THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA——BOOK REPORT

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

I like Hemingway and his books especially The Old Man and The Sea. The old fisherman is so brave and his spirit of the sentence “A man can be destroyed but not defeated” is so well. So I choose this book

一 Title

Abstract：

The Old Man and the Sea tells the frustrated experience that the old fisherman fishes in the course. The theme is deep, and it is a song of praise of heroism. “But man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated” has been the classic saying and the old man also has been the most typical and the most representative of the Hemingway’s “tough guy”. When Hemingway talked about the successful factors later, the little boy was mentioned in the same breath with the old man. This paper starts with the details and it is divided into two main parts to discuss the indispensable roles of the little boy in the novel. It is him who helps to perform the theme of “grace under pressure”: during 40 days, the old man with the little boy went to fish but without taking a fish, when his situation was getting worse step by step, the little boy’s leaving was the heavy pressure that achieved the extreme stern for certain. However , it was so “heavy pressure” that his manner was graceful when the old man faced afterwards defeat and his optimistic, generous life attitude was worthy tasting by people carefully; it is him who plays the role of leading, inspiring to the readers, and increasing the appeal of the work, enriching the content of the work: although the little boy appears only at the beginning and the ending in the novel, there is nothing in his inner state but the old man, so his attitude and emotions towards the old man affects the readers’ emotions for the old man quietly and gradually. And it is unavoidable that his inner feeling leads and impacts the readers’ emotions.

Terse words, vivid images, copious emotions and profound thoughts were the outstanding features of The Old Man and the Sea. The novella was one of Hemingway’s masterpieces, which solidly confirmed the renown of him and made him one of the most influential writers in American history.

In this novel, two opposites existing side by side depended on each other and were unified, namely, Hemingway created the delightful characters and plots. On the other hand, he created tragic ambience in the whole novel. People could find the plot of tragedy from the old man. At the same time, they could also feel the inspiring strength from him; the big marlin lived in the Gulf Stream, a place far away from the old man, but it was doomed to be a tragedy when the old man went far out. It fought against the old man for three days and nights which was also inspiring.

This thesis has analyzed the old man and the big marlin separately to demonstrate that they contained both delightful and tragic facets, which brought about the novel’s success and novelty. The combination of the two facets was the soul of the whole story and gave the novel oneness.

Key word:

Code hero; pressure; grace; a set of values; undefeated; the little boy; the old man; grace under pressure; The Old Man and the Sea

二 Title

1. A brief introduction to Hemingway, Ernest

1899–1961, American novelist and short-story writer, b. Oak Park, Ill. one of the great American writers of the 20th century

Life

The son of a country doctor, Hemingway worked as a reporter for the Kansas City Star after graduating from high school in 1917. During World War I he served as an ambulance driver in France and in the Italian infantry and was wounded just before his 19th birthday. Later, while working in Paris as a correspondent for the Toronto Star, he became involved with the expatriate literary and artistic circle surrounding Gertrude Stein. During the Spanish Civil War, Hemingway served as a correspondent on the loyalist side. He fought in World War II and then settled in Cuba in 1945. In 1954, Hemingway was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. After his expulsion from Cuba by the Castro regime, he moved to Idaho. He was increasingly plagued by ill health and mental problems, and in July, 1961, he committed suicide by shooting himself.

Work

Hemingway’s fiction usually focuses on people living essential, dangerous lives—soldiers, fishermen, athletes, bullfighters—who meet the pain and difficulty of their existence with stoic courage. His celebrated literary style, influenced by Ezra Pound and Gertrude Stein, is direct, terse, and often monotonous, yet particularly suited to his elemental subject matter. Hemingway’s books are Three Stories and Ten Poems (1923), In Our Time (short stories, 1924), and The Torrents of Spring (a novel, 1926), attracted attention primarily because of his literary style. With the publication of The Sun Also Rises (1926), he was recognized as the spokesman of the “lost generation” (so called by Gertrude Stein). The novel concerns a group of psychologically bruised, disillusioned expatriates living in postwar Paris, who take psychic refuge in such immediate physical activities as eating, drinking, traveling, brawling, and lovemaking. His next important novel, A Farewell to Arms (1929), tells of a tragic wartime love affair between an ambulance driver and an English nurse. Hemingway also published such volumes of short stories as Men without Women (1927) and Winner Take Nothing (1933), as well as The Fifth Column, a play. His First Forty-nine Stories (1938) includes such famous short stories as “The Killers,” “The Undefeated,” and “The Snows of Kilimanjaro.” Hemingway’s nonfiction works, Death in the Afternoon (1932), about bullfighting, and Green Hills of Africa (1935), about big-game hunting, glorify virility, bravery, and the virtue of a primal challenge to life. From his experience in the Spanish Civil War came Hemingway’s great novel, For Whom the Bell Tolls (1940), which, in detailing an incident in the war, argues for human brotherhood. His novella “The Old Man and the Sea” celebrates the indomitable courage of an aged Cuban fisherman. Among Hemingway’s other works are the novels To Have and Have Not (1937) and Across the River and into the Trees (1950); he also edited an anthology of stories, Men at War (1942).Posthumous publications include A Moveable Feast (1964), a memoir of Paris in the 1920s; the novels Islands in the Stream (1970) and True at First Light (1999), a safari saga begun in 1954 and edited by his son Patrick; and The Nick Adams Stories (1972), a collection that includes previously unpublished pieces.

His awards:

During his lifetime, he was awarded with Silver Medal of Military Valor in World War I Pulitzer Prize in 1953 (for The Old Man and the Sea) Nobel Prize in literature in 1954 (also partly for The Old Man and the Sea). In 2001, two of his books, The Sun Also Rises and A Farewell to Arms, would be named to the list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century by the editorial board of the American Modern Library.

A simple version

The Hemingway code heroes and grace under pressure: They have seen the cold world, and for one cause, they boldly and courageously face the reality. They have an indestructible spirit for his optimistic view of life. Whatever is the result is, they are ready to live with grace under pressure. No matter how tragic the ending is, they will never be defeated. Finally, they will be prevailing because of their indestructible spirit and courage.

