUS and The Bluest Eye are examples that illustrate unnecessary loss of innocence. Vladek and Pecola were both going through extreme hardship but their purity had to become completely destroyed by unfortunate events. However, "The History Teacher" depicts unnecessary preservation of innocence. A history teacher has to teach true, unsugarcoated facts in order for the kids to learn the mistakes of the past. Here, it becomes imperative that the students lose some of their innocence in order to progress the world forward. I am left with one question that I can't seem to answer: Can you regain innocence?

The Media

The Media rarely gives a fair representation of the world. It hides certain things that wouldn't please governments and only presents issues in allied countries. For example, on November 13, 2015, there was a terrorist attack on Paris, France. However, the events of the earthquake in Japan, bombings in Beirut, and the landslide in China aren't being emphasized. All the news outlets bombard its audience with more news on Paris while all the other deaths are being glanced over. The majority of the citizens have no idea any of this ever happened. 

Beirut Bombing

China Landslide

In The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, Pauline gets obsessed with white beauty because of the Media's bias towards white beauty standards. She starts to go to the movies in order to escape her black reality, and it causes her to subconsciously judge a face into "some category in the scale of absolute beauty" (122) that she absorbed from the screen. This is just like how the Media today discriminates Muslims as terrorists and as people who cannot be tolerated. As a result, many individuals automatically assume that Muslims are dangerous and shouldn't be treated with respect. The movies also force Pauline to believe that being white and having a white family is the way to live. She knows that she can't reach this standard but she allows it to consume her thoughts and appearance. She desperately tries to look like "white" by copying Jean Harlow and fixes her "hair up like [she'd] seen hers on a magazine" (123). Nevertheless when her tooth falls out, her only chance of happiness gets utterly crushed. This leaves me to wonder if the movies had illustrated that everyone is beautiful for Pauline, would she have been happy with her life? Or if she had never even gone to the movies, could she have lived a happier life? 

It's All About Perspective

People have many different perspectives on life. Some people are pessimists, while some are optimists. They have a choice to either have a negative outlook on life or a positive one. This choice determines if that individual will be happy or sad, loud or quiet, energetic or reserved, etc. However, some people, such as minorities, are not given this simple choice. They are raised in a world where society oppresses them. Society forces them to believe that they are lower than human-status. It causes these individuals to accept that the way people observe them are more real than what they themselves observe.

Pecola Breedlove in the novel The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, is portrayed as a weak, American American girl who wants blue eyes in order to change what she sees and to change how others see her. She has a very negative outlook on life as she always concludes that how people see her ugliness creates the hurtful behavior that she notices and experiences. For example, when Pecola goes to buy Mary Jane candies, she thinks the cashier's "distaste must be for her, her blackness" (49). She has encountered so many unforgiving glares of white people that she automatically assumes she is the problem. Her daily rejections from society emphasizes that ugliness is inherent and nothing can change even by peering at the world differently. Despite her attitude, I believe she can change her gloomy perspective. When Pecola wonders "why...do people call them weeds" (Morrison 47), she is trying not to conform to society's opinion on dandelions. "She thought they were pretty" (47)
which illustrates how Pecola isn't mature enough yet to realize that beauty can be created by seeing rather than being seen. However, this little moment of freedom and individualism shows how with a little help, she can eventually grow into a strong and confident African American woman. 

Monuments

People travel to see monuments and statues all over the world. For example, 6 million people annually come to the United States to take a look at the Lincoln Memorial. Why do so many tourists come to see it even though "it sits literally on mud dredged from the Potomac River bottom in the late nineteenth century" (Savage)? The Lincoln Memorial "did not even exist in Lincoln's lifetime" (Savage), so why is it such a remarkable piece of art? Even though the memorial contains no actual artifacts of Lincoln, the monument manufactures its own aura and fulfills "the deep need for attachment that can be met only in a real place" (Savage).

Monuments and memorials become so much more meaningful when an individual is standing in front of it rather than looking at a Google image. A great example would be the monument of Christopher Columbus in Riverside Park, Easton, Pennsylvania. If a person were to just look at a photo of the statue, it would look like any other statue. However, if they were to visit the park and experience the statue and the environment around it, they would get the full experience. On a foggy day, a person would be able to feel the solemn atmosphere around the statue which represents how Columbus felt while observing the immense amount of land in North America. Also, the person would notice how the creator put the majestic statue in the middle of a park and not in a graveyard to allow the statue to have daily interactions with the people every day. There are countless numbers of monuments like this from The Maine Lobsterman to Crazy Horse to the Holocaust Museum that illustrate the fact that monuments need to be seen in person. All of these memorials carefully consider the location, size, materials, and purpose in order to pay respect to deep sacrifice or honor remarkable achievements.

