Understanding of the Call of the Wild

Why did you choose this particular book? Typical reasons might be:

1. It is a masterpiece by the famous author Jack London who I like very much.

2. I’ve heard of the name of the masterpiece even when I was in primary school.

3. As well as being both a nature story and an exploration of the human condition, The call of the Wild also operates on the level of myth, and it attracts me a lot.

4. The story of Buck touched me a lot. Buck’s story of defeating his bitter rival, replacing Spitz’s leadership, conquering the harsh living environment by his perseverance gives me lots of inspirations

5. I am fond of the subjects and this kind of book

                 Understanding of the Call of the wild

Abstract：

    In August 1896, a group of prospectors in the Yukon Territory hit what would prove to be the richest lode of gold in the world. This discovery soon drew hundreds of thousands of people to a gold rush in the frozen north. Eleven months later, in July 1897, Jack London, then a poor twenty-year-old with literary ambitions,, left his home in Oakland, California,, to join the hordes seeking fortune and adventure on the Klondike River. The Yukon in those days was filled out not only with fortune hunters, but with dogs., for dogs were the only means for transportation over the ice and snow. London and his party camped nearby, and frequently visited with the Bond brothers, friends form California who had also come to mine for gold. London took a special liking to a big dog, Jack, across between a St.Bernard and a shepherd. Five years after his return and launching his career as a writer, he published his most popular book The Call of the Wild, about a dog named Buck inspired by his friend’s dog, Jack. This thesis focuses on analyzing Buck’s adventurous life from which we can see the human condition at that time. This thesis will help us form more profound ideas on Jack London.

 Key word:  Jack London; gold rush; hardship; human; hero; wild

Understanding of the Call of the wild

1. Brief Introduction of Jack London

Jack London, an illegitimate child born in San Francisco in 1876 and reared in poverty across the bay in Oakland, California, had become the highest-paid, most widely read, and best-known writer in America by the time he was thirty-seven years old. In part, Jack London achieved such tremendous popularity because he was the quintessential American adventurer, a westerner living in a country that culturally thrived on and was identified with exploration of unknown territory. He lived an adventurous life and then used events from his own life as fodder for his profession as a writer.

2. Plot

In nineteenth century, the gold discovered in Alaska causes waves of people come to Alaska. These people need a lot of sled dogs to help them pull sleds. Therefore many dogs are sold to the north to take to the hard work of pulling sleds。

Buck, a Saint Bernard-Shepherd dog, lives a comfortable life in the Santa Clara Valley with his owner, Judge Miller. One day, Manuel, the Judge's gardener's assistant, steals Buck and sells him in order to pay a gambling debt. Buck’s life totally changed.  Buck is then shipped to the "man in the red sweater" to be broken. Then Buck is shipped to Alaska and sold to a pair of French Canadians named Fran?ois and Perrault (for $300), who were impressed with his physique. They train him as a sled dog, and he quickly learns how to survive the cold winter nights and the pack society by observing his teammates. He and the vicious, quarrelsome lead dog, Spitz, develop a rivalry. Buck eventually bests Spitz in a major fight, and after Spitz is defeated, the other dogs close in, killing him. Buck then becomes the leader of the team.

Eventually, Buck is sold to a man named Charles, his wife, Mercedes, and her brother, Hal, who know nothing about sledding nor surviving in the Alaskan wilderness. They struggle to control the sled and ignore warnings not to travel during the spring melt. They first overfeed the dogs, then when their food supply starts running out, they do not feed them at all. As they journey on, they run into John Thornton, an experienced outdoorsman who notices that all of the sled dogs are in terrible shape from the ill treatment of their handlers. Thornton warns the trio against crossing the river, but they refuse to listen and order Buck to mush or move on. Exhausted, starving, and sensing the danger ahead, Buck refuses and continues to lay in the snow not moving except for breathing and blinking. After being beaten by Hal, Thornton recognizes him as a remarkable dog and is disgusted by the driver's beating of the dog. Thornton cuts him free from his traces and tells the trio he's keeping him, much to Hal's displeasure. After some argument, the trio leaves and tries to cross the river, but as Thornton warned, the ice gives way and the three fall into the river along with the neglected dogs and sled.

As Thornton nurses Buck back to health, Buck comes to love him and grows devoted to him. Buck saves Thornton when the man falls into a river. Thornton then takes him on trips to pan for gold. During one such trip, a man makes a wager with Thornton over Buck's strength and devotion. Buck wins the bet by breaking a half-ton sled out of the frozen ground, then pulling it 100 yards by himself, winning over a thousand dollars in gold dust. Thornton and his friends return to their camp and continue their search for gold, while Buck begins exploring the wilderness around them and begins socializing with a wolf from a local pack. One night, he returns from a short hunt to find his beloved master and the others in the camp have been killed by a group of Yeehat Indians. Buck eventually kills the Indians to avenge Thornton. After realizing his old life is a thing of the past, Buck follows the wolf into the forest and answers the call of the wild.

3. Character Analysis

In order to make a better character analysis of Frederic Henry, I want to first briefly analyze other main characters that helped the development of the story and foiled the man in the novel.

Buck：The protagonist of our story, Buck is part St. Bernard, part Scotch shepherd. At the beginning of the story, Buck is a domesticated, but atypical dog who lives in the home of Judge Miller in California.

He is a massive, strong, regal dog with rich coat of fur. He is intelligent, courageous, self-confident, and even-tempered except when pushed too far. After being kidnapped and taken to Alaska to become a sled-dog, Buck's wild nature is reawakened, and he slowly returns to the ways of his ancestors. He is as fierce as any wolf in the wild. He is sparing with his affection, but protective of his weaker team members and capable of great loyalty. The chief theme of the novel is his growth through adversity. Not only is Buck the central character of the novel, but the story is primarily from his point of view.

