Great Gatsby 3

 The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

 And now we have the pleasure of meeting Tom Buchanan's mistress...yippee. Sarcasm is one of my favorite things:) I find it very rude that Tom has the guts to take the woman, who is not his wife, out to dinner where other people see him and out places with his friends. It is a slap in the face to his real wife, Daisy. Come to find out Tom's mistress, Myrtle, is the wife of Mr. George B. Wilson who owns a car garage in a dusty place. So, they're both cheating! and they have their own place in the city together. There is too much going wrong right now.

 Tom and Myrtle sure know how to throw a raging banger, though. I know this because Nick says, "I have been drunk just twice in my life, and the second time was that afternoon" (Fitzgerald 29). He went to the party where I think there was a bunch of weirdoes. Everyone just seemed so odd. The McKee's, a duo of an "artistic" photographer and his wife, who's "...shrill, languid, handsome, and horrible" (Fitzgerald 30). They fascinate me and I feel they live in some strange reality. Then there is Myrtle's sister, Catherine. Shocker! She too, knows Gatsby. Sister Catherine seems to know all about Myrtle's love life. She informs Nick that they both hate the person their married too and that Daisy is Catholic which keeps Tom from getting a divorce (lie). Then, we find out that Tom and Myrtle have a fight and Tom hits Myrtle in the nose. Craziness.

 Im sure Nick went to bed that night thinking "what in the world did I just go through?? Do people like this really exist?"...and the answer is, YES.

Great Gatsby 2

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

 Nick is off to see "two old friends whom I(he) scarcely knew at all" (Fitzgerald 6). The Buchanans, Tom and Daisy, are a peculiar couple. I get the sense that they have a lot of issues. It is at their house that Nick first meets the pro golfer, Jordan Baker. I have a feeling they are going to like each other and what a surprise! she knows Gatsby. Who would have thought? Everyone seems to know him. I am beginning to feel out of the loop for not knowing who this character is...

 The dinner at the Buchanans' reminds me of a dinner with my friends, no real thread of conversation, just a bunch of nonsense comments floating around. Also they don't really seem to have an agenda, dinner will happen when it happens. There is a different sort of tension, however, between these people--Specifically the Buchanans. Apparently, Tom is cheating on Daisy. He wasn't even there for the birth of his own child. I read this interesting quote that Daisy is saying about her little girl which says, "I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool--that's the best thing a girl can be In this world, a beautiful little fool" (Fitzgerald 17). I had no idea what this could mean. So, naturally, I looked it up. Apparently, she is being somewhat sardonic in the sense that she doesn't like her eras standards in that a girl will be better off being beautiful and somewhat stupid. Also, it could be referring to her being a fool and marrying Tom, who is now cheating on her.

Great Gatsby 1

The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

 The book begins with the narrator, Nick Caraway telling us about some advice his dad gave him. The advice was "Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had" (Fitzgerald 1). This sort of suggests that he had a good upbringing with money and love. This is some advice my father would give to me too. Nicks father seems like my dad because he always tells me to never judge anyone. Also, in the beginning, I feel this sort of suspense for what is to come. He is describing this person, Gatsby, who's life he has "unaffected scorn for" but still has some gorgeous aspect to it.

 He just so happens to live next door to this great character who is both mysterious and fantastic all at the same time. I get the feeling of foreshadowing with the fact that "It was a matter of chance..." that he would have rented a house "...in one of the strangest communities in North America" (Fitzgerald 4). The book would not be interesting if he was in a boring neighborhood. This is why I have a feeling of suspense and want to see why the community is so interesting and who this Gatsby fellow is.

 The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton is now drawing to an end. A huge change has overcome Lily and she has adapted all throughout the story very well. I was most proud of her when I saw that she was wanting to take the money she gets from her Aunt's death and put it toward starting up her own business. She would then use the money made over a period of time to pay back her debts to Trenor. I thought it was very smart and clever of her to be thinking this way.