The iceberg technique:

Hemingway believes that a good writer does not need to reveal every detail of a character or action. The one-eighth that is presented will suggest all other meaningful dimensions of the story. Thus, Hemingway’s language is symbolic and suggestive.

2. Plot：

The old man and the sea "is no complicated plot of the story, it's being able to become a give a person with aesthetic feeling works of art, literature lies in the" multi-layer Hemingway confirm sex: is a foundation of works of art, and in the novel can be put to use. Just as he once said: "I am trying to model a real fish and real shark. If we can make them shaping excellently real, they will mean a lot. "Any a great work of art, its main dyke wager sun can be simply summarize. In the novel, he adopted various symbol, image, making the novel connotation heavy and complicated, full of rich subject.

Failure theme

Failure is most important in life creating Hemingway's theme. From his first film "we of The Times to the islands of current appeared posthumously, his hero are valiant struggle, but inevitably fail. "The old man and the sea" in the old man is such a fight loser. He works with Hemingway other similar characters and same, it is in the life the sea and doom indomitable struggle, finally ended in failure. He was a failure, but his failure completely different from that no goal, no price, meaningless failure because he was in consciously pursuit and finish his “born to dry” mission of failed, is in maintenance and defends their dignity "and" glorious "of failed. He failed, but it is only the physical strength and failure, his faith and hope but never burst he failed, yet he did not yield to failure. This in and failure in the struggle of failure only makes him mentally victorious; in the "towards failure of poise on" the victory. This is Hemingway to celebrate "butch" spirit, It is a kind of the human spirit, namely person mentally is indestructible and obtain good guarantee for the future. This is what works to express a theme - "person to bravely face failure."

3. Character Analysis：

The old man was optimistic. He still talked about the baseball and went to the Terrace to drink and chat though he was in a bad situation at that time. He used the lie to deal with the poor life. He still met the first sunshine every morning and went to fish on the sea no matter what the result was. He did not live on fishing, but fishing had already become part of his life and part of his memory. This was a true man, living, being tolerant to everything-- derision, solitude and even the leaving of the boy.

The old man was confident. His rich experience and skill of fishing acquired day by day made him confident. He believed that he would hook a big fish. He even wished to meet a group of fish which had lost their way. He left the sea shore and began his heroic voyage on the eighty fifth day.

The old man was patient. The fish which stayed in the 600 foot under the sea was clever. The fish under the quiet surface was competing with the patience against the old man and struggling against the old man as if this was the last moment of the peaceful world. The old man was enduring the danger bought by the fish. Moreover, he was enduring hunger, exhaustion, fatigue, hurt and loneliness. He was overcoming the fish. Moreover, he was overcoming himself. “Fish”, he said softly, aloud, “I'll stay with you until I am dead.”(Hemingway, 37) Life, at this time, was not a wager, but contending.

4. Comment:

Hemingway's story began by depicting the interaction between the two primary characters as they prepared their fishing gear for the following day near a Gulf Stream harbor in 1940’s. The opening profile was Santiago, the “old man” in the title, and the character throughout the story. He was a Cuban fisherman, described as being old in every way except his eyes, which “were the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated”（Hemingway, 4）. Although Santiago had not caught a fish for eighty-four days, he ignored the jeers and pity of other fishermen, and returned to the sea in his skiff day after day. Santiago's attitude seemed to be that although he was faced with tragedy -- as everyone was sooner or later in life -- he would not cease struggling. Relying on memories of his youth, news of the Great DiMaggio's recovery from injury, and thoughts of the boy, Santiago had the courage to resolutely go on taking pains throughout the story. By struggling against a big marlin for three days and nights, he finally killed it. But several groups of sharks frequently attacked the dead marlin on the way. He did not take the whole of it back at last but just its head, tail and the whole spine.  

This novel has been studied by so many people and given different perspectives as follows: Iceberg Theory Embodied in The Old Man and the Sea: “One eighths of an iceberg is above the water, while seven eighths is underneath the water. Profound levels of meaning and strong emotions will not enchant you until you dive into the water”.

Analysis on Metaphor Used in the Novel: “Ernest Hemingway employed metaphors. In the novels that Ernest Hemingway wrote, he used metaphors to reflect his life experiences and opinions. He believed that in life everyone must find their own niche and used the metaphor of the ocean and the boats on it to demonstrate this”

 The Role of Mandolin and His Relationship with Santiago:” Conversations between Santiago and Mandolin were added to the beginning and the end of the fishing tale. The conversational frame established a relationship between Mandolin and Santiago which let the old man complete his significant exploration and return with marlin carcass”. The Old Man Was the Incarnation of Christ:“ The old man had experienced two processes of being nailed by the crucifix. These plots showed he had no difference with that of Christ” Analysis of Heroism Reflected in The Old Man and the Sea:“ He hooked a big marlin. This was one of his successes. He drove away the sharks from time to time on his way home even though his fish was almost eaten up by the sharks. This was his second success-- the success in spirit”. Studies about these aspects mentioned above were really deep and comprehensive. They gave a lot of references to readers and helped them with comprehension this novel. The opinions were reasonable, receivable and valuable. However, few people have talked about the tragic ambience blended harmoniously in this novel. They had even ignored one thing-- everything has double characters. This novel was actually a combination of the tragic and delightful facet. The characters in the story contained the two aspects which were oppositions in logic, but unity seen from the whole story. So this thesis will give the novel new soul and provide another way of appreciating it to millions of readers.

5. Conclusion:                         

The old unlucky poor man-- Santiago had a tragic fate, but, at the same time, he was a winner who could not be defeated. When his big fish was eaten up by the sharks, he asked himself: “‘what beat you?' ------' Nothing,' he said aloud, ' I went out too far' (Hemingway, 92) ". The old man admitted his failure bravely. But he still believed his strength absolutely. He believed that he was still courageous although he was lost, and he believed that he was not defeated by the sharks in spirit because what had been exterminated was the sharks, not him. Then he finished the surplus work calmly.

The big fish could live happily in the deep ocean originally but it was killed by the old man although it struggled for many days. It could not escape this kind of fate. This was the tragedy for it. However, Hemingway showed its beauty and dignity during the whole process by describing its firmness and intelligence. It was nearly eaten up by the sharks after it was killed. But it’s beautiful backbone surprised people. Hemingway combined its tragedy and noble quality together to form the complete fish.

