Why Does Wealth Corrupt

In class this past week we have been looking at the similarities between two of F. Scott Fitzgerald's pieces: "The Great Gatsby" and "The Diamond As Big As The Ritz."  In both stories we follow people who are very wealthy and shows signs of their corruption.  In "The Great Gatsby," this is seen in many of the characters including Tom Buchanan.  Tom is a very wealthy man who is married to Daisy, but he cheats on her with Myrtle Wilson and is open about that with all his friends.  Gatsby himself is shown as corrupted when he is pulled over by a cop while speeding and an exchange happens between them that lets Gatsby off the hook.  In the other story, the corruption is even more prevalent.In the story, the Washington family has deceived the government surveys and even still has slaves all so that they can maintain their wealth.  Braddock Washington even accepts that he is corrupted and cruel, responding to the accusations with "Cruelty doesn't exist where self-preservation is involved."  Now we have to wonder why these people became corrupted and how the wealth plays into that.  I think the reason for their corruption is that with their wealth, the people feel they are untouchable and can't get in trouble for their actions.  Gatsby speeds and isn't the slightest bit worried that he will get in trouble even though he was performing an illegal action.  This is seen in the real world as well.  Many children born into wealthy families commit crimes and don't even seem to care because their parents know someone influential in the legal system or could easily just pay the bail and get their child out of prison.  In doing so, they are reinforcing their child's bad behavior by showing them that the negative consequences of their actions are negligible.  So it shows that wealth and power, even in the real world, fosters corruption due to making the person feel like their actions hold no negative weight towards others.

Why Do People Do Crazy Things

In class this past week we finished reading "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald.  By the end we learn a lot about the mysterious Jay Gatsby and his motivations.  The main part of the story is that Gatsby bought his house and throws so many lavish parties all because he hopes to reconnect with his past love, the now Daisy Buchanan.  Nearing the end, after Gatsby and Daisy have reconnected, Gatsby and Daisy are driving a car when Daisy accidentally runs over a woman who ran into the road.  Later, we learn that even though Gatsby didn't do anything, he is going to take the blame for the murder so Daisy does not get in trouble. Even after the incident, Gatsby waits outside her house to make sure that nothing happens to Daisy, even saying that he will wait outside "All night, if necessary.  Anyhow, till they all go to bed" (Fitzgerald 144)  He does this because he loves Daisy, but the love may not have been fully reciprocated because a little later in the novel, Daisy leaves her house in East Egg with Tom and doesn't return any calls related to Gatsby.  Ironically enough, Gatsby dies at the hand of a man named George Wilson who kills Gatsby because he thinks Gatsby is the one who killed the woman that he loved, the woman who Daisy ran over.  However, the woman that George Wilson loved, Myrtle Wilson, also did not love George.  The commonality between these two events is that the men did crazy things for the women they loved even though they did not love the men back.  The reason for their crazy actions is because of love itself.  At an evolutionary standpoint, love is just a human attraction to promote reproduction, but people are willing to go to extreme lengths to attain, preserve, or avenge their love of another person, even if the other person does not feel the same or it ending up with the situation turning out bad for them.

Why Do We Break From Tradition

Tradition is one thing that is deeply rooted within our society.  In class this past week we talked about the 1920's and specifically the emergence of Modernism.  Modernism is defined as a style or movement in the arts that aims to break with classical and traditional forms, and we were shown examples of this in an increase in the women's rights movement and people buying more luxurious items to show off their wealth like customizable curtains for your car windows.  This is shown in F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" where Nick Carraway is living in a small house for 80 dollars a month in West Egg right next door to his neighbor Mr. Gatsby whose mansion rented for "fifteen thousand a season" and had "a marble swimming pool, and more than forty acres of lawn and garden."  When thinking about this, I wondered why this increase in luxury goods was seen as a break from tradition.  Human beings are evolutionary predisposed to "flex their wealth" as it tends to help them find a mate.  This isn't only shown in humans though.  Many other animals show this trait, like peacocks.  Male peacocks show of their bright feather, and this is why Milkman from "Song of Solomon" was attributed to the peacock for the majority of the book.  By the end of the novel, Milkman had bettered himself and broken away from material possessions, and this fact seems more like breaking away from human tradition.  In the end though, the existence of the wealth portion of Modernism may just be attributed to the fact that many new items were created and some at cheaper prices so more people were able to buy them. So maybe its possible that one tradition broken to create a new one for the middle class to "flex their wealth" instead of only the very wealthy.

Why Do People Fly?