 She is then surprised by Mr. Rosedale. All she has to do in order for him to marry her is "...the sole condition of a reconciliation with Mrs. Dorset" (Wharton 244). She was very slowly beginning to like Mr. Rosedale more and more. If it meant all her troubles were to go away and she would have plenty of future love and security, I don't know why Lily doesn't just marry Mr. Rosedale. I think she should just suck it up and apologize to Mrs. Dorset. She could use Mr. Rosedale and all his kindness. I hope to see Lily make better decisions toward the end of the book.

 In The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton, Miss Lily Bart has shown a change in her life. She now is a secretary for Mrs. Hatch and lives with her. She is making her own money. I can't imagine how difficult it must be for Lily to go from never doing anything to having to work and make her own money.

 Lily now has a completely different life with different schedules and friends. The details of Mrs. Hatch's life seemed very strange to Lily because "Mrs. Hatch and her friends seemed to float together outside the bounds of time and space. No definite hours were kept; no fixed obligations existed: night and day flowed into one another in a blur of confused and retarded engagements..." (Wharton 223). Lily and her former friends had packed schedules with numerous ordered activities. This life is completely different.

 I can say that about a year ago, I started working at my first job. I am a hostess at Shallos Restaurant and it was pretty different going from having all the time in the world, to having to plan out everything around my work schedule. I made many sacrifices including missing all but two of our Friday night football games. It definitely was difficult, but the reward, the money, was completely worth it in the end.

 Edith Wharton has done it again. In The House of Mirth, there is a metaphor that I absolutely love. It reads, "The light projected on the situation by Mrs. Fisher had the cheerless distinctness of a winter dawn. It outlined the facts with a cold precision unmodified by shade or color, and refracted, as it were, from the blank walls of the surrounding limitations: she had opened windows from which no sky was ever visible" (Wharton 204).

 I love the imagery I get from this excerpt. It's so vivid and I feel as though I can actually see what is going on. I just love it so much. It is saying she "opened the window", so to speak,  and shed light on the situation. Lily had never even thought about marrying anyone else to get Bertha off her back. And Mrs. Fisher gave Lily a sort of guided epiphany with this thought.

 Now I am starting to feel very bad for Miss Lily Bart. In The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton, Lily finally tells Rosedale that she will marry him. Mrs. Fisher suggested Sim Rosedale to Lily as someone she could possibly marry. Of course, I want her to marry Selden, but that won't happen. She began to actually consider it and I don't like that.

 Lily is starting to be brutally honest. Lily says to Mr. Rosedale, "I am desperate--I'm at the end of my tether. I want to be free, and you can free me. I know you can. You don't want to keep me bound fast in hell do you?" (Wharton 197). She's coming in a new way. I believe Lily is still changing from what I predicted earlier on in the book. I wanted her to become a better person, and she slowly is becoming one.

 Mr. Rosedale, however, says that he won't marry her. He doesn't want to lose his social status by marrying a woman with such rumors about her. He wants to just be "friends" which, if someone ever said this to me, I would smack him right in the face. It's rude and something Lily certainly doesn't need at this point in her life right now.

 Lily is disinherited?! I am now shocked, once again, reading The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton. The death of her aunt came as a surprise to me, but what was more of a surprise was when the lawyer said, "'to my niece Lily Bart ten thousand dollars...and the residue of my estate to my dear cousin and name-sake, Grace Julia Stepney'" (Wharton 180). Lily should have gotten that money. Lily needed that money.

 I know that everyone makes mistakes. Lily believes that the choices she has made, and the consequences that came from them, cannot be fixed. She is left with only one friend, one friend who hates her, and ten thousand dollars. She says to Gerty that, "...the truth about any girl is that once she's talked about she's done for; and the more she explains her case the worse it looks" (Wharton 183). I connect this with high school. I am now entering my senior year at beautiful Roncalli High School, and have got a pretty good feel for everyone in my class and other classes. It is a definite truth, though, that there are people who are talked about, some good and some bad. If a rumor is around about a girl, she is pretty much stuck with that rumor until proven innocent. It doesn't mean that she is completely done for, though because people can change. They can fix their past problems and move on.