According to the author's experiences, he had experienced a lot and made contribution to his country. In this sense, he was also a hero. However, he was defeated by the pain of the illness. His health was worsening day by day. He finally shot himself to end this pain. In this novella, the author put his own image onto the old man-- Santiago. He described Santiago's tragedy, but emphasized that a man could be destroyed, but could not be defeated. He said Santiago was a success in spirit, which was also the way he used to deal with his own fate.

6. Famous remark:

1. Man is not made for defeat. A man can be destroyed but not defeated.

2. Man is not much beside the great birds and beasts.

3. Pain does not matter to a man.

4. Every day is a new day. It is better to be lucky. But I would rather be exact. Then when luck comes you are ready.

5. But, then, nothing is easy.

6. The clouds over the land now rose like mountains and the coast was only a long green line with the gray blue hills behind it. The water was a dark blue now, so dark that it was almost purple.

7. Now is no time to think of what you do not have. Think of what you can do with what there is. 

8. It is silly not to hope, he thought.

9. But none of these scars were fresh. They were as old as erosions in a fishless desert. Everything about him was old except his eyes and they were the same color as the sea and were cheerful and undefeated.

10. They were strange shoulders, still powerful although very old, and the neck was still strong too and the creases did not show so much when the old man was asleep and his head fallen forward.

11. His shirt had been patched so many times that it was like the sail and the patches were faded to many different shades by the sun.

The Demise of American Dream

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

1. You like the author.

2. You like this type of book (i.e. mystery, western, adventure or romance, etc.).

3. Someone recommended the book to you.

4. It was on a required reading list.

5. You liked the cover.

The Great Gatsby is a standard text in high school and university courses on American literature in countries around the world, ranked second in the Modern Library's lists of the 100 Best Novels of the 20th Century, “the first step that American fiction has taken since Henry James, because Fitzgerald depicted the extolled grandest and most boisterous, reckless and merry-making scene” commented by T．S．Elliot. All these enchanting achievements and compliments increasingly drive me to The Great Gatsby, so much so that I directly rule out any other option.

For another, I’m obsessed with American dream which is deeply rooted in American history. For over centuries, American dream has changed gradually in accordance with the varying backdrops. Earlier, I’ve dabbled into An American Tragedy, Sister Carrie, etc., aware of the phenomenon of so-called demise of American dream. I desire to go deeper about how American dreams are doomed and how life is predetermined.

Armed with the above two missions, I commence journeying in The Great Gatsby.

The Demise of American Dream

[Abstract] Compared to the entire glorious civilization, the American capitalist society in the 1920s was extremely ruthless, hypocritical and deformed. The Great Gatsby, the finest novel written by the renowned American writer, Fitzgerald, is a vivid example in point to repudiate and satirize that very Jazz Age. Gatsby, born humble, kept dreaming throughout his life. In the pursuit of his dream of fortune and dream of love, he paid a disastrous price, pathetically cut off in the flower of youth at the hands of the upper class.

By analyzing 5 major characters and Gatsby’s two dreams, this essay will try to convey that Gatsby is the victim of that corrupted capitalist society and his tragedy mirrors the demise of American dream.

 [Key words] Fitzgerald, Gatsby, character, the demise of American dream

Brief Introduction to F. Scott Fitzgerald 

F. Scott Fitzgerald (September 24, 1896 – December 21, 1940), an American author of novels and short stories, is widely judged to be a member of the "Lost Generation" and one of the greatest American writers of the 20th century. In his vivid and graceful works, he revealed the stridency of an age (Jazz Age) of glittering innocence, portrayed the hollowness of the American worship of riches and the unending American dream of love, splendor, and fulfilled desires.

Born into a fairly well-to-do family in St. Paul, Miniesota, in 1896, F. Scott Fitzgerald attended but never graduated form Princeton University. Here he mingled with monied classes from the eastern seaboard who so obsessed him for the rest of his life. In 1917, he was drafted to serve in World War I. He spent much of his time writing and rewriting his first novel, This Side of Paradise, which published in 1920, became an immediate commercial success. A week later, he married the beautiful Zelda Sayre, an embodiment of romantic notions of Southern Belle.

Together they embarked on a rich life of endless parties. Dividing their time between America and fashionable resorts in Europe, the Fitzgeralds became as famous for their lifestyle as for the novels he wrote. He once said, “Sometimes I don’t know whether Zelda and I are real or whether we are characters in one of my novels”.

Yet somehow he managed to continue writing and published his second novel The Beautiful and Damned in 1922 and The Vegetable (From Postman to President) in 1923. His masterpiece The Great Gatsby, came out in 1925, was met with excellent reviews, with T. S. Eliot being among the first to comment on the book, calling it “the first step that American fiction has taken since Henry James”. It was also at this time that Fitzgerald wrote many of his short stories (Tales of the Jazz Age in 1922) which helped to pay for his extravagant lifestyle.

The bubble burst in the 1930s when Zelda became increasingly troubled by mental illness. Tender is the Night (1934) which showed the pain he felt was not well received in America. For the final three years of his life, he turned to script-writing in Hollywood when he wrote the autobiographical essays collected posthumously in The Crack-Up and his unfinished novel, The Last Tycoon. On December 21, 1940, he died at the age forty-four.

1.     Setting

The Great Gatsby chronicles an era that Fitzgerald himself dubbed the "Jazz Age". It refers to a period of time after World War I, beginning with the Roaring Twenties and ending in the 1930s with the beginning of the Great Depression.

After the misery of World War I and the flu epidemic, American society enjoyed unprecedented levels of prosperity during the "roaring" 1920s as the economy soared. Individuals were so exuberant to be alive that hedonism started to prevail and creep towards every corner. Just as Fitzgerald once put it, “All the gods have been dead, all the wars finished, and all the values about humanity has been completely shaken”. The Age witnessed unrestrained materialism, appalling selfishness and lack of morality, scented with corruption.

At the same time, it was also a period of Probation that banned the sale and manufacture of alcoholic drinks. Mandated by the Eighteenth Amendment, it made millionaires out of bootleggers and led to an increase in organized crime. Gatsby is the example in point.

