Exploring The Great Gatsby

I wasn’t sure exactly what direction to take for writing this blog post, so hopefully it’s not too all over the place. While my mom and I were making dinner yesterday I mentioned I had to get my homework done (obviously that didn’t happen until today haha) and she asked me what it was about, so I started to tell her about The Great Gatsby. She got so exited, when the movie came out in 1974 she was a teenager and she went to see it with a friend. Apparently they fell absolutely in love with the actor Robert Redford (who played Jay Gatsby). That got my attention, it’s always interesting when parents tell you about childhood crushes. So anyway, I printed out a picture and layed it on her pillow this morning, just to be funny: ) I also watched a trailer for the movie, here's the link-

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_aAt6kFius
It won quite a few awards and became pretty famous, I’m thinking about trying to find it on netflix so I can watch it with my mom. If you want to know more about the movie, go here.

To respond a little bit to one of Dr. Kulbaga’s prompts, I decided to go with “Is The Great Gatsby a comedy or tragedy?” I haven’t decided yet, I’d like to hear all your opinions in class first. But here are some thoughts on the subject.
Here's one literary definition of Tragedy: A tragedy is a literary work which tells the events surrounding the main character's fall from greatness. This downfall is normally brought about by some defect or weakness in the hero's character.
Comedy: A play, movie, etc., of light and humorous character with a happy or cheerful ending; a dramatic work in which the central motif is the triumph over adverse circumstance, resulting in a successful or happy conclusion.
Upon first glance, The Great Gatsby appears to be a tragedy. Gatsby is exposed as a pitiable fraud and his carefully constructed life falls apart, ending in murder. Yet, maybe there is a possibility to read this novel as a comedy. There are certainly many comedic episodes throughout the novel, such as the scene in which Owl Eyes goes to the library because he believes books will sober him up. Here I go again changing the subject, but that got me thinking about something else, symbolism.
I’m really not too great at deciphering symbolism in books, but it seems like the eyes must mean something, I would just like to know everyone else’s ideas on that.
When I was looking into that I came across a website that talks about twenty-five symbols in The Great Gatsby, take a look if you want, it’s pretty interesting.

"Little Sure Shot"

"Aim at a high mark and you will hit it. No, not the first time, not the second time and maybe not the third. But keep on aiming and keep on shooting for only practice will make you perfect. Finally you’ll hit the bull’s-eye of success." -Annie Oakley

Phoebe Ann Mozee (Annie Oakley) was born on Aug. 13, 1860 in a cabin in Darke County Ohio. She was named Phoebe Ann by her mother, but called Annie by her sisters. Though When i searched I saw her name spelled many different ways, it seems Annie promoted the Mozee spelling of the family name. While it has been variously recorded as Mauzy and Moses, Mosey is the version most commonly found. As well as the spelling of her last name it was also confusing trying to find out how many brothers and sisters she had, all the reputable sites say she was the sixth of nine children, but I also saw other claims such as that she had 7 brothers and 7 sisters, hmm. Doing research on this woman got a little frusterating because of that, so hopefully all the information I'm giving is correct.

Annie Oakley is known for preforming with William Frederick Cody "Buffalo Bill", and being one of or possibly the first woman sharp shooter. I could hardly believe it when i read that she could shoot the head off a running quail when she was twelve years old! And later she could shoot a dime tossed in midair at 90 feet. In one day with a .22 rifle she shot 4,472 of 5,000 glass balls tossed in midair. wow.

Her Father died in 1866 at age 67, from pnuemonia, soon after Annie was sent to the county poor farm. In March 1884 the Indian called Sitting Bull adopted her, he nicknamed her watanya cicilla, whick means "Little Sure Shot". And she really was little, I read that she was only five foot and looked very young for her age, just like me! Sounds silly but i think that what finally made me decide I would write my blog about her. It's also really interesting to read all the debates about whether or not she was a feminist, I haven't yet decided that myself. What are everyone's thoughts on that?

La Migra Mi Favorito

Out of all this weeks reading assignments the poem “La Migra” was my favorite, so to start off with here’s a little of what I learned about the author Pat Mora.
Pat Mora was born on January 19th 1942 in El Paso, Texas, her family came to America during the Mexican Revolution. She is married to an Anthropologist and has 3 grown children. Mrs. Mora received two degrees, a BA from Texas Western College in 1963 and an MA from the University of Texas in 1967. She writes about topics such as poetry, children’s books, and nonfiction writing and taught at the university of New Mexico. Her stories seem to show the admiration she has for the Southwest and her herritage.
I also learned that la Migra is a Mexican slang word for the U.S. border cops, and if yelled in out, it can be used to strike fear into the hearts of Mexicans, often causing them to run for the border.
I decided not to decorate the blog with any pictures this time because a lot of the ones I found were somewhat offensive, or in Spanish (and I hardly know any Spanish at all so I thought I’d better not). But here is an interview with Pat Mora.
I thought that “La Migra” was a sad poem, but at the same time it shows strength coming from the Mexican woman in the second part. I like how the poem is divided into two stanzas, because it is expressing point of view of two characters in the poem. in Stanza 1, la Migra expresses how he is going to deal with the Mexican woman, and in stanza 2, the woman replies with how she will beat him at his own game.
“I can touch you wherever I want but don‘t complain too much because I‘ve got boots and kick--if I have to, and I have handcuffs.” Either my head is in the gutter or that was meant to be considered sexual. Which I found especially strange when I read on a few websites that the poem conveys a children’s role playing game.
I liked that a line in the second stanza was left in Spanish, I think that really added to the poem. “Agua dulce brota aqua” which I learned means, "sweet water springs here, here, here"
I’m interested and uncomfortable at the same time thinking about what kind of discussion this topic might bring up in class on Saturday haha. See you all then.