4/11

The story The Great Gatsby introduces a character by the name of Tom Buchanan. Tom seems to be living in one of the two eggs which is the East egg and it is known as the fashionable egg. From what the passage says Buchanan is a very strong and masculine man as the passage states, “ Not even the effeminate swank of his riding clothes could hide the enormous power of that body he seemed to fill those glistening boots until he strained the top lacing and you could see a great pack of muscle shifting when his shoulder moved under his thin coat” (excerpt from chapter 1 Fitzgerald). Hearing this was enough to get the point across that this was not somebody you wanted to mess with. Another thing that had caught my attention was how the book described him and a generally good looking man with a type of dominance in him as the passage states once again “Now he was a sturdy straw-haired man of thirty with a rather hard mouth and a supercilious manner. Two shining arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward” (excerpt from chapter 1 Fitzgerald).  Overall the book quickly introduced who Buchanan was and how good looking along with his masculinity and how  wealthy he was through certain colors like when in paragraph one using the words white palaces, that immediately gave it away to me at least that this character was wealthy.

4/18

Now that we have parted way into the book there are four main settings throughout the book that are introduced, those four places are called the East Egg, West Egg, Valley of Ashes, and New York city. To break it up the major characters only live in the East Egg and West egg, those characters are Tom Buchannan, Daisy Buchanan, Nick Caraway, and Jay Gatsby. The other two areas are the Valley of Ashes which is known as the poorer area, the industrial wasteland as the book states, “We waited for her down the road and out of sight it was a few days before the Fourth of July, and a gray scrawny Italian child was setting torpedoes in a row along the railroad track”  (pg. 26 Fitzgerald). The railroad is what indicated the industrial waste zone and the scrawny Italian child is what indicated to me that it was a not so fortunate area. On the other hand were the major character live such as the Buchanan's, they live on the East egg which is the more fashionable egg which is richest of the four as the book states, “Oh I'll stay in the East don’t you worry, he said glancing at Daisy and then back at me as if he were alert for something more. I'd be God damned fool to live anywhere else”(Pg. 10 Fitzgerald). Hearing this quote it indicated to me that the East egg is more preferred therefore the East egg would have to be the nicest of the 4. Although the east egg is more rich money wise, the west egg is still very beautiful in its ways and many wealthy people live there as well, as far as New York it is just a very busy area. Also character personality's do change as well, I noticed when some are in a generally poorer area they tend to act super 🤬.

4/25

In this book I believe there are 3 social classes and they are represented on where the character lives. In my opinion they are based off the East egg which is the wealthiest class, then the West egg which is seen as the middle/ wealthy class, and in the bottom class is the Valley of Ashes.  I believe that the characters living in the east and west egg can potentially switch time to time as the west is new money but new money can turn into more money if that person ends up being successful which can potentially put them in the position to move into the east egg whenever.  Jordan throughout the book is a 🤬 character that personally I do not like at all, she is too self absorbed and kind of reminds me of a young Kim Kardashian. Her social class is ranked high as she lives in the East egg because of her old money. Jordan's carelessness shows as she drives through crowds of people not being careful in anyway once so ever as the book states, “ You're a rotten Driver.” “I am careful.” “ Well other people are” (pg.58 Fitzgerald). This clearly makes Jordan look like the terrible person she is and thankfully she showed her true colors.

5/2

There is a character that has been brought into the book and his name is Mr. Wolfsheim. Wolfsheim seems to be another mysterious character that has a disturbing past as the passage states, “ a small flat nosed Jew raised his large head and regarded me with two fine growths of hair which luxuriated in either nostril. After a moment I discovered his tiny eyes in the half darkness” (pg. 69 Fitzgerald). After reading the words half darkness right after introducing a new character is a little suspicious. Later we find out that this man is a criminal and was a part of the Mob that had rigged the Major league baseball's world series as the book states, “ Meyer Wolfsheim? No, he's a gambler. Gatsby hesitated then added coolly: He's the man who fixed the world series back in 1919” (pg. 73 Fitzgerald).  I stood correct as later on in the book he had ended up being a super powerful person in the book that no one wanted to mess with because of his power. Mr. Wolfsheim and Gatsby are projected next to each other because of their success in life along with the amount of wealth they both have. Some think that they are both bootleggers who cheated their way to receive their money.