3. Plot^[1]

Young Nick Carraway, the First-person narrator, decided to forsake the hardware business of his family in Middle West in order to "learn the bond business" in New York City. In 1922, he rented a low-cost cottage located in West Egg on Long Island. Across the bay was East Egg, inhabited by the "old aristocracy", including Tom Buchanan and Daisy (his second cousin). At a dinner party at the house of Tom Buchanan, he renewed his acquaintance with Tom, his wife, Daisy and met an attractive female golfer, a friend of Daisy's, Jordan Baker form whom he leaned Tom’s infidelity.

One day Tom took Nick to call on his mistress, Myrtle Wilson, the wife of George Wilson, an owner of a second-rate auto repair shop. Nick accompanied Tom and Myrtle to their Manhattan love-nest. Nick didn’t leave the party thrown by the couple until Tom broke Myrtle’s nose for only speaking Daisy's name.

After receiving an invitation from Gatsby, his wealthy and mysterious neighbor with no lack of contradictory rumor, Nick attended the lavish party given by Gatsby. For the first time, Nick met Gatsby, young and personal. An odd yet close friendship between Nick and Gatsby begins.

Nick became increasingly confused when Gatsby disclosed a seemingly far-fetched version of his upbringing and introduced an underworld figure Meyer Wolfsheim to him. It’s Jordan Baker that eventually revealed to Nick that Gatsby was holding these parties in hope that Daisy, his former love who deserted poor and unknown Gatsby for rich and influential Tom, would visit by chance. Nick promised to arrange an "accidental" meeting between Daisy and Gatsby. The reunion was initially awkward but Gatsby and Daisy began a love affair, so did Nick and Jordan.

At the Plaza Hotel in New York, Tom accused Gatsby of trying to steal his wife and also of being dishonest as a criminal bootlegger. Gatsby defended himself and urged Daisy to say she never loved Tom. During their argument, Daisy sided with both men by turns.

On the ride back to the suburbs, Daisy insisted on driving home along with Gatsby in his yellow car, followed by Tom, Nick and Jordan. All of a sudden, Myrtle ran outside of the garage as Gatsby's roadster approached (believing it to be Tom), only to be hit and killed by the car while Daisy and Gatsby speeded away. Later Tom, Jordan and Nick noticed the car accident. Tom led Wilson into a private place and preemptively convinced Wilson that the yellow car was not his but Gatsby’s because they switched cars earlier in the day and that Myrtle was having an affair with Gatsby.

By this point, Nick has abandoned his role as an outsider observing Gatsby's life and instead become his close friend. When Nick found out about the truth of the accident, he advised Gatsby to run away for a week but the latter refused for his illusion of Daisy’s love. Having tracked the owner of the roadster through Tom, Wilson murdered Gatsby before committing suicide while Tom was packing for an escape trip with Daisy.

Despite the best of Nick's efforts to make Gatsby’s funeral respectable, still few people only three attended it. After severing connections with Jordan and a brief run-in with Tom, Nick returned permanently to the Midwest, reflecting on Gatsby's desire to recapture the past.

4. Character Analyses ^[2]

Without characters, there would be no plot and, hence, no story. Hence, the character development is the key element in a novel’s creation, and character analysis is crucial to understanding the novel. Therefore, major characters will be elaborately analyzed.

Nick Carraway (a bond salesman from the Midwest, a World War I veteran, and a resident of West Egg): He is not only a narrator but an outsider and a witness, bearing close relationships with many characters, Gatsby's next-door neighbor, Daisy’s cousin and Jordon’s lover. Nick represents the lower classes of the society who also strives for the American dream. Initially he is obsessed with the legendarily glamorous parties at Gatsby’s Long Island mansion and attracted to the wealthy New York where life pace is fast. Gradually by witnessing hypocrisy, indifference, selfishness and greediness, especially shown in the death of Myrtle Wilson, the arrangement of a small funeral for Gatsby, he finds out that in the process of self-fulfillment, the once civilized and rational East has become a spiritual wasteland, a quality of distortion. It’s best exemplified throughout the book by Nick’s romantic affair with Jordan Baker, firstly attracted by her vivacity and sophistication, increasingly repelled by her dishonesty and her lack of consideration for other people, eventually severing connections with her peacefully and returns to wholesomely.

He is the only three-dimensional character, an aspiration for mental maturity, as well as an embodiment of traditional virtues.

Jay Gatsby (originally James Gatz): Originally from North Dakota, Jay Gatsby, a typical upstart after the World War I, is a sensitive young man who idolizes wealth and luxury. He falls in love with a charming lady from a decent family, Daisy, who later marries to the affluent Tom for material security. He convinces himself that the change of Daisy gets bogged down to his meager economic condition. As a result, he spares no efforts to accumulate his wealth by hook or crook and then throws extraordinary parties every week in an attempt to draw Daisy’s attention. He has ordered his whole life around the desire to be reunited with Daisy whom he shuns every shortcoming of and idolizes a great deal. He never dwells on that his American dream has been distorted and turns out to be unworthy. Although he can tell Daisy, “Her voice is full of money”, he blindly lingers in the illusion and protects Daisy at the risk of losing anything, including his life. Consequently, his steadfast loyalty to love contributes to the demise of himself and his dreams.

Just as Nick tells him, "They're [Daisy, Tom, Jordan] a rotten crowd. You're worth the whole damn bunch put together", Jay Gatsby is one of the best among characters in the novel despite his role of a criminal bootlegger.

Daisy Buchanan née Fay（Nick's second cousin, once removed; and the wife of Tom Buchanan）：As a representative lady of the upper class, she is undeniably attractive but severely shallow, self-centered and selfish. Although she once does love Gatsby since she even “packed her bag one winter night to go to New York and said good-by to a soldier who was gone overseas”, dominated by her vanity and sophistication she eventually deserted Gatsby and married Tom, a young man from an aristocratic family who promises her a wealthy lifestyle. However, partly due to her husband’s constant infidelity, the material and sensual desire still fails to help her impoverished mind. Later mainly mesmerized by Gatsby’s affluence, she is willing to become his secret lover soon. When Tom reveals the illegal origin of Gatsby’s wealth, she beats a retreat from by saying “I never loved Tom” with perceptible reluctance to “I did love him once- but I loved you too”. She just couldn’t lose the comfortable and luxury life with Tom though this life is boring but gives her a feeling of safety.

