...In The Great Gatsby, Jay Gatsby becomes wealthy to win back his love, Daisy Buchanan, who couldn’t be his because of his poverty. While Daisy wants to be with Gatsby, she chooses Tom Buchanan because of Gatsby’s illegal business, despite the fact that Tom was cheating on Daisy by having an affair with Myrtle. In the end, Gatsby takes the blame for killing Myrtle from Daisy, and thus is killed by Myrtle’s husband. In “The Rich Boy”, Anson Hunter loses Paula, someone he dearly loves, because he disgraces himself by getting drunk all the time. However, due to Anson’s arrogance and dominating nature, Paula leaves him and Anson cries “like a child” for three days (Fitzgerald “Rich” 328). Anson loses himself after the end of his affair with Paula, and learns to be happier by moving on in his life. “The Bridal Party” is a comparison of The Great Gatsby and “The Rich Boy”. Michael Curly loses his girlfriend Caroline Dandy due to his poverty. When he finds out about her marriage to the wealthy Hamilton Rutherford, he decides to win her back. However, he fails to do so as Caroline chooses Hamilton over Michael, despite Michael’s newly inherited wealth. Michael seems to go into depression but cures himself as he realizes that he has not thought of Caroline for hours...
Words: 2292 - Pages: 10
...Summary and Personal Response Professor D. Ogden, Ph.D. English 115 Jeremy Hardison April, 13, 2015 In the essay “Facing Poverty with a Rich Girl’s Habits,” author Suki Kim describes how her lifestyle as a wealthy child of a millionaire changed overnight. Due to bankruptcy her father lost everything and being that in Korea bankruptcy is a crime punishable by jail time, her family fled to America. They lived in Queens, New York where they rented a home from another Korean family as she describes queens as “the wild west” (62). An interesting focal in her essay is when she explains her first English word she learned in junior high school which was “F.O.B., short for fresh of the boat” (62). She could not grasp the understanding to why the other kids referred to her that way when her family had flown from Korea to America. She also learned that she was “Asian” and found it to be very offensive because the skin reminded her of the Forsythia flowers that characterized the lower class when she was in Korea. Another interesting key point Kim describes is taking public transportation for her very first time. This was an important moment she defines as she was used to being chauffeured. Without the use of maids she had when her family was rich, she noticed things became seriously messy around the house, and found it to be humiliating to take their dirty clothes to the laundromat. This was a challenge for her because she was accustomed to her princess lifestyle of servants for...
Words: 477 - Pages: 2
...“A reality check for America” Mary C. Terrell was a powerful pioneer in civil rights and a powerful leader who faced many struggles of prejudices because she was a colored woman. Because she had lived a difficult life in the capital of the US, she decided it was time the world knew of her the many trajectories she continued to face along with many other African Americans. On October 10, 1906, Terrell gave a speech titled, “ What it Mean to be Colored in the Capitol of the U.S.,” to the members of the United Woman’s club in Washington, D.C. This speech was very influential and significant speech that served as a voice for other African Americans who had no voice. This speech also was a time for Terrell to explain the unnecessary hassles she and other blacks had to take on when trying to live as a citizen in the capital. Through this speech we can see an abundance of prejudice that taint the lives of African Americans in the U.S.. In the following paragraphs, I will establish the notability of this speech, analyze the historical context that sparked the discourse into existence and explore other rhetorical features that will establish my analysis’s significance. Mary Church Terrell embodies feminine style rhetoric in her argument to address the social, economic and political struggles placed against African Americans with the undertone of constitutive rhetoric, topical structure, pathos and logos to validate her point. History: Mary Church Terrell...
Words: 2386 - Pages: 10
...Adichie’s anthology The “Thing Around Your Neck” is one of Adichie’s most powerful stories in her anthology, by Dr Jennifer Minter (English Works) The “thing around your neck” becomes a powerful symbol of the narrator’s feelings of anxiety in the new country. As Adichie points out, the story of migration is often one of exploitation (take advantage of someone) and impotence (powerlessness) for many Nigerian women. (They suffer also under the burden of stereotypes, both from the African and American perspectives.) In America, Akunna is lonely and desperate. She is exploited by her uncle and suffers from a sense of powerlessness. The new life in America: (leads to loneliness and desperation) : In “ The thing..” the narrator (Akunna) tries to build a new life in America but she endures a great deal of adversity and anxiety., She feels lonely, isolated, displaced and alienated . As Adichie suggests, this is a rather typical experience of Nigerians in America. She also feels anxious because she cannot adequately support her relatives in Nigeria as they would expect. Symbol: The ‘think around your neck” becomes a symbol of anxiety. Akunna is gripped by fear. She feels utterly powerless. She feels that she lacks control. p. 119 “At night, something would wrap itself around your neck, something that very nearly choked you before you fell asleep.” p. 125 “the thing that wrapped itself around your neck, that nearly choked you before you fell asleep, started to loosen to...