At the very end of "Song of Solomon: by Toni Morrison, Milkman leaps toward Guitar after he had just killed Pilate.  As this happens, Milkman is thinking in his head "If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it."  In class, within our groups, we were debating on whether Milkman actually flew or whether he died at the end of the novel.  This led me on to think about what flying symbolizes within the novel.  Mrs. Valentino said that there is a possibility that it symbolizes when a man would die in slavery and the other people would say that he "flew back to Africa" to make them feel like it was not as bad and that the man was now free.  So along with symbolizing freedom, the idea of flight also may represent death.  In this same fashion, this could go into the thought that someone who is murdered or commits suicide is becoming free, either by their means or somebody else's.  This may seem dark, but it also provides some sort of relief for those that are close to the victim as it supplies them with some idea of closure.  Another possible way to look at this connection between flight and death in today's society is through the planes flying through the sky and our thought flying through the internet.  It was Albert Einstein who said “I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction. The world will have a generation of idiots."  Planes are a generally luxurious technology, and the general population that uses these planes feel very free as they can go almost anywhere they want in the world in a short amount of time.  At the same time, however, the many technologies in the world are believed by many people to be slowly killing the population and making them brain-dead.  So in the end, the idea of flight could be construed as both good or bad.

Why Is Incest So Common

Once again my blog post of the week is going to be about "Song of Solomon" by Toni Morrison.  This time we are going to be tackling the matter of incest.  For those who don't know, incest is defined as sexual relations between people classed as being too closely related to marry each other.  In many places, incest is seen as a crime as well.  In "Song of Solomon" incest is shown between many characters, but the main example of incest in the novel is the relationship between Milkman and Hagar.  Even when they first met, "Milkman had no need to see her face; he had already fallen in love with her behind," they were already in love with each other.  The two of the started having sexual relations starting when Milkman was in his teens and ending in his thirties.  This novel also not the only novel or story that shows the idea of incest between characters.  In the story of "Oedipus Rex," the main character ends up killing his father and marrying his mother.  If incest is seen as so bad in society, why does incest show up so much in this novel that we are reading and other literature in general?  The difference is that many of the novels that involve incest are set in a time where it is not seen as so bad.  Many father and family figures wanted to keep their bloodline inclusive and so they would not let their children marry outside of the family.  In this way, incest became a staple of older literature, but now incest is seen as taboo.  There are also scientific reasons as to why incest is seen as bad.  Intermarrying between a family destroys the genetic diversity of a population which makes that population more susceptible to being wiped out by foreign pathogens.

Why Are We Reading This Book

So in class we having been reading "Song of Solomon" by Toni Morrison.  The first thing that comes to my head after reading the first chapter is that this book is very very weird.  The main scene that caused this thought is the breastfeeding scene where Ruth breastfeeds her son who is much too old to perform this action.  When we were asked to analyze this scene, we were told to mainly look at the line that said "It was as though she were a cauldron issuing spinning gold."  From this line we made a connection to the story of "Rumpelstiltskin" in which an entity of unknown origin grants a woman the ability to spin straw into gold in exchange for her firstborn child.  To be honest, I still don't understand how the story of Rumpelstiltskin connects with "Song of  Solomon," but I never really liked "Rumpelstiltskin."  The beginning of the story is good and creates a nice conflict but the conflict is then resolved in an unsatisfactory way when a random soldier of the king overhears Rumpelstiltskin speaking his name which allows the woman to gain power over the entity and gain the rights to her child back.  Similar to how I feel that this story has little connection to the novel that we are reading, many of the events just within the first chapter of the novel seem only loosely connected with each other.  We start off with a man jumping off a hospital and committing possibly accidental suicide.  Then we start talking about how a street got its name and then into the backstory of many different people, some of which are related.  These events are shown so randomly that it makes the novel seem very disconnected even though all I have experienced so far is reading one chapter.

Why Is Violence Seen As Bad In The Media

In class class we were told to read many passages relating to the use of violent images in the news media, but not only in the news are violent images shown.  These images are also shown in video games, social media, movies, TV, and many more.  All of these platforms are attacked by the public because they see it as not appropriate and too graphic to show to the public.  In the case of video games, many parents are angered that their kids are subjected to many violent scenes shown in shooter games and fighting games.  The main problem with that rationale is that video games with violent images have an age rating that is usually 18 years of age or older.  This means that if they are not OK with their kids playing violent games, it is their fault for letting them purchase and play these violent video games.  With social media it is generally the same case.  In social media you are shown images and video from the people that you follow or choose to interact with.  It is all by choice.  So if you are seeing violent images or videos, it is a direct result of the choices you have made on that platform.  Many social media platforms also have censors on videos or images that make you agree that you are willing to see something graphic before subjecting you to the content.  In the case of the news media, not showing and telling about the violent events of the world is pretty much lying.  Paul Martin Lester stated that "Death happens to be one of life's main events" and that it is "inaccurate-for newspapers to fail to show it..." (Source A).  So in the cases of violent images in media, they are either a necessity to show, or you are seeing them as a result of your own actions.

