At the Cinema: The Great Gatsby

This week in class, since it was a short week, we started to watch the movie to the novel, The Great Gatsby.  I knew that the movie had gotten amazing reviews before we has started watching the movie, but I was curious as to how well the movie actually followed the book.  Now that we are almost done with the movie, I can say that it closely mimicked the events that occurred during the book.  I thought it was interesting how differently the movie portrayed different scenes than I had imagined in my head.  The biggest and most relevant example of this was the character Nick Carraway.  When we were reading the book, as mentioned in an earlier blog, I liked his character, but I enjoyed his character even more in the movie.  While reading, I saw Nick as a shy and an easy 'push-over' person, but in the film, he is more of a wing man or a loyal friend rather than a nobody.  He also played a bigger part in the film.  My favorite moment shown of Nick was when Gatsby asked him to ask his cousin, Daisy, over for tea.  I really liked the actual scene where they are preparing the house and Daisy walks in and Gatsby doesn't know what to do or how to act.  I thought it properly showed the real kind of person Nick is during this scene.  I especially liked how he just went outside and stood by the tree.  However, when I read this part during the book, it didn't quiet play out this way.  I portrayed it as Gatsby telling Nick what to do and how to act, not the other way around.  I also liked how the movie showed Gatsby and how he acted when he was around Daisy.  When I was reading the novel, I thought that Gatsby wanted Daisy because he wanted it to achieve his dream, but in the movie, it showed Gatsby as being truly happy.  Throughout the progression of the movie, Gatsby is shown as a very mellow guy, and even when he is throwing an enormous party at his even more enormous house, he still has very dull expressions.  But, when he is with Daisy, he is usually smiling and he looks genuinely happy.  This gave me a different impression of Gatsby than what I had read in the book.    I cant wait to finish the movie and see how the producers see the ending scenes. 

The Great Gatsby: Book Review

This week in class, we finally finished with our Great Gatsby unit, not that I am complaining.  For being a 'school book' I really enjoyed it.  Usually for me, when I am forced to read a book, I don't enjoy it as much as I normally would if I got to read it on my own at my own pace, but this book really surprised me.  I loved how Fitzgerald incorporated colors into the book.  This acted as my focus throughout the book.  Although there is no correct answer to what the colors mean, I thought it was cool how different people could see the meaning of the same color in extremely different ways.  My favorite character while reading the book started off being Daisy, but during the middle of the book when her character changed, I lost interest in her and began following the character of the narrator, Nick.  Although he didn't usually play a large role in the story line, he acted as a 'rock' and never changed even though everyone else around him was.  He told the truth, whether it was positive or not, and gave the reader a break from all of the things going on around him.  He also never had an opinion.  This gave the reader a chance to think for themselves and form their own opinion about what was happening.  I really liked this feature about Nick.  After reading this book, I would probably give it four out of five stars. As we start to watch the movie next week,  I hope that the movie will follow the story line of the book and keep some of the features in the book that made me enjoy reading it so much.  But, as long as Leonardo is in it, I'm sure it will be great!!!

Daisy

This week in class, Ms. Besl brought up a cool idea about the character Daisy.  She asked us why we thought Daisy stood for.  Well, I was curious about that, so I looked it up and the results were actually very interesting and I wanted to share them with you.  First of all, the actual daisy flower is a white flower with a yellow center.  So far, in our discussions, we talked about how the color yellow means wealth, but it could also mean death or tragedy.  In the case of this example, we will be talking about the yellow that symbolizes wealth.  White also stands for innocence and purity.  The flower represents that Daisy is sweet, innocent, and pure on the outside, but on the inside, she is really only paying attention to money and wealth.  I think that this statement matches Daisy relatively well because one of the main reasons that she stayed with Tom and was attracted to Gatsby was because of their wealth.  Another symbolism that I found while looking around was that the actual daisy flower, when sent to someone from another person, symbolizes that the sender of the flower can keep a secret.  I found that the most interesting thing of all because it made sense.  Gatsby and Daisy's relationship was always a secret and no one knew about it until near the end of the book.  Finally, and probably the most intriguing fact, that a Daisy can also symbolize a gesture of departure.  I really liked that because Daisy was the reason for Gatsby death/departure.  If Daisy hadn't gotten in the accident with Jordan Baker, then Wilson never would have been angry and Gatsby never would have died.  Also, when Gatsby did die, Daisy ran off.  I am not quite sure why I found that so interesting, but I hope that didn't bore you with my blog this week. 

The American Dream and The Great Gatsby are actually connected?!?!?!?!??!

This week in class, we talked a lot about the American Dream and how different groups of people perceive them.  In the article, Serving in Florida, we got to find out the view of the American Dream through the eyes of a waitress/ hostess in the lower end of the economic ladder.  On the other hand, the Great Gapsby Society political cartoon shows what living the American Dream is really like on both ends of the economy.  This piece was the most relevant in explaining the issue which is the wage gap.  The guy on the right is in  a work outfit, like the main character of Serving in Florida, and is working several jobs in order to receive the basic necessities.  The guy on the left, however, is shown to be very rich and is so rich that he doesn't see the problems with the wage gap because it doesn't affect him.  I feel like the guy on the left represents Gatsby himself, but I am not sure who the guy on the right would represent from The Great Gatsby.  In addition, my group discussed how the wage gap crack in the cement could represent the Valley of Ashes because they were once part of society but now are too helpless to try to reenter.  My personal article was about how the uncertainty of the future economy and government is affecting the success rate in America.  I felt like this connected to the Great Gatsby because of the theme.  The theme of Great Gatsby is achieving the dream and I personally feel that if someone is trying to achieve the dream but they are unsure about whether or not they will succeed, then they will be less likely to try.  This, once again relates to the valley of Ashes from the Great Gatsby.