Words: 1083 - Pages: 5
...Meeks 1 Michelle Meeks Dr. Jon Glover ENC 1102 (MTWR 12:45) July 26, 2012 Richard Cory: The American Tragedy, The American Revolution Primary Sources 1. Robinson, Edwin Arlington. Richard Cory. 1897. Edwin Robinson wrote a short narrative poem about a man, Richard Cory. Robinson describes Richard Cory as a man who is wealthy, admired, educated, stylish, and modest. At the end of the poem the feeling of admiration changes to shock after it was revealed that Richard Cory "went home and put a bullet through his head." Robinson taught the moral "money doesn't buy happiness" through the magic of envy. 2. Simon, Paul. Richard Cory. 1966. Literature In Paul Simon's adaptation of Richard Cory he reconceived the original poem and added a chorus that emphasized a separate truth. Simon talks about Richard Cory being Meeks 2 "born into society" and painted a picture of Cory being a wealthy playboy with tones like "the orgies on his yacht." Simon wants his readers/listeners to view Richard Cory as a type of lifestyle. Secondary Sources 3. Morse, David E. Avant-Rock in the Classroom. The English Journal, Vol. 58, No. 2 (Feb., 1969), pp. 196-200+297. Print. This article suggests that using avant-rock in the classroom the students would show more interest in literature. "The whole avant-rock movement clearly challenges the traditional notions of what is literature." Morse believes that by doing this they will bring many students who react sentimentally to...
Words: 935 - Pages: 4
...biographical sketches, poems, children’s books, and a biography book with her sister Catharine. Then eventually wrote her first book, The Mayflower, in 1843. Her best, well-known novel is Uncle Tom's Cabin which portrayed the life of slavery of African-Americans. Discussion Uncle Tom’s Cabin is the initial American sequence of events to contain an African-American leading role. She was an abolitionist and creator. Her novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, depicts existence intended for African-Americans below slavery (Elliot, 25-60) she was the daughter of honest spiritual principal Lyman Beecher and Roxana Foote, an extremely spiritual lady. Her mother died when she was only four years old. Her family unit was not wealthy, and consequently, she endured many personal tragedies in her lifetime. Her writing career began when she won a contest for the Western Monthly Magazine. Not long after that, she began hearing of the horrible stories of slavery and after the death of her infant son, she felt compelled to put it down on paper. She wrote her most famous anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, but critics said it was not authentic. She wanted to prove her critics wrong, so she wrote and published her second anti-slavery novel. This novel was called Dred. Stowe was offered a book deal even before she was finished writing her series due to all the attention these...
Words: 904 - Pages: 4
... The narrator is so attracted to the family life depicted on TV because they live a perfect life and that is exactly what he wants. One thing he feels that is wrong with his life is his family’s appearance. He believes if they improved their looks they would be accepted by others such as white people. This has little impact on his family because they realize life is not perfect and they are not in control of certain things. The family realizes they do not have to change in order to be liked by others as long as they have each other to love. 2. At first, the narrator goes looking for work because he wants to be wealthy. He believed that being wealthy would take away all his family’s problems. At the end of the story, the narrator starts to accept the fact that he cannot change the way his family is. The meaning of work has changed because he realizes he wants to work for the right reasons not just because he feels obligated to fix his family. 3. Soto’s family life was not perfect, but he lived in a stable household with people he loved. Soto’s thinking was wrong because he wanted more in life however, he failed to realize that he was lucky and fortunate enough to have the people he loves most close to him. For example, he wanted his brother and sister to wear shoes at dinner as if it were going to change things. Changing their appearance would not change the way they act. 4. The food and drinks mentioned have a big influence on Soto. It seems as if every time these...