Her irresponsibility and hypocrisy is completely manifested at the end of the story. When she drives over Myrtle, she doesn’t even stop and conspires with Tom to make Gatsby take the fall. Then she and Tom moves away, leaving no address but Gatsby’s demise of his dream and himself.

Doubtlessly, Daisy is the utmost idealized quintessence in Gatsby’s blind eyes and an epitome of hedonism which only centers on money first and materialism.

Tom Buchanan (a millionaire on East Egg and Daisy's husband): He is the prototype of those who squanders their money accumulated by their ancestors and constantly flaunts wealth to parade his superiority. He delights in the affairs with Myrtle but forbids his wife’s unfaithful behavior. He is thoroughly aware of Daisy’s nature and makes full use of it. He confronts Gatsby’s illegality to Daisy, thus wins a definite victory. But he doesn’t stop. His conspiration with Daisy puts Gatsby on the track of demise.

He represents the typical ethic in the early 20^th century in America, display of fortune without restraint, irresponsibility to the family, addiction to spree, total possesion of women, and diabolicalness.

Just as Fitzgerald described, “They 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 mass they had made…”

Jordan Baker (Daisy's long-time friend, Nick’s lover): She is selfish, irresponsible, dishonest and shares the same value on money with Tom and Daisy. She even cheats in the golf playoff, intolerant of being disadvantaged. Due to her severely peccable personality, she is deserted by sensible Nick.

Her role is more of another narrator who completes Nick’s part but also provides responding information from various perspectives, facilitating the development of the fiction. 

5. Comments^[3]

The "American dream" has been deeply rooted in America. Firstly, it referred to Puritan’s yearning for religious freedom, later, evolved into the pursuit of happiness, especially success during the process of pioneering the New World and The West. With the progress of industrialization and gradual emergence of metropolitans, the "American dream" was specialized into the only aspiration of money. It’s also in this era that the American society witnessed its moral corruption. The Great Gatsby is a vivid example of disillusionment of the "American dream" after the First World War. Gatsby has been dreaming through his whole life. He’d rather die in his dreams than wake up and come back to reality.

Dream of fortune: When the World War II broke up，Gatsby was dispatched to the Europe frontline. Five years later, he returned in glory, only to find Daisy married to Tom for the sake of money. However, hope never eluded him for he held steadfastly that Daisy sooner or later, would reunite with him as long as he granted her a luxurious life. Consequently, he amassed money through illegal ways such as bootlegging alcohol and gambling to become an upstart overnight.

Making a great fortune is one of Gatsby’s American dreams, shown since as a young boy, “he had a lot of brain power” in his head and “always had some resolves like this or something”. What obsessed him a great deal with Daisy firstly lied in Daisy’s grand mansion, white limo and well-to-do life. Fully convinced that wealth maintained youth, mystery and even Daisy’s love, he made all-out efforts to pretend to be descent, showed off imported shirts to Daisy and threw legendarily glamorous parties. But they failed to win Daisy back, for the power of money was limited. Pathetic enough was that he didn’t realize no matter how much money he possessed, he was destined to be an outsider, an inferior upstart in the view of the aristocracy.

Dream of love: For Gatsby, Daisy was the green light that shone his prospect. Innocent enough, he fancied Daisy’s heart was as beautiful as her appearance and she stuck to love as he did. Therefore, he blamed himself for Daisy’s marriage to Tom and dreamed to buy back her love. Dominated by his weave of the dream, he successfully persuaded himself that his dream had already come true by the reunion with Daisy.

In his heart, the upper class meant paradise, encompassing all the beauty and colorfulness. So was Daisy, the angle of his genuine happiness, the incarnation of idealized dream. He shunned all her disadvantages so much so that his illusion surpassed her and everything. On the contrary, Daisy was merely shallow, irresponsible and selfish. She flirted with Gatsby out of boredom and thrill. Poor Gatsby! He didn’t figured out that “They 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 mass they had made…” When Gatsby “first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock, he had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He didn’t know that his dream was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.”

Gatsby’s dream of love and his dream of fortune are closely connected to each other. His dream of love was based on his dream of fortune. How came that Gatsby would fall in love with Daisy if she was penniless? On the other hand, his dream of fortune served as an indispensible means to realize his dream of love, therefore he plunged himself to restlessly collecting money by hook or crook. The irreconcilable conflict between his way to purse love and his ideal for love determined the eventual disillusion of his dreams and even the demise of himself.

Gatsby’s is the victim who paid so high a price for his American Dream. Upon death, he still didn’t understand his American dream which once depended on individual efforts had been already gone with the wind in that rotten Jazz Age. He wasn’t aware that what he pursued so hard couldn’t be realized for the lack of pragmatic and realistic conditions.

Conclusion:

Fitzgerald’s the Great Gatsby is really worth mulling over. It not only contributes to being a paragon of the Great American Novel, but also witnesses the total decline of American society at Jazz Age. In conclusion, the Great Gatsby achieves an undeniable glory whether in literature field or in the conveying of the demise of American dream.

Revolt or Surrender

Summary

Uncle Tom, a slave on the Shelby plantation, is loved by his owners, their son, and every slave on the property. He lives contentedly with his wife and children in their own cabin until Mr. Shelby, deeply in debt to a slave trader named Haley, agrees to sell Tom and Harry, the child of his wife's servant Eliza. Tom is devastated but vows that he will not run away, as he believes that to do so would plunge his master so far into debt that he would be forced to sell every slave.

Just before Tom is taken away, Mrs. Shelby promises him that she will buy him back as soon as she can gather the funds. Tom is sold to Haley, who eventually sells him to a kindly master named Mr. St. Clare.

  Eliza, however, cannot bear to part with her son and escapes the night before he is to be taken from her. She escapes successfully and makes her way to a Quaker village, with a family that harbors slaves. There, she is reunited with her husband George, who lived on a neighboring plantation and has also escaped to flee his master's cruelty. The couple and their son spend a night with the Quaker family before returning to the Underground Railroad.