Spitz: An experienced and clever Husky, Spitz is the original lead dog of Buck's dogsled team. He fears and hates Buck, whom he sees as a rival. He is eventually killed by Buck in a fight for leadership.

Curly: A sweet Newfoundland dog, one of Buck's first companions after he has been kidnapped. She is unexpected killed for trying to make friendly advances toward another dog.

Dave: Another one of Buck's first companions, he is one of the most knowledgeable dogs on the team. Mostly aloof, new life springs into him the moment he is placed in a harness. Not only does he help teach Buck the procedures, he also embodies pride in his work.

Sol-leks: Another member of the team. Like Dave, he is aloof until attached to a sled. At first only wary of being approached on his blind-side, poor treatment makes Sol-Leks more and more unfriendly.

Billie: Another member of the team. He is good-natured and sweet, and he shows Buck how to make a bed in the snow. He is killed by Hal.

Joe: Another member of the team, Billie's brother. Unlike Billie, Joe is always snarling and defensive.

Pike: Another member of the team, often referred to as "the malingerer." He rarely gets up on time, and he will steal food and generally undermine the expedition. When Buck becomes leader, he forces Pike to shape up and become a helpful member of the team.

Dub: Another member of the team. He is an awkward blunderer who gets blamed for Buck's thievery.

Dolly: Another member of the team, Dolly goes mad after being bitten by wild huskies, tries to attack Buck, and is killed by Francois.

Skeet: A motherly Irish setter who belongs to John Thornton. She nurses Buck through his recovery and engages him in play.

Nig: A huge black dog who belongs to John Thornton. He has laughing eyes and a good nature.

Lone wolf: The "wild brother" that Buck meets in the forest. He understands Buck's wild nature.

Judge Miller: Buck's original owner. He is presumably a sedate and prosperous man with a large family.

Manuel: The gardener's helper on Judge Miller's estate. He kidnaps and sells Buck to fund his gambling habit.

Red sweater: Also known as the man with the club. He metes out discipline to all dogs that will be sold for sledding. Ruthless in his repeated beatings of unruly creatures such as Buck, he maintains composure and control. He does not beat out of cruelty, it seems. Rather, he looks to teach these dogs the lessons that will allow them to survive in this harsh environment. Buck never forgets the law of the club.

Francois: A Canadian Frenchman, the original dogsled driver. He is knowledgeable and understanding of his dogs, but still very strict.

Perrault: Francois's superior and an agent of the Canadian government. He is admired by Buck for his fearlessness in blazing their trail, disregarding the threat of ice that might break.

Hal: A young man of nineteen or twenty who purchases Buck and his team once they have used up their usefulness to the government. He has ambitions to find gold, but his incompetence and laziness are out of place in the harsh environment. He has no understanding of the dogs, and mistreats them terribly.

Charles: Hal's brother-in-law, a weak figure who does not say much. He basically follows Hal around and does what he is told.

Mercedes: Sister of Hal, wife of Charles. She is exceedingly self-centered, and spends most of her time crying and complaining.

John Thornton: The man who rescues Buck from Hal's cruelty. He is by far the most admirable human character in the story, kind but full of the uncompromising strength that is necessary to survive on the trail. John is the ideal master because his nature is so dog-like.

    Pete: One of John Thornton's partners.

Hans: One of John Thornton's partners.

"Black" Burton:A notorious troublemaker, he picks a fight in a bar and John Thornton steps in.

Matthewson: The man who bets John that Buck cannot pull a ton of weight.

Jim O'Brien: The man who loans John the money to make the bet against Matthewson.

Yeehats: The group of Valley Indians that raids the camp of John Thornton and his companions and kills them. They are terrorized when Buck returns and kills most of them. From then on they speak of a dog inhabited by the devil that roams the forest.

4. Comment:

On an individual level, Buck seems to parallel Jack himself. Like Buck, London was born and grow up in north California. After leaving home, he travelled deeper and deeper into the heart of darkness, as Buck does,, observing the depth to which the human beings can sink in their treatment of each other and the savagery of nature itself. As a young man, London began to experience the violence and hardship caused by nature Jogos Dora and man in the jobs he took on for survival: working on ranches, farms and canneries in California, where living and working conditions were abominable. He got his glimpse of hardship in the sweatshops operating around San Francisco. His search for adventure brought him into contact with the violence of nature during a seal-hunting in Hawaii, where he was also shocked by what man had done to man. He also got glimps of human degradation during his march across the country in what was known as “Kelly’s Army” to protest economic conditions and the plight of the poor. For the portrait of Buck, who was caged and chained after his kidnapping,     London seemed to draw on his own experience during the march: his imprisonment for vagrancy in Erie County, Ohio. Like Buck, he was aghast at seeing nature in the raw in the Klondike during the gold rush. Even this, however, was appealing as what he witnessed in London, England, shortly after he returned from the Klondike and while he was composing The Call of the Wild. His letters reveal that he could scarcely take in the extent of human suffering among the lower classes in a country so wealthy and “civilized”. This experience strengthened his commitment to socialism, for he saw what civilization, specially capitalism and governmental incompetence, had done to those on the bottom of the economic ladder.