 Also, I love Lily's sarcastic answer to Gerty when asked to tell the whole truth exactly from the beginning. It lifted the situation a little bit and is something I would do and I just liked the sarcastic story.

 The beginning of Book Two of The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton starts out with what Selden has been doing since we last left off. I like how the books are separated. I think the author meant to put it that way so it shows the time lapse of about two months. Selden had been doing work and Lily was on a two-month cruise to the Mediterranean.

 Reading, I was thinking to myself, “okay, they are going to have to say something about Lily here sooner or later…” I kept reading and reading and didn’t see anything about her. Finally, I figured out this was recapping Selden’s thoughts and it hadn’t gotten to Lily yet. The first and second chapters of Book Two are the same timeline but different sides… I think. That’s what I believe is going on here.

 Something that caught me off guard was when Seldon said, “’What the deuce am I running away from?’’ (Wharton 153). I liked that it finally dawned on him that he was running away from something that I want and I feel like everyone else is rooting for.

 The ending of Book One of The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton left me in shock! I don’t understand anyone’s decisions. Why can Lily not marry Selden even though we all know she wants to? Why did he leave? Why is Mr. Trenor so creepy? Why did Selden leave!? I have been left so confused, but yet still wanting to read and find out. Will she accept Mr. Rosedale’s marriage proposal? She certainly could use the money he could provide her with.

 The suspense was killing me. When Wharton wrote, “Lily tore it open with shaking hands, and read Bertha Dorset’s name below the message: ‘Sailing unexpectedly tomorrow. Will you join us on a cruise to the Mediterranean?” (Wharton 146) I was so surprised and did not see it coming at all. The twists and turns toward the end here are proving to me this book is not so bad after all. I am finding myself rather enjoying it, and I am not the kind of person who enjoys reading at all.

 I am certain that we all have a best friend. Lily Bart’s best friend however is in love with the same man as her. In The House of Mirth, the author, Edith Wharton, shows a tough relationship between best friends. The night Gerty Farish realized she hated her best friend, was a dark night for her. I am shocked when I read Gerty “…lay face to face with the fact that she hated Lily Bart” (Wharton 132). It shocks me to see that a man could make her hate her best friend.

 I don’t know what I would do in this situation. I would like to think that nothing could tear me apart from my best of friends, but what we want isn’t always what happens. I definitely don’t think I would go so far as to hate her, though.

 The icing on the cake is when Lily comes to Gerty’s late at night needing help after suffering a mini nervous breakdown. I love how Gerty puts her own torments with Lily aside and helps her even though moments before the doorbell rang, her hate for Lily was brewing inside of her. The fact that she warms her, gives her tea and stays awake and holds her until she falls asleep, just shows how good of a best friend Gerty really was. It is a shame that Lily doesn’t realize what is going on and can’t help keep what they had alive.

 There are now two scandals occurring in The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton. Not only are there the letters about Seldon and Mrs. Dorset, but now there are wild rumors flying about Lily and Gus Trenor. I knew this was going to happen too. I could totally see it coming. He is just so creepy with how he talks to her I feel. When he "leans unpleasantly close in order to convey this suggestion" (Wharton 95) I can't help but feel so creeped out for Lily. Again, I could be incorrect about Gus's intentions for Lily, but I believe he's suggesting inappropriate things for her.

 My assumptions are confirmed when Lily's aunt, Mrs. Peniston is informed of the rumors said about Lily. When she says, "but the idea that any scandal could attach to a young girl's name, above all that it could be lightly coupled with that of a married man..." (Wharton 100) tells me that the rumors about Lily are disgusting and horrid rumors. People are saying that he is paying her and expecting something else in exchange.