Tom befriends his new master and especially his young daughter Eva, who shares Tom's deep religious faith and devotion. Eva abhors cruelty and eventually is so overcome with grief over slavery that when she becomes ill, she accepts her impending death peacefully and tells her family and their servants that she is happy knowing that she is going to heaven, where such cruelty does not exist. St. Clare begins to confront the realization that he believes slavery is evil, and he promises Tom that he will fill out forms guaranteeing his freedom in the event of St. Clare's death.

Shortly after Eva dies, her father dies tragically in an accident, and Tom's fate is left entirely in the hands of Marie, St. Clare's selfish and unsympathetic wife. Marie decides to move back to her parents' estate and to sell all the slaves, despite Miss Ophelia's exhortation that Marie should fulfill St. Clare's promise to give Tom his freedom. Marie refuses, and just before he is sold, he writes a letter to the Shelbys (with the help of Mr. Legree) telling them his plight and asking for their help. The letter goes unanswered, and Tom ends up in the hands of Simon Legree, an evil and bitter plantation owner whose philosophy is to work his slaves hard and replace them when they inevitably die just a few years later.

On Legree's plantation, Tom meets two fellow slaves, Emmeline and Cassy. Emmeline is a young mulatto woman sold to Legree at the same time as Tom, and she attempts to befriend the embittered Cassy, who has suffered at the hands of Legree for several years. Cassy has seen her children sold and is so destitute that Tom's pleas that she put her faith and trust in God fall on deaf ears. Legree soon comes to hate Tom after Tom refuses to beat and discipline the other slaves. Legree had planned to turn Tom into a brutal overseer, and when he realizes that Tom will not participate in cruelty, he becomes enraged and takes out his wrath on Tom. Tom becomes discouraged until he has a vision of heaven one night as he is drifting off to sleep. The vision reinvigorates him, and he decides it is his mission to suffer for the other slaves. He regularly fills their cotton baskets at the expense of his own, gives them his food and water, and reads the Bible to them.

Tom's acts of kindness enrage Legree, and when Emmeline and Cassy escape, he demands that Tom tell him everything he knows. Tom admits that he knew of their plans to escape and is aware of their whereabouts, but he refuses to disclose where they are. Legree beats Tom so severely that after a few days, he dies.

Cassy and Emmeline eventually escape, and they happen to wind up on the same northern-bound ferry as George Shelby, who is rooming next to a woman named Madame de Thoux. Through conversation, it is discovered that Eliza Harris is Cassy's daughter, and George Harris is Madame de Thoux's brother. Cassy and Madame de Thoux journey together to Canada, where they are reunited with their family. Madame de Thoux reveals that her husband has left her a large inheritance, and they all move to France together, where George is educated. The family then relocates to Africa, and Cassy's long-lost son, who has been traced, joins them. Topsy moves with Miss Ophelia to New England, then moves to Africa to work as a missionary. George Shelby gives all the servants on the Shelby farm their freedom, and tells them to be Christians and to think of Tom.

Brief introduction of the writer

Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811-1896), American writer and philanthropist, best-known for the anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1851-52). The book was quickly translated into 37 languages and it sold in five years over half a million copies in the United States.

Harriet Beecher Stowe was born on June 14, 1811, in Litchfield, Connecticut, and brought up with puritanical strictness. She had one sister and six brothers. Her father, Lyman Beecher, was a controversial Calvinist preacher. Stowe's mother died when she was four. When she was eleven years old, she entered the seminary at Hartford, Connecticut, kept by her elder sister. Four years later she was employed as assistant teacher.

In 1834 Stowe began her literary career when she won a prize contest of the Western Monthly Magazine, and soon she was a regular contributor of stories and essays. Her first book, The Mayflower, appeared in 1843.

In 1836 Stowe married Calvin E. Stowe, a professor at her father's theological seminary. The early years of their marriage were marked by poverty. Over the next 14 years Stowe had 7 children. In 1850 Calvin Stowe was offered a professorship at Bowdoin, and they moved to Brunswick, Maine. In Cincinnati Stowe had come in contact with fugitive slaves. She learned about life in the South from her own visits there and saw how cruel slavery was. These experiences led Stowe to compose her famous novel, which was first published in the anti-slavery newspaper The National Era and later in book form.

Stowe started to publish her writings in The Atlantic Monthly and later in the Independent and in Christian Union. In 1853, 1856, and 1859 Stowe made journeys to Europe and became friends with George Eliot, Elisabeth Barrett Browning, and Lady Byron. However, British public opinion turned against her when she charged Lord Byron with incestuous relations with his half-sister in Lady Byron Vindicated (1870).

Attacks on the veracity of her portrayal of the South led Stowe to publish The Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1853), in which she presented her source material. A second anti-slavery novel, Dred: A Tale of the Great Dismal Swamp (1856), told the story of a dramatic attempt at slave rebellion. Stowe's later works did not gain the same popularity as Uncle Tom's Cabin . She published novels, studies of social life, essays, and a small volume of religious poems. Pearl of Orr's Island (1862), Old-Town Folks (1869) and her last novel Poganuc People (1878) were partly based on her husband's childhood reminiscences and are among the first examples of local color writing in New England.

Stowe's mental faculties failed in 1888, two years after the death of her husband. She died on July 1, 1896 in Hartford, Connecticut.

Main characters of the story

The main characters in this story are Uncle Tom, Eliza and George Harris.

Uncle Tom is a pious, trustworthy, slave. He never wrongs anyone and always obeys his master. A very spiritual person, Uncle Tom tries his best to obey the Bible and to do what is right. Eliza is a beautiful slave owned by George Shelby, Sr., the same person who initially owns Tom. Eliza has a son, Harry. Eliza's husband, George Harris, lives on a nearby plantation. George is a brilliant man, and invented a machine that was used in the factory he works in. His owner became jealous and demoted George from his factory job to doing hard labor on the plantation. Setting: These stories takes place throughout the states of Kentucky and Mississippi in the year 1891 in the Plantations and fields and workshops are were the slaves work mostly in sunny and good working conditions.