The number of dog characters in the dog characters in the novel equals the number of human characters. At the beginning of the story, we meet two small house dogs and miscellaneous hunting dogs on Judge Miller’s ranch; and at the end, among John Thornton’s dogs are two favored pets, killed by a group of Indians called Yeehats. In between, eleven dogs with distinct personalities are introduced: the naive and friendly Newfoundland, Curly, who is slaughtered by a pack of dogs in the port city of Dyea upon their arrival in Alaska; Spitz, the lead dog and Buck’s bitter rival; Dave, the old dog who want to be left alone and who tries to insist on working even while he is dying; Billee, the friendly appeaser; bad-tempered Joe; old, one-eyed, angry Sol-leks; Dolly, who goes mad; Pile, the shriker; Dub, the thief; and Koona and Teek, the two dogs who join the team just in time to perish the ice.

Moreover, the story is not only a story of dog’s adventurous transformation, it is also a story in which a dog’s life reflects the truth about the human condition. In this case, the story dora games bears some resemblance to the literary from known as the beast fable, which gives human characteristics to an animal in order to illustrate or satirize human society or human nature.

As well as being both a nature story and an exploration of the human condition, The call of the nature also operates on the level of myth. When Buck defeats Spitz, he insists on the lead and performs his job in rare fashion. His legendary staus grows when he breaks the sled out of the ice. At the end, he has become the Ghost Dog. He is no longer just a dog, but a supernatural being.

The ending was neither tragic nor comedic. It was significant and thoughtful. He kills human (savages), the noblest creatures on earth, and he knew what it means. Buck answers the call of the wild finally and joins the pack. The ending was kind of legendary: Buck is successful in passing his excellent genes to future generations. In legends Yeehat’s folk tell about a Ghost Dog who leads a pack of wolves through mysterious forests.

5. Conclusion:

This book is an all-time classic. It's told from the viewpoint of a dog, something that instantly appeals to an animal lover like me. It has a lot of graphic violent imagery, especially toward the end, so it might offend some of the more squeamish readers. Also, it was written a very long time ago, so if we're not familiar with old literature, some of the language may sound a bit archaic. But it's worth the read; it starts slow, but it becomes really fascinating as the climax draws near.

We can read London’s adventure tale The call of the Wild from the aspects following: adventure and myth, the Alaskan Panhandle and the Yukon Territory, the Yukon gold rush, the sled dog, cooking games online and the most important and human’s relationship with animals. The most vivid and touching aspect the story shows us is the complex relationships between man and nature, and animals’ struggle with their own nature in man’s world. So The Call of the Wild is really a masterpiece worth our in-depth reading and researching.

Alone but not Lonely

Preface：

Eleven Kinds of Loneliness, the topic is somehow sensitive. But instead of avoid reading it, I chose it as my book to do with my book-report. With the development of national economy and the advancement of the modern science and technology, it becomes more and more convenient for us to communicate. However, it also brought us Internet, which makes us spent many a lot of hours surf on it. We seldom go shopping with our friends in boutiques. We talk less and less with each other even when we live under the same roof. We seldom go out for a walk but stay the wholly day in the room sitting before the computer. How many times the man felt so boring and want to shut down the computer; how many times he tried to invite his friends to hang around outside but finally found no where to go and no people to go with. Everyone lives in their own world. Everyone feels lonely but they just feel so. The two lonely persons never be together and be lively. Seldom can we enjoy the touch of the nature; seldom can we play in the fields chasing after butterflies; seldom can we sit on the roof count the stars. With high paced urbanization, we struggle in our lonely cold room, breathing the noisome air, listening the noisy noise, rush in the busy street and living in the chaos city. Even there’s no time for us to feel lonely. According to such a condition, I try to live my life an easy one. I prefer the countryside to the city and mean to live there even when I had to grow crops with my hands. With the company of nature, though I may be alone, I will never feel lonely. That’s why I’m so interest in this sensitive topic. Hope what I show here makes some sense to you. Since what I read is Chinese version, some sentences may not the same as the English version. But the meaning is there to show.

Alone but not Lonely

Abstract：

Eleven Kinds of Loneliness is a collection of short stories written by Richard Yates from 1951 to 1961. It was published in 1962, a year following his first novel, Revolutionary Road. This sublime collection of stories seems even more powerful today. Eleven Kinds of Loneliness follows the lives of average Manhattan citizens: office workers, a cab driver with visions of immortality, frustrated would-be novelists, suburban men and their yearning, neglected women, the postwar world of dissatisfied veterans, young men swaying uneasily on the lower rungs of the career ladder, married to unsatisfactory women without whose typing job they would be destitute; ambitious but miserable young writers trapped in inappropriate jobs; unglamorous pre-dinner martinis, jazz bars, teachers despised by their pupils….Richard Yates creates a haunting mosaic of the 1950s, the era when the American dream was finally coming true — and just beginning to ring a little hollow. All of the stories in Eleven Kinds of Loneliness also appeared in the posthumously released Collected Stories of Richard Yates (2001). The topic, if there’s one, of Eleven Kinds of Loneliness should be: “Everyone is lonely. No one can escape from that. And this is the tragedy they have. ”

Key words: Richard Yates; Loneliness; Alone but bot lonely

Alone but not Lonely

1. Brief Introduction of Richard Yates

Richard Yates (February 3, 1926 – November 7, 1992) was an American novelist and short story writer, known for his exploration of mid-20th century life.