Morality and Ethics

Morality is the "principle concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior" (Google) while ethics is "the branch of philosophy that involves systematizing, defending, and recommending concepts of right and wrong conduct" (Google). Both words mean to distinguish between what is right and what is wrong. It seems easy to decide what is right and what is wrong as we do it every day. However, when the Jews get thrown into the Holocaust, identifying between good and bad becomes the choice between life and death.

In Maus, the recurring theme of morality and ethics emphasizes how emotional strain will inevitably affect the decisions of humans. First of all, the Nazis reduce the Jews to sub-human status such as pests like mice in order to degrade the Jews even further. This shows that the Nazis did not believe the Jews were people worth of ethical consideration. They believed that Jews weren't even capable of differentiating what's a good and what's bad. The Holocaust also creates multiple situations that illustrate the strain of morality and ethics in desperate times. Everything that holds humans together, like friends, family, and community, crumbles. During this time, "it wasn't anymore families. It was everybody to take care for himself!" (Spiegelman 114). Vladek emphasizes this to Art so he realizes that Jews were put in impossible circumstances where people had to throw away their morals to live. For example, the Jews had to start stealing food because it became so scarce. Some Jews ratted out others in hopes they would survive. Whole families were torn apart and friendships were irreversibly damaged. The ones that remained after the Holocaust would forever have to live with the guilt and regret of their selfish behavior.

The Inevitable Doom

Death is a topic that is often avoided. People become uncomfortable when the word "death" is brought up. Everyone knows that they will have to face death one way or another but they are all scared to do so. Few embrace death and live their remaining moments to the fullest but the majority is imprisoned by the fear of an abrupt end. During the Holocaust, the Jews always struggled with life and death. They couldn't rest for one moment without being forever conscious of Nazis right around the corner. However, many Jews were fated for death because no matter how hard they tried to escape, the Nazis cornered and murdered them.

In MAUS, the Jews are represented by mice. They are constantly running from the Nazis who are depicted as cats. Once the Jews realized they were being hunted, they attempted to run away from the Nazis. However, it was all in vain as the Nazis eventually found them and killed them. On this page, Vladek and Anja get captured by the Nazis and get taken to Auschwitz. This is the first time the Nazi symbol is completely visible without anything covering it. It represents how the Nazis have finally rose to complete power and nothing will stop them from killing all of the Jews. It also illustrates that they've finally achieved their true form and have the means to murder millions of more people. In the top panel, the truck's cargo area is striped to serve as prison bars. It shows how even from the transport, the Jews will start to feel their imprisonment and how helpless they really are. The next few panels show how the Jews in the background are shaded in black. This means that they will all meet their death at the concentration camp. Vladek and Anja are shaded in white as they will come out of Auschwitz alive unlike most of the Jews. Finally, the last part of the page is not in boxes. This could mean that this part of Vladek's life was so traumatic that it is not confined to the past. It leaks into the present and the future and haunts him for the rest of his life. The picture doesn't even leave room for the page number. It suggests that time becomes irrelevant and unrecordable as the days before the deaths seem endless and dragged on. For the Jews, the minutes and hours become a mush of numbers as they trudge through the day. In addition, the sign above the truck is covered in ice which radiate a deadly atmosphere. It portrays the cold environment waiting for anyone who enters the camp.

Ultimately, Vladek and Anja were captured even after multiple attempts to hide from the Nazis just like many other Jews. I believe that they survived because they had a will to live and get reunited which leads into my final thoughts: How did they survive over the millions of other Jews that died? Was it Vladek and Anja's will to live that saved them or was it fate that spared them from their inevitable demise?

Male Standards

As I read "The Women Warrior" by Kingston and "Feminism is for Everyone" by Bell Hooks, I thought about how males have to fit a certain mold just like females. Even though it is not mentioned frequently, guys are only considered "men" if they have the necessary qualities. This includes being muscular, tall, handsome, and etc. Why do guys have to endure these standards? Why is it looked down upon if a guy does cheerleading or ballerina? Why aren't guys told to embrace their bodies? These are just a few questions that popped into my head during the class discussions.