Words: 2330 - Pages: 10
...understanding human nature as well as structure and cultures of various communities in the world. To many historians and individuals, history is one of the important assets that a country or a community can ever possess because it differentiates it from other communities or countries. Often, history provides an account of past events of a community or a country and can be very useful in predicting the future. According to historians, history should never be pursued for the sake of just collecting information and data to add more knowledge about the past, but rather it should be part of human being to be carried with them each and every single day. Despite the fact that most people believe that...
Words: 2220 - Pages: 9
...1 Transcending the limitations of diaspora as a category of cultural identity in Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s The Thing Around Your Neck Dr Elizabeth Jackson University of the West Indies St Augustine, Trinidad and Tobago Having begun my academic career, not so long ago, as a postcolonial scholar, I have become increasingly critical of postcolonial theory on the grounds that for an increasing number of literary texts by so-called postcolonial writers, postcolonial theoretical approaches may have outlived their usefulness. One example is the Nigerian-born writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s collection of short stories The Thing Around Your Neck, published in 2009. My paper will examine the ways in which these stories explore the limits of diaspora as a category of cultural identity and move toward a more flexible conceptualization of the impact of globalization on people’s sense of themselves and their place in the world. Although the main characters in these stories are of Nigerian origin, few of them fit easily into the limiting categories of ‘Nigerian’ or ‘Nigerian diaspora’. This is not only because their geographical placement is often in flux, but also because their sense of identity is not based on nationality, national origin, or even a sense of belonging to a Nigerian diaspora. On the contrary, they can arguably be described as ‘cosmopolitan’ – not in the old elitist sense of the term, but in the sense of transcending the limitations of nationality or...
Words: 2763 - Pages: 12
...textbooks, was it’s effect on the relationship between social classes. This topic is a very important section, imbedded throughout Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States, George Brown Tindall and David Emory Shi’s America: A Narrative History, and Paul Johnson’s A History of the American People. First we must take a look at the personal views of these authors before looking at how they each analyzed the topic. Zinn has a radical, Marxist interpretation of early US history in which he believes the entire history of the United States was based off of conflict. This includes racial conflict, gender conflict, and in our case, class conflict. Tindall and Shi have, as most history books do, a liberal interpretation of early US history in which they believe the history of the United States is based on consensus and agreement of core values among Americans. They believe the US has a good future because of the agreement on these values which include freedom, democracy, capitalism, and equal opportunities. Johnson has a conservative interpretation of early US history in which he believes the history of the United States is based on people with too much freedom, acquired too quickly by too many irresponsible people. He believes the society in America is filled with moral relativism and decay. Now that we have a background on...
Words: 1880 - Pages: 8
...Lex Cornia LI 532 Final Paper March 15, 2008 East of Eden: The Discovery of Innocence on the Western Frontier The western clouds divided and subdivided themselves into pink flakes modulated with tints of such unspeakable softness that it was a pain to come within the doors of civilization… How does Nature deify us with a few and cheap elements! Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature The West captivates people. The West both as a direction of navigation and as an idea occupies a magical realm where boundaries become blurred and what is light becomes twilight and dark. Just as the East represents the arrival of sun with its light and rationality—of darkness dispelled— so too does the West embody the loss of that sun’s light and logic and the commencement of night. However, there are more boundaries between East and West than merely the presence or absence of light. After the time of Columbus, the people who looked toward the West, and particularly the North American continent, saw more than just land. The West was a sacred place where magic, hallowed, and even treacherous experiences were possible. This idea that possibilities existed in the West that did not exist elsewhere motivated millions to leave the Old World for the new and redefine themselves in a Western landscape of unlimited possibilities. What is the West? These early settlers, religionists, and explorers to the West came to the shores of the Atlantic seaboard unsure of what to expect from the new...