Born in Yonkers, New York, Yates came from an unstable home. His parents divorced when he was three and much of his childhood was spent in many different towns and residences. Yates first became interested in journalism and writing while attending Avon Old Farms School in Avon, Connecticut. After leaving Avon, Yates joined the Army, serving in France and Germany during World War II. By the middle of 1946, he was back in New York. Upon his return to New York he worked as a journalist, freelance ghost writer (briefly writing speeches for Attorney General Robert Kennedy) and publicity writer for Remington Rand Corporation. His career as a novelist began in 1961 with the publication of the widely heralded Revolutionary Road. He subsequently taught writing at Columbia University, the New School for Social Research, Boston University(where his papers are archived), at the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop, at Wichita State University, the University of Southern California Master of Professional Writing Program, and at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa.

In 1962, he wrote the screenplay for a film adaptation of William Styron's Lie Down in Darkness. Twice divorced, Yates was the father of three daughters: Sharon, Monica and Gina. In 1992, he died of emphysema and complications from minor surgery in Birmingham, Alabama.

His daughter Monica once dated Seinfeld co-creator Larry David; David's first meeting with the writer was the basis for "The Jacket" episode of Seinfeld's second season.

Yates's first novel, Revolutionary Road, was a finalist for the National Book Award that year (alongside Walker Percy's The Moviegoer, which won, and Joseph Heller's Catch-22). Yates was championed by writers as diverse as Kurt Vonnegut, Dorothy Parker, William Styron, Tennessee Williams and John Cheever. Yates's brand of realism was a direct influence on writers such as Andre Dubus, Raymond Carver and Richard Ford.

For much of his life, Yates's work met almost universal critical acclaim, yet not one of his books sold over 12,000 copies in hardcover first edition. All of his novels were out of print in the years after his death, though his reputation has substantially increased posthumously and many of his novels have since been reissued in new editions. This current success can be largely traced to the influence of Stewart O'Nan's 1999 essay in the Boston Review, "The Lost World of Richard Yates: How the great writer of the Age of Anxiety disappeared from print".

With the revival of interest in Yates's life and work after his death, Blake Bailey published the first in-depth biography of Yates, A Tragic Honesty: The Life and Work of Richard Yates (2003). Film director Sam Mendes directed Revolutionary Road, a film reuniting the lead actors of Titanic, Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet(Mendes's then wife). It was released on 26 December 2008. The film was nominated for many film awards including BAFTAs, Golden Globes and Academy Awards. After Kate Winslet won her Golden Globe Best Actress Award for Revolutionary Road in 2009 she thanked Richard Yates for writing such a powerful novel and providing such a strong role for a woman.

Yates was also an acclaimed author of short stories. Despite this, only one of his short stories appeared in The New Yorker (after repeated rejections). This story, "The Canal," was published in the magazine nine years after the author's death to celebrate the 2001 release of The Collected Stories of Richard Yates.

    The works of Yates are as follows: Revolutionary Road (1961); Eleven Kinds of Loneliness (1962) (stories); A Special Providence (1969); Disturbing the Peace (1975); The Easter Parade (1976); A Good School (1978); Liars in Love (1981) (stories); Young Hearts Crying (1984); Cold Spring Harbor (1986); The Collected Stories Of Richard Yates (2001); Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules (2005) (the short story "Oh Joseph, I'm So Tired" appears in this anthology edited by David Sedaris)

2. Plot and Character Analysis:

In Eleven Kinds of Loneliness, Yates gives us exactly that, eleven stories, each of them dealing with the loneliness of an individual. The self-destructive Vincent Sabella, who had spent most of his life in some kind of orphanage. Sergeant Reece, the tyrannical Tennessean soldier who insists on doing his job. And Bob Prentice, the mediocre writer who sees himself as Ernest Hemingway or F. Scott-Fitzgerald, but who in reality is not much good at anything. Eleven Kinds of Loneliness is not Dubliners, but each of the stories is a gem, giving us insight into the emptiness of our own lives and people close to us and those we love. Richard Yates spares us nothing. He is a brave and truthful writer and in order to stay with him as a reader, you have to be prepared for the worst. As the book Eleven Kinds of Loneliness is a collection of stories. Here, I would like to issure each plot together with the characters:

1.         Doctor Jack-o'-lantern: It is a story between a warm-hearted teacher and an isolated child. The self-destructive Vincent Sabella, who had spent most of his life in some kind of orphanage, is not getting on well with his classmates. Every time when he was under attack, the teacher was ready to help him and console him. However, Vincent Sabella didn’t appreciate her kindness at all. Instead of being thankful to the teacher, the freaky Vincent who lies a lot, takes his uneasy and solitude as an assurd thing and bold with justice. He scrawled the naked portrait of the teacher on the wall and scribed the vulgar scold words beside the portrait. Compared with the twisty cognition of the child and the kindness of the teacher, we can see what twisty heart the child hold and what a man he is to be in the future.

2.         The Best of Everything: It’s about a man and a woman who are about to get married. The woman is hesitated at frist but late chosed him and hope to have a nice night before the day. But that night, the man is irritable and distressed. He can’t leave his dear friends who brought his travel bag which he hopes for so long a time. Instead of have fun with his lover, he spent the night with his buddies. This story shows not only one person’s loneliness but two.

3.         Jody Rolled The Bones: It’s about Sergeant Reece, the tyrannical Tennessean soldier who insists on doing his job. He does what a soldier should do and train the new soldiers with the same spirit. However, after he is transferred to other place, the soldiers again be as worse as before. The true soldier never regard as a “good soldier” and has no chance to be promoted. That is the loneliness the solider hold.

4.         No Pain Whatsoever: It is about a wife went to see her husband in the hospital. But the husband only focused on his books during the visiting time. And the friends who drived her here was so exciting playing. Compared with them, her loneliness is much more lonely.