We grow up seeing male models, even toys, with chiseled faces and statue-like bodies. We are pressured into becoming an attractive, athletic being just like how Kingston had "to grow up a women warrior" (Kingston 20). I understand that this is the same case for females, but the media never focuses on the unattainable male ideals. We can't cry, show pain, or show any weakness at all unless we want to get bullied. Do the people today even realize how difficult it is for guys to act strong 24/7? Do they care about our self-esteem or emotions? I believe we can spread awareness by combining absurd female and male requirements and maybe create a new movement called "genderism". Since the "feminist movement has lost clear definitions" (Hooks 6), we can start a unique campaign by combining both male and female ideas and "share the simple yet powerful message that 'genderism' is a movement to end"(Hooks 6) unreasonable gender standards.

The Default Setting

I never realized that I could be so self-centered. Anything that happens in my life, I am apart of it. My daily routine from getting up for school to going back to bed, everything I experience is from my point of view. I've been through 12 years of schooling but never thought once about this simple question: Am I self-centered?

I realized after reading David Wallace's story, "This is Water," my default setting is fixed to being a selfish human being. This setting made me recognize that I subconsciously believe that "I am the absolute center of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence" (Wallace 233). For example, when the hallways get crowded and jammed in Troy High, I often get frustrated and have an urge to scream at everyone's slow pace. I forget to acknowledge that fact that everyone around me is human as well. The emotion of anger and self-righteousness overcomes any logic and reasoning I once had, so it causes me to look down at all the other bodies that are taking up my pathway. As I was reading this short story, I also came to the conclusion that everyone in this world is selfish and egotistical. Even though these words have negative connotations, I believe that people are just following the way of life taught to them when they were young: Live your life to the fullest. As a result, it causes people to become self-centered at times without realizing other people have needs just like they do. However, this setting isn't like a game setting. You can't just switch it from hard to easy. It requires conscious effort from everyone "to stay conscious and alive, day in and day out" (238). Individuals have to comprehend that if they don't attempt to figure out what's truly real, they will drown and fade from reality forever.

The Struggle for Equality

Equality. Equality is what America boasts, yet it was not given to all citizens until quite recently. It was only about 145 years ago when African Americans got the right to vote, and it has only been a mere century since women finally obtained their right. History has shown that this word is still new to this country along with many important documents and articles. 

Thomas Jefferson and the Founding Fathers fought for freedom in the famous Declaration of Independence. They assert that "all men are created equal" (Jefferson and Founding Fathers), but they intentionally leave out women, slaves, and minorities. If you are representing your whole country, shouldn't you be including the whole population and not just the white males? This completely contradicts the writers' purpose as they claim to want liberty for all when they actually are only giving it to a select few. In the Declaration of Sentiments, Elizabeth Cady Stanton follows the structure of the Declaration of Independence but adds the word "women" at certain points. She believes her argument is valid and fair as it encompasses all of the mistreated women. Stanton preaches that all women "are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights" (Stanton). However, slaves and minorities are yet again forgotten from the argument for civil liberties. 

America has come a long way since these two documents. Today, schools are filled with diversity, companies employ without bias to gender, and voting is a right for everyone to enjoy. Equality is something I can enjoy after the countless wars and riots fought during the nation's rocky past. It has allowed me to go to school and see all the different colors of faces and cultures walking around my community. Even though I'm still part of a minority, I feel right at home and that is all I will ever need.

The Tennis Season

I remember Wesley Chiu and I playing matches for almost two and a half hours against every team. It was a tradition for us. We would put our bags down and get our hats out and play long, grueling games as the sky went from blue to dark grey. The rest of the team would sometimes stop by to cheer. There was something normal about it, something ordinary and unsurprising. There were deuces and tiebreakers. The court was laid out in a strict pattern, no bumps and no cracks and no random lines. You knew where to hit the ball. You knew the score. The tennis ball was going back and forth, the opponents right in front of your face, you could watch unorthodox strategies unfolding into chaos. There was always a winner and a loser in the end. There were rules.

I'm sixteen years old, and a junior now, and last year's season has been over for a while now. Much of it is hard to remember. I sit at this MacBook Air and stare through my incomplete blog and watch Howard drop his half-eaten bagel onto the dirty ground, or Vikas Sharma hitting balls into the forest, and as I write about these events, the remembering is turned into a kind of rehappening. Howard screams of unfairness. Vikas Sharma seconds from smashing the ball into the green forest, his face brown and smiling, and then he rockets it into the trees. The comedic stuff never stops happening: it lives in my head, replaying itself over and over.
   
     But the season wasn't all that way.