 I see a little change in Lily Bart in the tenth chapter of The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton. I am hoping that throughout the book I will continue to see changes in her. All her life she's almost abused the money she has had and it took her not having any to realize that she should not take advantage of it and take it for granted. She felt genuinely sad for and sympathetic for Miss Farish and the charity she worked for so she bought the dressing-case for her.

 The best part about this is that "The satisfaction derived from this act was all that the most ardent moralist could have desired (Wharton 90). Lily felt satisfaction for doing a good deed. This is such progress from when she got satisfaction from buying things for herself. I am a little let down, though, when she thinks that this one incident made up for all the previous extravagances she had indulged in, and any she might later indulge in.

 I just wish she would have had like a complete turn-around point here and had it all click in her head that she should be generous with the money she makes. But then again, the book would probably end there and I am not even half way through! Hopefully though, she will come around towards the end.

 What happens in chapter nine of The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton shocks me, but also strangely perplexes me. It is the case of the letters. It just all seems so strange to me. This woman comes to the door and is so mysterious about everything it seems like. Correct me if I am wrong, but, it seems to me that the letters have something to do with Mrs. Dorset and Seldon having some sort of relationship. Mrs. Dorset is married, which leads me to believe that it is the sort of relationship that no husband should be very fond of. I could be incorrect, though. This is just my impression of it.

 The way Lily talks about it and thinks to herself about the collection. Also, I read "Men do not, at worst, suffer much from such exposure" (Wharton 85). I feel like today, if a scandal like this arose, the man would not get any blame and the woman would get all of the shame. So this makes me believe more that it is about a woman cheating. Again, I could be completely incorrect about the whole ordeal--this is just my first impression of what I have been reading so far.

 The detail in The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton is awesome. The author truly has painted a picture for her readers. In the beginning of chapter six, there is a great description of the afternoon when Lily and Seldon go on their first walk together. The author depicts, "...the glitter of the American autumn was tempered by a haze which diffused the brightness without dulling it" (Wharton 50). I can literally "see" what Lily is seeing and feeling in this scene.

 Another example that I find to be great writing is the description in chapter seven of how hot it was outside and what the heat was doing to Miss Bart. The "beads of moisture" which were adhered "unpleasantly to the broad expanse of cheek and neck" of Seldon causes me to visualize a man sweating and literally feel the heat. I can relate to this also because of the record heat we have been having in Indy. Although, the trip to Florida (ironically) and out West was a very pleasant break from the immense heat I had been feeling.

 There are many minor characters who play either a lessor or a more prominent role in The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton. One of these characters is Mrs. Trenor, Lily's hostess. She seems to be very preoccupied with what other people think and what other people do. She's all about the gossip. Another woman, Mrs. Fisher, is described as "...small, fiery and dramatic" (Wharton 37).

 There are many others who also affect Lily's life. Lily has a sort of epiphany while at a dinner party with all these people. She starts to watch them and drift off and see that she's no longer gaining them. She is leaving these people behind. They were "dull in a loud way" (Wharton 44). I like this because I think it is good for her to start to be thinking this way. She's actually thinking about who people are and not what they have.

 In the beginning of The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton, I began to get a feel for the main character, Lily Bart. I am starting to see her as someone who puts an immense emphasis on money and status. I can only wonder where she has gotten these feelings and beliefs. I see now that she got most of it from her parents. 

 Her mom was the kind of person who only cared about money and what other people thought. I thought it was weird how in the book she was only referred to as "Mrs. Bart". I thought it was a little hint to the formalities of Lily's younger life. Just something that may or may not have anything to do with the story, but still interesting. 

 Her mother was very focused on wealth and materialism and that transferred over to Lily. Lily's mom had the belief that, "...whatever it cost, one must have a good cook, and...be decently dressed" (Wharton, 23). This just shows that Mrs. Bart made sure to teach her daughter to put a huge emphasis on money and what you have and who knows you.