5.         A Glutton for Punishment: Talks about young man swaying uneasily on the lower rungs of the career ladder. The man who lost his job but can’t tell the truth to his wife. Before he find a new job, he had to hang out here and there to kill the time, to be as if he still has work. It shows the loneliness of a man who can’t share the sadness with his wife and the helpless of him. It’s not easy to earn a life.

6.         A Wrestler with Sharks: About an ambitious but miserable young writer trapped in inappropriate jobs. He did as what he think is the best but not satisfied by others. Finaly he quit the job. He never be understood by others.

7.         Fun with a Stranger: A teacher cares much about the pupils but not accepted by the pupils.

8.         The B.A.R. Man: A postwar world of dissatisfied veterans, where people has forget the time they fight for their country. The veteran tells his stories as a rifleman but people seldom knows about that.

9.         A Really Good Jazz Piano: which shows two wealthy young Americans on the loose in Cannes, but they manage to be quite as flawed, deluded and internally impoverished as anyone else Yates turns his weary but steady gaze on. The shaping incident at the end of the story hinges on race and is so pitilessly and exactly observed.

10.     Out with the Old: This time we talk about the story of a group who lives in the patient court. In the eyes of their families, they are to be lonely there. However, to themselves, they are not lonely. They try to live dignity even in the patient court.

11.     Builders:It tells the tale of a young ambitious literary writer, obviously based on Yates himself, who takes on hack work knocking up "real life" stories on commission for a working class cab driver. The cab driver, Bernie Silver, writes the bare bones of his actual experiences as a cab driver, while the writer, Bob Prentice, fleshes them out as fully fledged stories.Bernie Silver comes up with the charming concept of the stories he commissions as being houses, with him as their "builder". Hence each house / story is attractively designed with windows, doors and the final dainty piece, the chimney top. In the end, the writer character of the story, Bob Prentice, takes on the building metaphor and gives the reader his own "chimney top", in this case his failed marriage to wife Joan.

Above all the eleven stories, I enjoy Doctor Jack-o'-lantern, Out with the Old and Builders very much. These three are especially unipue.

3. comment:

Eleven Kinds of Loneliness, it seems obvious that Yates was crafting his fiction along more conventional short story lines. These early stories were written originally as submissions for literary magazines and the like, over a ten year period. Often the reader can sense the tension between Yates's desire to write successfully for magazine publication and to follow his own natural writer's voice. Ironically enough, even though Yates was writing with a view to commercial success, Eleven Kinds of Loneliness only sold 2000 copies on first release. Some 500 copies were distributed to reviewers and as promotional freebies.

Where Yates jettisons the meticulous short story format, he gets the best results. The stand out example is the last story, Builders.Yates's stories may not be a bundle of laughs (though there is a grim humour in "Builders", the final story here, about a cab driver who hires a young writer to turn his experiences into fiction), but he can describe a world, and the state of mind it creates, so economically, so persuasively, that you stay your hand even as it reaches for the full bottle of paracetamol or opened razor. A man in a TB ward drafts a letter to his daughter, whom he has just discovered is now pregnant (and refusing to name the father): "Your old dad may not be good for much any more but he does know a thing or two about life and especially one important thing, and that is" - and here Yates steps in to say: "That was as far as the letter went." It is an excruciating moment, a joke and not a joke at all; also one would have expected nothing else.

"I'm grateful that I know a little more now about honesty in the use of words," says the narrator of "Builders". For all that the narrator may be at that point not quite as honest as he avers, this honest use of language is Yates's central concern, and the reason his stories are so fulfilling, so rich, even as they delineate their characters' internal poverty. I have perhaps not made these stories seem enticing, but I assure you they are: you may groan with second-hand despair as you read, but they are still the kind of stories you sneak off to read when you should be doing something else. That's how good they are.

The other stories in the collection, despite their careful, almost self-conscious structure, show the basic themes of Richard Yates's fiction in embryo. His characters struggle to cope with the modern world of business, education, friendship, work and marriage. The individual more often than not finds themselves drowning not waving on life's indifferent seas. American life demands so much success of its people, so much individualism, leaving empty, lonely failures as a result.

Eleven Kinds of Loneliness shows a young Richard Yates finding his own literary style. The structure and format of the stories seem somewhat dated and 1950s-ish, yet it is fascinating to detect the emergence of the more authentic Yates voice in many of his brilliant early characterisations.

Conclusion:

Every character let me into their little part of the world and showed their rawest and deepest emotion. As a writer, Yates honors his craft and I would suggest an aspiring writer to pick this up and learn from his work. Some of his stories had a profound effect on me.

The lonely person write about the loneliness; the hollow eyes see the illness of the whole world that era. At the very ending of Eleven Kinds of loneliness, Richard Yates shows us about the windows. Whether there’s a window or not, I have no idea. There may be sunshine from the tear workers left. Where is the window? Nobody knows only the God. This is not a window belong only to Yates, but to us all. This is a window of our heart. Is there a way for us to feel not so lonely? The answer may be yes. You may be alone, but you are not lonely if you let others live in your heart. Though you are afar from each other, you are alone but not lonely.

To put it simply: you must read this book. It is the most depressing, uplifting, poignant, ironic book I've read. That may seem like a contradiction in terms, but if you've read the book, you know what I'm talking about. And the original one is better if you can get one.

The Great Gatsby

Why did you choose this particular book? Typical reasons might be:

First, I have heard about the author Fitzgerald before, “angel of the twenties”. He succeeded then because his first novel caught the tone of the age----how the American idealistic outlook, the “American dream” contradicted with the contemporary reality. And he was once praised “the poet laureate of the Jazz Age” because he devoted most of his writings to that age until his death. So I am curious about his masterpiece.

