The Great Gatsby Lesson Learned

Eric Gilbertson
Ms. Fordahl
English 10
February 18, 2014

2. Money can't buy you love (or friends).

In both the book and movie of The Great Gatsby, one of the life lessons displayed  really spoke to me. The lesson was that money cannot buy you love or friends. The story was that this guy named Gatsby was a bootlegger to obtain his great fortune. He used his money to buy a big house to impress his young love. He hosted big parties at his house to get her to come, but in the end he never got the girl or made any friends from hosting these parties. 

I think this life lesson is very true. Gatsby tried to win the heart of this girl by buying this big house right across the bay and tried to get her to come to one of his parties. Parties with people he didn't even know! When he did impress her, he had to hide the fact that he got rich off of illegally selling alcohol, and when she learned of it she was mad at him. Then he ended up dying without her love and no friends.

I can sort of relate to this lesson because I have learned and seen this happen before. I've seen many rich kids before and I know a lot about their lives. They think the can buy their way into friendships but the friends use them for their money (which means they aren't really your friends at all). I've also seen that sometimes this rich person doesn't really have a good social personality so they are in a way socially awkward. They try to make friends by showing off but their money is talking instead of them. The same thing applies for love. This women that this rich guy loves maybe only loves him for his fortune and really could have a relationship with someone else or she learns he doesn't really have an as great personality as she thought and dump him.

So that's what life lesson really spoke to me in The Great Gatsby.          

Harrison Bergeron- story/movie contrast

In English class, we read the short story Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and then we watched the movie on YouTube-2081. The movie was based on the story by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. and I thought they were both great. There were similarities and differences between the two and that's what I'm going to explain.

I thought the story and movie were more the same than different. The people did have handicaps like the weights and earphones. Harrison was taken away just like in the story and was very handicapped in both versions of the story. Harrison had his dance with the ballerina too and the ballerina performance was live on TV and Harrison was also killed when he was dancing from the shotgun of the handicapper general. 

Some differences in the story and movie were that Harrison never threatened the people in the theater that he had a bomb underneath the theater like in the movie. But, what he really had was a device that turned back on the TV signal so George could see Harrison dance. When I imagined the masks on the ballerinas, I thought the masks were going to be of ugly faces instead of the "mascaraed " masks people would wear at balls in the olden days. In the movie George was the one that cried when Harrison was shot, not Hazel. Finally, Harrison and the ballerina never kissed the ceiling. But,I thought both versions were great.     

This is a Blog About Books-Review

"This is a Blog About Books" is a blog run by Cathy. She says she is very Christian and I can see that in the way she reviews books that she has read. She says that she is always thanking God about her gifts as a reader and writer. She has wrote Yesterday’s Tomorrow and Hidden in the Heart during her career. As far as her reviews, she seems to talk more about the ideas in the book rather than the plot. Like she reviewed "Waiting Room" and talked about what a waiting is like in real life and how she hates to wait on things instead of its plot. But, I think she does it this way to convey the message of the story better. And it makes sense. 

See her blog at http://thisisablogaboutbooks.wordpress.com/about/

Literary Analysis- Harrison Bergeron

Eric Gilbertson
Literary Analysis
Harrison Bergeron
English 10
Ms. Fordahl

Harrison Bergeron Analysis

What is good about everyone becoming equal? In the short story "Harrison Bergeron" by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. that we read together as a class, there seemed like there wasn't anything good that came from making everybody equal. At least it seemed that way by how the author wrote the story. The story to me was very gloomy and sad for the people handicapped. It is sad because there is nothing special about anybody. So there are bad things about making everyone equal, but I'm going to tell you why I think creating equality among us is a good thing.

One good thing that would come when creating everyone equal is that everyone became mentally the same in the story. Because of the handicaps no one could really process their thoughts whether they wee born like that, the same way Harriet was, or handicapped to disrupt someone's thought process like George. That way now no one was smarted or dumber than anyone else and you really can't be called "stupid" or "dumb" because the person that is calling you that is no smarter than you. So being mentally equal its necessarily all bad.

Jealously wouldn't ever be a problem anymore if everyone became the same. It is good not to have jealously because jealously leads to fighting and disagreement. The handicaps  in the story made everyone have the same strength by hanging weights all over their bodies. There was no jealously over how beautiful someone was because all the god looking people had to wear ugly masks. " she must have been incredibly beautiful because the mask she wore was hideous." Now that everyone was ugly and had the same strength then again you wouldn't be made fun of for being ugly or being weak because everyone is the same.

Another good thing that would come out of making everyone the same is that everyone would be treated the same as far being paid the same. This idea was not presented in the story but could be used one day in the real world. It could potentially end slavery, poverty, and homelessness. Paying everyone the same amount of money and everyone buying the same things , then everybody would be on the same level as far as being part of the upper, middle, or lower class. Families wouldn't need to morgage their homes or be forced to live in an apartment. There would be no need for anything special because no one was special. Everyone would be the same in all ways.

There is some good that would come out of making everyone the same. There wouldn't be people killing themselves because they were made fun of how they thought, spoke, looked like or how strong they were. There would never be homeless people on the streets if everyone were paid the same. If I were a character in "Harrison Bergeron" and I were handicapped I would have sided with Harrison, being as handicapped as he was when he tried to take control  He wanted to get rid of everyone's handicaps and let them show their special qualities. That's what makes this world special today, there are so many of  and we are all different in our own special way. But, being the same has its own perks as well.