Chapters 1-5 because his Kentucky plantation was overwhelmed by debt, George Shelby, Sr. makes plans to trade some slaves to a slave dealer named Haley in exchange for debts being canceled. The dealer selects Uncle Tom as payment for the debt. While the two are discussing the possible transaction, Eliza's son, Harry, comes rushing into the room. Haley decides he wants to take Harry also, but Shelby refuses to part with the child. Eliza, overhearing part of the conversation, is frightened and confides her fears to her husband, George Harris. The fact that George's owner is mistreating him, combined with a possible sale of his son persuades George to begin planning to run away. After inferring from an overheard conversation between Mrs. Shelby and Mr. Shelby that they are indeed going to sell Harry and Uncle Tom, Eliza warns Tom and she runs away.

Chapters 6-15 Eliza is able to cross the Ohio River and get to a safe place before Haley's two hired slave-catchers can catch up with her. Although he was warned, Uncle Tom stays on the plantation, leaving it up to God to protect him. At the same time, George Harris begins his escape. Disguised as a Spaniard, George takes his time finding a route on the Underground Railroad. He just happens to go to the same place where Eliza and Harry are being hidden. The family is finally united at a Quaker Settlement. Uncle Tom, meanwhile, is on a boat en route to New Orleans. After gallantly saving the life of young Eva St. Clare, he is rewarded by being bought by her father, Augustine. Augustine is married to a selfish woman who claims to be sick and takes no interest in her daughter. So it is on his return trip from Maine where he has picked up his cousin Ophelia who will care for Eva that Augustine buys Tom.

Chapters 16-30 Unused to Southern customs and slavery, Ophelia tries to bring order to the St. Claire plantation, but the pampered slaves do not cooperate. Eva, who has always been frail, was dying and asks her father to free his slaves. After her death, Augustine was making plans to free the slaves when he was killed while breaking up a fight. Mrs. St. Clare had no intentions of freeing any slaves and had Uncle Tom sold at an auction to a brutal plantation owner named Simon Legree.

Chapters 31-40 For weeks, Uncle Tom tries in vain to please his new master. Legree has enough of Tom's good heartedness after Tom was ordered to beat another female slave and refused. For this show of abstinence, Tom was beaten until he fainted. A slave woman named Cassy helps treat Tom's wounds and afterwards went to Legree's apartment to torment him. Legree is superstitious and believes that Cassy would cast an evil spell on him, and as a result, he was afraid of her. Haunting by the guilty secrets, Legree drinks until he falls asleep. Soon, Cassy along with another slave, Emmeline, run away from the plantation. Convinced that Tom knows something about it, Legree again has him beat until he can't speak or stand.

Chapters 41-45 Two days later, George Shelby, Jr. arrives at Legree's plantation to buy Tom back, but it is too late. Uncle Tom is dying, and at his death, Shelby Jr. determines to free all his slaves. He then helps Cassy and Emmeline escape. Later, on a river boat headed north, they meet Madame de Thoux whom they find out is George Harris' sister. Upon discussing this, they also discover that Cassy is Eliza's mother. The two women go to Canada where Eliza, George and Harry had settled. Finally, the family is united. Uncle Tom's Cabin helped to turn the tide of public opinion against slavery in the 19th century. After View: This controversial novel was initially written to question slavery and to convince people of its wrongness. It was the first book that brought the problem of Negro slavery in America to the attention of the world. It became not only a bestseller, but a social documentary of the lives of slaves. While living in Ohio just across the river from slave holding Kentucky, Harriet Beecher Stowe had a first hand view of terrified runaway slaves and cruel bounty hunters. After moving back to New England, she decided to write a book about what she had seen. At one point she said, My heart was bursting with the anguish excited by the cruelty and injustice our nation was showing to the slave, and praying God to let me do a little and cause my cry for them to be heard.1 Mrs. Stowe's cry was heard very loudly in her book that criticized slavery and counted slavery as a national sin. She hoped her novel would bring slavery to a quick and peaceful end, however it only increased northern hostility towards the South.

Straight matter

My first reaction to this book is that it was based much more on religion than I had imagined it to be. As I expected, Stowe's main purpose of the book was to nakedly expose the institution of slavery to America and the rest of the world with the hopes that something would be done about it. To achieve this purpose, she showed us individual instances of slavery in a country that prided itself on its Christianity and its laws protecting freedom. She showed us how absurd slavery is "beneath the shadow of American laws and the shadow of the cross of Christ."

I was also surprised at the various kinds of relationships between whites and blacks of the South. We learn that not all whites were bad and not all blacks were good, but that there were quite a mixture of characters and relationships. That was strength of the book. It's not a melodrama, but shows an evil institution which allows both good and evil and all those in between to exist under it, and how this institution affects the individuals. Legree's plantation, for instance, corrupted anyone who came there. But the reader understands that it is the system that allows this which is the root of the problem, and that, by the way is a North/South problem, not just a Southern problem. She specifically calls on the North at the end of the book to ask them if they can live with the institution of slavery in their country and still call themselves Christians, a wise move.

One of the most memorable characters was, of course, Eva. Stowe was able to give her a true, simple, child's voice which spoke unadulterated truth about the relations and happenings around her:

"Poor old Prue's child was all that she had,--and yet she had to hear it crying, and she couldn't help it! Papa, these poor creatures love their children as much as you do me. O! do something for them! There's poor Mammy loves her children have seen her cry when she talked about them. And Tom loves his children; and it's dreadful, papa, that such things are happening, all the time!"

You can't help but say, "Oh, my god, she's right you know!" Eva's is a powerful voice in this book. But Eva's Jesus-like gathering of the slaves before she died was a bit much in its reference to Jesus. How old was Eva?  Are these the words of a little kid?

"I sent for you all, my dear friends," said Eva, "because I love you. I love you all; and I have something to say to you, which I want you always to remember . . . . I am going to leave you. In a few more weeks, you will see me no more--"

The character Eva seemed to be an innocent child telling her family and the world about how she saw slavery which exposed a lot of its evils. But when she turned into a mini Jesus and preached to the slaves before her death as Jesus had preached the disciples before his death, I felt the author had given to too great of a "jump into maturity " to be believable, unless the short life of Eva was really supposed to be a real miracle occurrences. Eva was powerful enough as a real character that looks at slavery from innocent eyes. Her transfiguration into a holy person at the end took some of her punch away.

As a Jesus-character, Tom transcends the book as a Christian hero. An interesting study would be a comparison of Tom and Jesus. One direct parallel, for instance, is the direct temptation that Legree put upon Tom to break him and make him give up his religion for Legree's "church." It parallels to the temptation of Jesus by Satan in the desert.