    Second, before I decided to choose this book, I had researched for some information about it. I know the success of The Great Gatsby lies partly in the fact that it can be read in different ways. On the one hand, it is possible to be read simply as a love story. On the other hand, the novel may be taken as a piece of social satire. In addition, the book can also be read as an investigation about how American lost their spiritual purpose as material success wiped out spiritual goals. I think such kind of book can be quite worth reading.

    Third, a friend of mine has read this book before and she recommends it.

    Fourth, The Great Gatsby is on the required reading list provided by my teacher.

The Great Gatsby

Abstract：

    The Great Gatsby is a novel set in 1920s, which is about the “American Dream”. The failure of the “American Dream” is inevitable. In the book, Gatsby is not great; his nick name “Great Gatsby” is just an irony. Indeed, he is just a materially wealthy man who is indulged in pursing his own beautiful “dream” every day. Also, the means of artistic expressions are very superb and exquisite, such as symbolization which is well explained in the book review.

Key word:

    The “American Dream”, “Great Gatsby”, purse, love, illusion, symbolization

The Great Gatsby

1. Brief Introduction of F. Scott Fitzgerald

    Fitzgerald was the most representative novelist of the 1920s. He was both a leading participant in the typically frivolous, carefree, moneymaking life of the decade and, at the same time, a detached observer of it. Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Fitzgerald was the only son of a socially prominent and genteelly poor family. With the financial aid of relatives he entered Prince University in 1913. In 1917 he left before graduating to serve in the U.S. Army in Alabama, where he became engaged to Zelda Sayre an embodiment of all his romantic notions of a southern Belle. After his discharge from the army in 1919, he took a job with an advertising agency and worked on short stories and a novel at night. Eventually his first novel, This Side of Paradise was accepted for publication and appeared in March 1920. It was an instant success and brought Fitzgerald fame and wealth. In the same year Fitzgerald and Zelda Sayre were married. The couple plunged into the gaudy, wealthy society of their generation. They lived so extravagantly that they frequently spent more money than Fitzgerald earned. In order to earn more money, Fitzgerald continued to write. In 1922 he published his second novel. The Beautiful and Damned, and a collection of short stories, Tales of the Jazz Age. In 1925, Fitzgerald managed to complete The Great Gatsby. It was a critical success but a commercial failure. His next novel, Tender Is the Night was received coldly mainly because America was deep in the Great Depression and nobody wanted to read about expatriate in France. Battered by the failure of the book and Zelda’s mental breakdown, he drank to excess and grew seriously ill. He died in 1940, with his last novel, The Last Tycoon, unfinished.

2. Plot

    The Great Gatsby recounts the rise and fall of Jay Gatsby, who was a poor youth from the Midwest. He falls in love with Daisy, a wealthy girl, but is too poor to marry her. The girl is then married to a rich young man, Tom Buchanan. Determined to win his lost love back, Gatsby engages himself in bootlegging and other “shabby” activities, thus earning enough money to buy a magnificent imitation French villa. There he spreads dazzling parties every weekend in the hope of alluring the Buchanans to come. They finally come and Gatsby meets Daisy again, only to find that the woman before him is not quite the ideal love of his dreams. A sense of loss and disillusionment comes over him. Then Daisy kills a woman who is her husband’s mistress in an accident, and Tom misleads Myrtle’s heartbroken husband George, implying that the accident was Gatsby’s fault, though it is not clear if Tom did so intentionally. In a fit of blinding vengeance, Gatsby is consequently shot by George Wilson; Wilson commits suicide immediately afterwards.

3. Character Analysis

Nick Carraway: Nick provides the voice of the novel, documenting his companions exploits in the summer of 1922. Being raised in a wealthy middle-western family, Nick graduates from New Haven, the college he attended with Tom Buchanan. After serving in World War I, Nick---at the age of 29---moves east to learn the bond business, and becomes involved with the affairs comprising The Great Gatsby. Eventually, Nick acts as a liaison between Gatsby and Daisy, setting up the infamous first reunion at his house. Despite repeatedly insisting that he prides himself on his own honesty, Nick continually aligns himself with next-door-neighbor Gatsby---whose entire existence is a fabrication---remaining loyal to his friend throughout the second half of the novel.

Jay Gatsby: The invented identity of James Gats, born the son of poor middle-western farmers, Gatsby “sprang from his Platonic conception of himself”. Gatsby’s beginnings occurred when the 17-year-old Gats---a clam digger and salmon fisher---sees millionaire Dan Cody’s yacht drop anchor on a dangerous stretch of Lake Superior. After rowing out to Cody on a borrowed row-boat and warning him that a coming wind might wreck his yacht, Cody employs Jay Gatsby in a “vague personal capacity” for several years. Later, Gatsby says he worked in the drugstore and oil businesses, omitting the fact that he was involved in illegal bootlegging. Gatsby keeps his criminal activities mysterious throughout the novel, preferring to play the role of perpetually gracious host. Gatsby buys his West Egg mansion with the sole intention of being across the bay from Daisy Buchanan’s green light at the end of her dock, a fantasy which becomes Gatsby’s personal version of the American Dream. With an Oxford education as part of his invented persona, Gatsby ceaselessly uses his favorite phrase, “Old sport,” throughout the novel.