5/9

In the beginning of the story the overall color green in my opinion, stood for fortune and wealth but as the story goes the color green has added features. To Gatsby the green light represents Daisy, he says it represents his hope, love, and struggle for Daisy throughout the book. The green light phrase meant all of that only to be crushed when Nick says in the book, “ Count of enchanted objects had diminished by one” (Chapter 5 Fitzgerald). Now realizing this Gatsby’s feelings start to fade for Daisy and the green light has lost meaning to him. To me I think the color green represents to Gatsby his overall wealth now and it no longer represents anything but that. I believe that the color green beyond that just means wealth in my personal opinion or maybe beauty sometimes, when I think green I usually think of money or green grass, trees, mountains, etc. The color green and the various connotations in our culture has to mainly do with money now which is why I mainly think of money because of the influence our culture has put into my head but it could also have other meanings like sickness (flue, cold, cough).

5/16

It seems to be that Gatsby had been telling a lie this entire time because of maybe embarrassment but the way he does become wealthy is quite impressive from what he had originally started. Gatsby tells Nick that he had come from a rich family and he went to this great college called Oxford and that he lost all of his inherited money but once the war had ended he had received it all back. Gatsby’s past is almost the complete opposite as he was born on a poor farm in the state of North Dakota, he also did not attend the great/ rich college of Oxford and also found out he had dropped out of college after a couple of weeks. Gatsby became really good friends with a wealthy man named Don Cody and went under his wing. Sadly Don Cody had passed and all of his money was denied. Having that happened Gatsby was then inspired to go and basically get as rich as possible along with just being successful overall in life. This made me see through Gatsby and truly made me think he is a hard working man and will out work just about anyone to have more than them.

5/23

Overall I still think Gatsby does love Daisy, it's hard to break a bond like there in such a short amount of time, also even when Gatsby stays away from Daisy for a long period of time he still has somewhat of a connection with her. Gatsby in my opinion has gone head over heels for her and made himself a better person overall for her, he gained wealth, success, and bettered his personality.  Gatsby even goes as far as telling Tom that he loves Daisy and would do anything for her so for those reasons yes I do believe Gatsby is in love with Daisy.  The short answer for Daisy loving Gatsby is no, unless Daisy knows she can live the most glamorous lifestyle with Gatsby then the short answer is no sadly. Yes I still believe that Tom does still love  Daisy and feels the same way. The reason is that it is so difficult to just leave everything behind with a person you had a special connection with especially after having children, Tom is somewhat successful and for Daisy to just stop loving him in such an instant just doesn't sit right. Although their relationship does revolve a lot of cheating and anger at the end of the day they will still love each other. Nick does not love anyone relationship wise. I think that the author Fitzgerald himself is trying to show how love can turn out for the worst and how it can cause people to have foul reactions during this time period because back then there were not as many people as in today's society with large amounts of money meaning that women would consistently look for men with a lot of cash.

5/31

In the beginning of the book before reading it I had actually looked at the front cover and thought of a big city like LA or New York along with a woman maybe being successful (had never seen the film or read a book before). Now getting through a substantially large portion of the book I now see that the big building displayed in the front can either be the east egg, west egg, or New York and the lady in the front can potentially be Daisy since she is one of the more major conflicts in the story love wise. The colors I see are very mixed as there seems to be a kind of excitement in some like the colors swooshing around everywhere making it seem to me to be adventurous. The darker colors I see is the purple and the eyes on the girl in the front they just stare right into me and make me think that there bad things and sadness through the book which there was as there were many deaths that included murder. One thing that also gives away the sadness seems to be the blue mark going down the side of the face which looks like a tear of sadness as well, maybe representing all the unexpected turn there has been.

6/6

First things first, overall I personally thought the book was a masterpiece. This novel explains the American dream by having these five things which are money, wife, kids, a big house, and a stable job. Gatsby is the perfect character to show as a role model as he almost succeeded in the five as he was super rich, almost had a wife but did not have any children, but did have a magnificent house and a stable job although it was illegal. The book states, "American Dream is the continuous desire for better, it is impossible to fully grasp"(Fitzgerald). The American dream is just too difficult to have and even the author states it, the character with the most potential couldn't even grab a hold of it but that does'nt mean to stop trying. This doesn't just go for Gatsby either; every character at one point in the book had their own problem one way or another and none of them truly got the “American Dream” at the end of the day, when it came to love, family, jobs, etc.