Words: 4300 - Pages: 18
...the world we live in, we come across different societal cultures and norms, in this very essay we discuss the negative aspects of women adhering to societal norms and how women all round the world are likely to end up like Nnu Ego. Nigeria is a larger country with different cultures where some believe the first born child must be a girl, while others also believe in sending off their female children as soon as their ready for marriage. Such actives have been responsible for many societal problems faced in Nigeria. The novel by Buchi Emecheta shows us the violence that our culture causes makes people to develop some kind of violence against people who do not follow cultural norms, a good example was when it was time for Agunwa to be buried, Nwokocha Agbadis eldest wife who is said to have died due to the unpleasant scene of her husband and Ona. It’s a culture in their land that the personal slaves of Agunwa be buried with her as she will need them in her afterlife, they have a belief that good slaves will jump into the grave willingly, but this beautiful girl had begged for her life and refused to enter her owners grave, in anger as to why the slave refused to compile with the normal culture, her eldest son is forced to react and uses his cutlass to strike the slave girl on her face while he kept on shouting angrily, ”so my mother would...
Words: 2021 - Pages: 9
...NORTH AMERICAN FICTION BRIEF INTRODUCTION: Before starting our study of American Fiction we must understand what American Literature is in itself and which pieces of writing we can include within this label. It is believed that when a piece is written in North America, more precisely in the USA, it would automatically be given this epithet. But it should be taken into account that this idea is quite broad and doesn’t reflect the real essence of the term. However, there is also another definition that gathers this essence: American Literature is the one that represents the Americanism, the singularity of the USA philosophy and culture. This way, instead of focusing on who the author is, it is focused on the content of the writing. In that which concerns Fiction, the following documents are the ones considered as narrative: Speeches Letters Short Stories Essays Political Documents Sermons Novels Diaries 1 FIRST LITERARY EXPRESSIONS The first documents in which the idea of Americanism is very present are the Sermons. They respond to the strict Protestantism settled in the New Continent after the arrival of the Pilgrim Fathers and Puritans in the Mayflower (1620) and the Arabella (1630). They established a theocratic community whose main and only point of reference was the Bible. That is why the idea of the ‘city upon a hill’ is still very present in American mentality. As we all know...
Words: 12691 - Pages: 51
...made an impact more than all of its predecessors. The decade from 1960 to 1970 was definitely one of those eras. The people didn't follow the teachings of its elders, but rejected them for an alternative culture, which was their very own (MacFarlane124). Made up of the younger population of the time this new culture was such a radical society that they were given their own name, which is still used today. They came to be called the Hippies. The Hippie movement started in San Francisco, California and spread across the United States, through Canada, and into parts of Europe (Hippie). But it had its greatest influence in America. During the 1960's a radical group called the Hippies shocked America with their alternative lifestyle and radical beliefs. Hippies came from many different places and had many different backgrounds. All Hippies were young, from the ages of 15 to 25 (Hippie). They left their families and did it for many different reasons. Some rejected their parents' ideas, some just wanted to get away, and others simply were outcasts, who could only fit in with the Hippie population. Fewer than twenty-five became a magical age. Young people all over the world were united by this bond (MacFarlane, 71). This bond was of Non-conformity and it was the Creed of the Young (MacFarlane, 75). Most Hippies came from wealthy middle class families. Some people said that they were spoiled and wasting their lives away. But to Hippies themselves this was a way of life and no one...
Words: 2046 - Pages: 9
...investigate the use of pastiche in modern satire. As popular situation comedies fulfil the generic conventions of using multiple cameras, linear narratives, stand alone catchphrases and aspirational ideologies, the essay will deliberate whether post modernism is legitimate in television comedy. "As Hollywood agents worry about the demise of the town's lowing cash cow, the multi-camera, staged sitcom, here to save the day is Arrested Development, a farce of such blazing wit and originality, that it must surely usher in a new era in comedy." —Alison Powell, The Guardian (UK), March 12, 2005 Television situation comedy has always appealed to mass market audiences. From ‘The Brady Bunch’(1969 – 1974), which centred on a blended family, perhaps the best-known domestic comedy in US television history to ‘Cheers’(1982 – 1993), the show set in a bar in Boston. Sitcoms usually consist of recurring characters in a common environment such as a home or workplace. Sitcoms provide the audience with iconic moments in television history. The longitivity of this genre of programming allows the audiences to build up relationships with the characters, therefore becoming an active audience by engaging with Blumer and Katz (1974) uses and gratifications theory, as the familiarity allows the audience diversion, social interaction and provides personal identity. The characters also evoke, in the audience, a sense of empathy unlike any other type of television comedy as the viewer experiences the...
Words: 3725 - Pages: 15