Gatsby is naïve, impractical and over sentimental. He is a representative of American young people before the war---ambitious, high spirited and filled with fantastic dreams. He succeeds in getting money. He does become rich, extremely rich, but he fails in realizing the “American Dream”. He is too persistent, too simple-minded, so at last he loses everything. He is ridiculously rich, but he can never live up to the magnificent role he has created for himself---He is “Mr. nobody from nowhere”. His suit is cheap-looking, but his manners are nervous and overly elaborated. He is the last of the great romantics. He is extremely idealistic. On the one hand, he is charmingly innocent enough to believe that the past can be recovered; on the other hand, Gatsby is sinister because of his criminal activities, because he is tragically convinced of the power of money and has depended too much on the power of money. Gatsby’s fate is sealed by his innocence. Thus, despite all his wealth, just as his car sweep Myrtle down without notice, the carelessness, the hardness of Daisy and Tom can easily destroy him. This is strongly implied by the simultaneous death of Gatsby and Wilson---fellow victims of the same tragedy. Gatsby is not great; his nick-name “Great Gatsby” is just an irony. Actually, Gatsby, as the author himself had realized, never truly belonged in the life of American’s wealthy class, which he both longed for and mistrusted. He wanted to have the appearance of belonging to the upper class, believing that the appearance would give him the freedom to rebuild his life as he wished. However, he found that wealth altered people’s characters, making them mean and destructive. Money brought only tragedy and remorse.

Tom Buchanan: An ex-football star from the same college Nick Carraway attended, Tom is described as “one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterwards savours of anti-climax”. Now thirty, Tom has become enormously wealthy, yet remains physically powerful with his “cruel body” and “arrogant eyes”. Tom has a string of affairs despite being married to Daisy, and is involved with Myrtle Wilson throughout Nick’s summer-long friendship with the Buchanans. As an aggressive, short-tempered man, Tom wreaks continual havoc by abusing---physically or emotionally--- Daisy, Myrtle, George Wilson, and Gatsby throughout the novel.

Daisy Buchanan: Daisy is Tom’s 23-year-old wife, Nick’s second cousin once removed, and Gatsby’s version of the Holy Grail. Nick comments repeatedly on Daisy’s voice, first describing it as “the kind of voice that ear follows up and down as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again,” and later calling it “a deathless song”. Yet, her voice becomes silenced as Gatsby and Tom’s battle for her preference---rather than choosing one or the other outright she acts helpless, seeming to ultimately remain with Tom because it is the easiest thing to do. In addition, she never acknowledges that she, not Gatsby, was driving when Myrtle was killed. As Nick characterizes both Buchanans, “The were careless people, Tom and Daisy---they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made”.

For Gatsby, who is from a lower social class, Daisy’s character contains a darker, less attractive side. She is selfish. She is careless about others. In her world, she herself is always the center. Indeed she is morally destructive because she is irresponsible and acts without conscience. Therefore, her physical attractiveness, with its empty promise, is merely a trick. And Gatsby is caught, or trapped in her spell. Daisy indeed is more of a witch than a fairy. Her magic has an evil influence. It destroys and kills.

Jordan Baker: Jordan, a 23-year-old woman’s golf champion, becomes involved with Nick during the course of the summer of 1922. Jordan seems “incurably dishonest,” a trait enhanced by Nick’s remembrance of a rumor that she cheated at her first big golf tournament. Although Nick finds Jordan haughty and careless, he finds himself attracted to her anyway. At the end of the novel, Jordan gets engaged to another man after not seeing Nick for a short time, leaving Nick angry, yet still “half in love with her, and tremendously sorry”. Jordan’s action seems to intentionally echo Daisy’s leaving Gatsby to marry Tom five years earlier.

George Wilson: Wilson owns the car repair garage in the valley of ashes, where he and his wife, Myrtle, live. For most of the novel Wilson is unaware that his wife has been cheating on him, prompting Tom Buchanan to remark, “He’s so dumb he doesn’t know he’s alive”. After finding out Myrtle’s infidelities, Wilson becomes physically ill and determines to move her out west; his illness turns mental, however, once she gets run over by Gatsby’s car. The formerly reserved Wilson seeks crazed vengeance for her death and his own pride, ultimately killing Gatsby and himself.

Myrtle Wilson: Myrtle is George Wilson’s wife, and Tom Buchanan’s secret lover. A woman in her mid-thirties, Myrtle is “faintly stout, but she carried her surplus flesh sensuously as some women can”. Although she apparently detests her husband, her lover, Tom, abuses her, breaking her nose during their drunken escapade in New York City. Locked in her room by George after her infidelities are found out, she escapes into the night, only to be run over by Daisy driving Gatsby’s car. Her death prompts George Wilson to undertake his bloody “holocaust”.

Meyer Wolfshiem: A fifty-year-old gambler, with a history of having fixed the 1919 World Series, Wolfshiem is one of Jay Gatsby’s shadiest associates. Nick leaves the relationship between the two men vague, although when he goes to see Wolfshiem the morning of Gatsby’s funeral, the old man tells Nick he raised Gatsby “up out of nothing, right out of the gutter”. Despite their former partnership---most likely in the business of stolen bonds---Wolfshiem twice declines Nick’s invitation to attend Gatsby’s funeral, stating he “can’t get mixed up in it”.

Owl Eyes: This is a minor character who only makes three brief appearances in The Great Gatsby: at the first Gatsby party which Nick attends; second, as a passenger in the car missing one wheel outside Gatsby’s that same night; and finally, as the only person---aside from Nick and Gatsby’s father---in attendance during Gatsby’s burial.

4. Comment:

The Great Gatsby tells a story about a millionaire Gatsby who pursues an “American Dream” which turns out to be disillusioned, and discloses the tragedy of American society in that era.