Why Does Memory Sometimes Fail

In both "Maus" by Art Spiegelman and "Postmodernism for Beginners" by Jim Powell, the horrors and atrocities of the Holocaust and Auschwitz are discussed.  Powell states that "to reduce the degradation, death and stench to a concept-drowns out the screams."  Powell says this to show that no matter how hard we try to use memory to remember the events of the Holocaust, the magnitude of this tragedy can never be truly comprehended by those who have not experienced it firsthand.  This is mainly because it is nearly impossible to imagine the level of trauma that each of your senses would have to be put through when subjected to that horror.  The indescribable stench of death, the sounds of your fellow people being subjected to torture and death, the feel of the punishment from the Nazi soldiers, the taste of blood and dirt in your mouth as you are worked to death, and the sight of the high fences and the guards that signal to you that you will probably never be able to escape this hell.  Just saying these words may already sound bad, but it pales in comparison to the actual event.  This is where "Maus" comes in.  "Maus" being a graphic novel helps to slightly bridge the gap left by only memory and imagination.  The graphics shown help by adding the sense of sight into your imagination.  The novel shows you the events of the characters leading up to their sentence in Auschwitz and even tries to show you just how bad it really was there.  These images depicted by Spiegelman are used to evoke some of the emotion lost by traditional, only text storytelling.  The graphic novel still can't fully show you the horrific events of Auschwitz, but that may be a good things because if they could, you may start to suffer from PTSD after reading Spiegelman's work.

Why Does Perspective Matter

After reading "This is Water" by David Foster Wallace I was intrigued.  This passage was my favorite out of all the other passages we have read so far in 11 AP English.  I think one of the main reasons for this is because the passage was very straightforward and easy to read while also leaving for a lot to still be analyzed by the reader. Wallace also introduced an interesting topic.  There is a generally accepted saying that everybody is unique and this saying, in most cases, applies heavily to the human mind and consciousness.  Wallace goes in the other direction, saying that no matter what, humans are naturally self centered and mainly only keep themselves in mind when making decisions.  He also goes on to state that this selfishness is "hard-wired into our boards at birth" meaning that we are this way from the very start of our lives.  His reasoning for this claim makes sense though.  Seeing as we as individuals have only seen our world from the perspective of our own body, it makes sense that our decisions would be based solely off of what we know without a doubt to be true and beneficial to us.  Most people will not openly admit that they are self centered because there is a societal stigma based around being self centered, but according to Wallace, the only way to not be in this mindset is to first acknowledge it, and then change how you think about the events you experience.  In the passage Wallace talks about how someone with the self centered perspective might only be able to see their own problems and because of this they have a horrible day and get frustrated.  On the other hand, the consciously shifted perspective acknowledges that the other people that have frustrated him could also be having a just as bad or even worse day, and in doing this the author shows how one could have a happier life overall.  Though one thing that slightly goes against his claim is that a few years after Wallace created this speech, he commit suicide.  In the passage he specifically states that someone of the self centered mindset could be prone to suicide, but if Wallace, who I would assume is going off of his own principles of not being self centered, commit suicide, then how effective is the method that he described in his speech?

Why Is Lying Seen As Bad

After reading Billy Collins's poem, "The History Teacher," some conflicting thoughts come up in my mind.  There is a major debate about the ethics of lying.  About whether some lying is OK if it is meant to protect someone, and at what degree of lying does it become unethical.  In the poem, the history teacher is "Trying to protect his students' innocence" by lying to them.  He does this by taking all of the cruelties out of major historical events, but in doing so, he was not teaching his students accurate information.  The teacher may have good intentions, but does his lying do more harm than good.  In this poem the grade of these students is never mentioned and I feel that their grade could be one of the determining factors in whether the history teacher.  The reason I believe this is because if the children are of a low age and grade, like kindergarten or first grade, the teachings don't matter as much as they can be taught the correct history as a later age.  This way innocence of the children can be preserved while later being taught the correct information when it actually matters to them.  If this were the case then what the history teacher did doesn't seem so bad.  On the other hand, if these students were of a higher grade level, where every bit of information that one learns is vital, the misinformation provided by the history teacher seems much worse.  There is also the thought that there is no point in lying to these kids as they seem to already have the cruelty preprogrammed into them.  This is shown when Collins says, "The children would leave his classroom for the playground to torment the weak."  There is no point in trying to protect someone when they have the problem within them.

Why Do We Even Celebrate Independence Day

After reading Frederick Douglass's speech in "The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro," my perspective on Independence Day as a whole has changed.  Aptly stated in the name of the holiday, Independence Day celebrates the independence of the people of America, and this is a widely known fact.  However not all people of this nation were allowed their independence.  For example, the slaves living in the United States would not gain any benefits at all from this newfound American independence.  In his speech, Douglass states, "The blessings in which you, this day, rejoice, are not enjoyed in common."  While the white population was celebrating its freedom, the slaves were still being made to work and could not experience that freedom.  A few years after Frederick Douglass's speech, the events of the Civil War occurred and the slaves were freed, finally gaining their independence. 

In today's society, Independence Day has not changed too much. It is still celebrated on the Fourth of July and friends and family get together to have fun and light off fireworks.  However, something still seems wrong with this beloved holiday.  Most people just see it as a day to have fun and have work off.  They don't recognize the significance of this important holiday.  We are meant to celebrate what many of our ancestors worked so hard and died for: the freedom of this great nation from all others.  A war was fought over the topic and America's side won out, but in the end many people still don't remember the sacrifice that is celebrated on that specific day.