An important question asked throughout the book was "If we emancipate, are we willing to educate?" In her essay at the end, Stowe chides those white Americans who feel they are doing the slaves a favor by sending them back to Africa so that they can live in the supposedly free country of Liberia. She directly asks the reader, "Would you be willing to take a slave into your Christian home and educate him?" This question went right into every household in the North.

A short introduction at the beginning of my book asked the question whether or not it was "good literary style" for Stowe to talk directly to the reader in the book. I don't think Stowe was trying to create literary work of art other than would serve her purpose of communicating to the reader what exactly slavery was in America at that time. She wrote the book so that she could talk directly to the reader. It may not be good literary style but it reminds the reader that "this books for you."

If you want to look at this book in terms of an interesting piece of literature outside its social and political context, I don't think you have much to look at. The story itself is not interesting (the escape plan of Cassy was the high point), it's packed with religious dogma at every turn (borders on Puritan literature), and you don't see hardly any character development except perhaps for Augustine, but he is so wish washy that his conversion right before his death doesn't give you any insights into his character or human nature. This book is simply expository: it uncovers the institution of slavery. This is what makes the book riveting to read.

Stowe seems to have seen quite a number of individual incidents of slavery for her to be able to write powerful and moving scenes like this one in which the slave George gives Mr. Wilson, a former humane owner, the view of slavery in America from the slave's point of view. This speech by George was the most powerful in the book:

"See here, now, Mr. Wilson," said George, coming up and sitting himself determinately down in front of him; "look at me, now. Don't I sit before you, every way, just as much a man as you are? Look at my face,--look at my body," and the young man drew himself up proudly; "why am I not a man, as much as anybody? Well, Mr. Wilson, hear what I can tell you. I had a father--one of your Kentucky gentlemen--who didn't think enough of me to keep me from being sold with his dogs and horses, to satisfy the estate, when he died. I saw my mother put up at sheriff's sale, with her seven children. They were sold before her eyes, one by one, all to different masters; and I was the youngest. She came and kneeled down before old Mas'r, and begged him to buy her with me, that she might have at least one child with her; and he kicked her away with his heavy boot. I saw him do it; and the last that I heard was her moans and screams, when I was tied to his horse's neck, to be carried off to his place."

"Well, then?"

"My master traded with one of the men, and bought my oldest sister. She was a pious, good girl,--a member of the Baptist Church,--and as handsome as my poor mother had been. She was well brought up, and had good manners. At first, I was glad she was bought, for I had one friend near me. I was soon sorry for it. Sir, I have stood at the door and heard her whipped, when it seemed as if every blow cut into my naked heart, and I couldn't do anything to help her; and she was whipped, sir, for wanting to live a decent Christian life, such as your laws give no slave girl a right to live; and at last I saw her chained with a trader's gang, to be sent to market in Orleans,--sent there for nothing else but that,--and that's the last I know of her. Well, I grew up,--long years and years,--no father, no mother, no sister, not a living soul that cared for me more than a dog; nothing but whipping, scolding, starving. Why, sir, I've been so hungry that I have been glad to take the bones they threw to their dogs; and yet, when I was a little follow, and laid awake whole nights and cried, it wasn't the hunger, it wasn't the whipping, I cried for. No, sir; it was for my mother and my sisters.--It was because I hadn't a friend to love me on earth. I never knew what peace or comfort was. I never had a kind word spoken to me till I came to work in your factory. Mr. Wilson, you treated me well; you encouraged me to do well, and to learn to read and write, and to try to make something of myself; and God knows how grateful I am for it. Then, sir, I found my wife; you've seen her,--you know how beautiful she is. When I found she loved me, when I married her, I scarcely could believe I was alive, I was so happy; and, sir, she is as good as she is beautiful. But now what? Why, it now comes my master, takes me right away from my work, and my friends, and all I like, and grinds me down into the very dirt! Why? Because, he says, I forgot who I was; he says, to teach me that I am only a nigger! After all, and last of all, he comes between me and my wife, and says I shall give her up, and live with another woman. And all this laws give him power to do, in spite of God or man. Mr. Wilson, look at it! There isn't one of all these things, that have broken the hearts of my mother and my sister, and my wife and me, but your laws allow, and give every man power to do in Kentucky, and none can say to him, nay! Do you call these the laws of my country? Sir, I haven't any country, any more than I have any father. But I'm going to have one. I don't want anything of your country, except to be let alone,--to go peaceably out of it; and when I get to Canada, where the laws will own me and protect me, that shall be my country, and its laws I will obey. But if any man tries to stop me, let him take care, for I am desperate. I'll fight for my liberty to the last breath I breathe. You say your fathers did it; if it was right for them, it is right for me!"

Powerful! The realization that the slaves are in a country which just recently declared itself "free from oppression" makes the system utterly absurd and contradictory.

With the voice of Augustine, Stowe tells us what slavery is really:

This cursed business, accursed of God and man, what is it? Strip it of all its ornament, run it down to the root and nucleus of the whole, and what is it? Why, because my brother Quashy is ignorant and weak, and I am intelligent and strong,--because I know how, and can do it,--therefore, I may steal all he has, keep it, and give him only such and so much as suits my fancy. Whatever is too hard, to dirty, to disagreeable, for me, I may set Quashy to doing. Because I don't like work, Quashy shall work. Because the sun burns me, Quashy shall stay in the sun. Quashy shall earn the money, and I will spend it. Quashy shall lie down in every puddle, that I may walk over dry-shod. Quashy shall do my will and not his, all the days of his mortal life, and have such chance of getting to heaven, at last as I find convenient. This I take to be about what slavery is. I defy anybody on earth to read our slave-cod, as it stands in our lawny-books, and make anything else of it. Talk of the abuses of slavery! Humbug! The thing itself is the essence of all abuse!

In painting the United States as the land of freedom or God's country, you cannot forget about slavery. What was it doing in the land of freedom? What was it doing in a country that prided itself in its application to the teachings of the Bible? Slavery's social and political ramifications reach us even today. It is in America's history and its roots. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin is a must read for Americans so that we do not forget.