The love story between Gatsby and Daisy originally can be very ordinary, but the author F. Scott Fitzgerald is intelligent enough to compare the girl Gatsby loves to the symbol of youth, money, and status, to compares her as an impulse of pursuing rich, material life which can be called the “American Dream”. In order to get Daisy back to his arm, Gatsby exhausts all his emotion, intelligence, finally even his life. He naively believes that he can get his love back and live a life as before with Daisy as long as he owns a lot of money. Regrettably, Gatsby is totally wrong. He misreads Daisy who is actually a vulgar and superficial woman, misreads the society which seems extravagant and full of happiness, but indeed void and boring. He lives in his illusion all day until he is eventually abandoned by Daisy, his so-called friends and the society, which is an irredeemable tragedy.

Gatsby is a typical American youth in 1920s, whose experiences are exactly a portrayal of “The Jazz Age”. The author designs a “second protagonist” Nick Carraway in the novel. His importance is not inferior to the protagonist Gatsby in many ways, because Carraway is not only a narrator and commenter in the story, but also an important character. He has countless ties with both sides in the fiction. He is Gatsby’s neighbor and friend, Daisy’s cousin, Tom’s classmate, Jordan’s boyfriend. He helps Gatsby and Daisy have a date with each other, criticizes about Gatsby’s reviving old dream and has sympathy for Gatsby’s death. Although Carraway lives in luxurious residential district, he is neither one of the citizens whom Tom stands for nor people living in fanciful world which Gatsby represents for. He has just criticism both for illusioned Gatsby and vulgar Tom and Daisy, defending traditional concepts and moral standards in Midwest in U.S. After Gatsby’s death, guests in former days never emerge, even Daisy goes far away with her husband, so Nick points out straight from the shoulder that the society is so hypocritical and heartless, making readers have a deep impression about the inevitable cracking of Gatsby’s “American Dream”.

Fitzgerald uses the first person to tell story as if all the things happens in the book is what Nick sees and hears himself, without any decoration. It makes the story much more believable. Gatsby and Nick’s relationship is from strangers to acquaintances. They are emotionally distant as well as close, having both similarities and differences. It is the author’s unique artistic achievement to unify different views perfectly in one novel, endowing the work with profound connotations Jogos Dora and rigorous structure. Also, there are abundant, vivid metaphors in the book, which adds lyric element to the characters’ emotional ups and downs and the changes of scenes. Good metaphors are often used for creating fantastic atmosphere or express spiritual inanity. For example, Nick visits Tom’s for the first time, sees Daisy and her friend Baker lying in couch “two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon”, latter “ballooned slowly to the floor”.

Symbolization is well applied in the book to reveal characters’ inner minds and deepen the themes of the novel. Take “green light” for example. Located at the end of the Buchanans’ dock, this green light represents Gatsby’s ultimate aspiration: to win Daisy’s love. Nick’s first vision of Gatsby is of his neighbor’s trembling arms stretched out toward the green light. Later, after Daisy and Gatsby’s successful reunion, a mist conceals the green light, visibly affecting Gatsby. Nick observes, “Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever…Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one”. This image suggests Gatsby realizes he must face the reality of Daisy rather than the ideal he created for her. Another example is eyes of Dr. T. J. Eckleburg. These gigantic blue eyes without a face look out at the valley of ashes from behind a pair of yellow eyeglasses. This billboard advertisement---which provides its eternal presence looming above the ash-heaps---takes on added significance in Chapter 8, as a grief stricken George Wilson refers to it as God. While looking at the giant eyes after Myrtle’s death Wilson reveals he had taken his wife to the window just before she died and told her, “God knows what you’ve been doing. dora You may fool me but you can’t fool God! ...God sees everything”. Thus, the desolation of the valley of ashes may be seen in Fitzgerald’s image of an abandoned billboard serving as Wilson’s provider of solace and ultimate judge of morality. Following a central theme of modernism, this new God watches over his paradise which has been reduced to ash-heaps by modern man.

The name of this book is “The Great Gatsby”, but I don’t think Gatsby is great. I would rather call Gatsby an illusion catcher rather than regard him as a dream pursuer. First of all, Daisy isn’t worthy of being a dream to pursue. She is a vulgar and wordy girl who devoted only to money and wealth. She shifts her heart to money as flexibly as a sunflower adjusts its direction to the sun. As to Gatsby, he knows who Daisy is but he sticks to his fantasy that Daisy is definitely his dream.Juegos Dora Yet what Gatsby pursues is the pure daisy while what he actually catches is the incarnation of materialism. Consequently, Gatsby’s tragedy is inevitable. From my point of view, Gatsby makes a mistake in the identification of dream. Moreover, when Gatsby finds out that it’s the illusion that he’s catching not the dream that he’s pursuing, he makes up his mind to go on rather than to stop for contemplation over his life direction. Just as he says in the book: “She married you because I was poor.” “Her voice was full of money.” Upon common sense, when we unveiled the bad essence of a person, we are likely to turn our back against him. But as to Gatsby, when he found the materialism and hypocrisy in Daisy, he even sacrificed himself in the protection of this ungrateful woman. In my perspective, devastating oneself for an unworthy person can never prove its greatness but unworthiness. In conclusion, I don’t think Gatsby is great because he makes an inappropriate identification of dream and sacrifices himself for an illusion.

Conclusion:

The Great Gatsby, subtle in its artist design and rich in feeling, is still one of the classics of modern American literature. In the book, the author Fitzgerald states the failure of hopes and dreams, the failure of the “American Dream” in “The Jazz Age” is unavoidable, not only because reality cannot keep up with ideals, but also because the ideals are in any cases too fantastic to be realized.