Rereading The Great Gatsby?

Why read a book you have already read? I guess it is because the first time someone reads a book it pays no attention to it. For example, when I read a chapter I have to reread it about two more times because the first time I never get the enough information. The first time you pass over the lines of the book as if they where useless  information from the book, you only care about the outline of the story, without caring what the insight of it is. The second time, You get more out of it, You get to read more about things like why did Gatsby died? instead of only knowing Gatsby fell in love with Daisy. The Third time you get almost all of it, so instead of only knowing Gatsby died because he killed someone's wife with his car, you get to know that Gatsby killed Myrtle Wilson, wife of George Wilson that was the owner of a Run- out auto shop on his garage on the Valley of ashes, that afterwards took revenge against Gatsby by shooting him. 

Sonya Chung, Author of the article The Great Gatsby Revisited, has reread this book about three times in her entire life time and she says that rereading a book its important and that "It’s like I’m a born-again rereader, experiencing a new how a first read can be as different from a second read or a third read as reading two completely different works."

 It is very important to reread books, because you get to notice thing such as the different symbols and in depth story inside a literary piece. Chung for example discovered 5 new aspects about The Great Gatsby, that she had never noticed before, until she had read it for the third time. This Five main aspects are:

1. How the Great Gatsby is not a novel about the north East Elite, I agree with her because personally I think that the high class Elite, was represented by the Green Light that Gatsby wanted to obtain or wanted to get to. She says how the book is about us and not the rich people over there, that may mean that it is about the people that don't have all the luxuries those people had but stand on the other side looking at their green light, hoping someday we will get there. 

2. Ching notice how Fitzgerald used his sentences to capture the reader's attention more and more, by making them profound and with meaning. Not the simple phrase of Gatsby loved Daisy, but using mire romantic ones like for example when it talks about their love when they lived on the camp site, when he was a soldier and she was just a normal girl. I think this is right, because Fitzgerald, when read carefully, gives the reader a total new experience of how this two people really related.

3. She also talks about the importance of something as simple of Daisy's voice on the story and how this relates to her relationship with Gatsby. When someone reads this book one time, he or she can only get he loved her voice, read it twice and you get how he was in love with her voice because it was like the one of a goddess, but when read a third time you may encounter how Gatsby was totally in love with her voice because it was like the sound of something like a "arrangement of notes that will never be played again". You may notice the significance has totally changed when read various times. 

4. Chung also remarks how Fitzgerald exploits the significance of the car with many meanings such as "Who’s driving which car and why convincingly fuels (literally) Gatsby’s inevitable demise, Tom and Daisy’s flight, and Nick’s final revulsion towards the excesses of Eastern privilege.".

5. She finally makes a remark on the characters on the movie of this book. She talks about how, after rereading the book, she noticed that the cast of the movie was nothing like the real characters presented on The Great Gatsby, because rereading gave her a more profound look at the characters insight, appearance and personality.

Rereading a book is really important for the better understanding of a piece of literature such as The Great Gatsby because with this tool we can really get to analyze and enjoy the true meanings of books like this one.

Gabriela

Chaucer's Tale

Welcome back to the Oprha's show, Tonight I will be interviewing one of the world's best authors, but I will let him introduce himself

Hello sir what is your name?

My name is one with great Delight and Rhyme 

It is a great name which is my great prime

Geoffrey Chaucer

Thats great very interesting name in this modern times. I already read your great book the Canterbury Tales which are on sale and have been on sale for a long while now on any near bookstore. Tell me Mr. Chaucer, which one is your favorite tale?

It is difficult to decide for one

My tales have great delights and a great Tone

But if I had to choose for one I think 

It is like picking a great fruit drink

My only pick would be the great Knight's Tale

Because it's the only one that exhale

Wow Mr. that is really poetic, (Chaucer, amen) I see you take a good time watching and analyzing your own piece of literature which demonstrates passion which makes me want to ask how long did it took you to do this book?

It took sometime to have this piece finished

I once thought it would end up unfinished 

But hard work helped me get it all just done

Because hard work is the only home run

Well said Mr. Chaucer, I can imagine that all that great and hard work needed someone helping you do it, which ones where your inspirations?

My wife and Kids, my friends. my gin and grin

Happiness meant almost my life and skin

Inspiration came like a huge snowball 

which gave me force to carry on with all

That is very sweet of you, inspiration can have great effects on people and think of it, where would great artists be without it? Thank-you once again Mr. Chaucer for joining us today and thank-you to the viewers for watching today's show, next week expect amazement because we will be having the visit of the one and only Shakespeare. Bye everyone love you!!!!

Ophra 

xoxo

Gabriela 

The Pardoner's Tale

This is the last great tale our travelers share during this trip that has left us very valuable lessons. In this one, the lesson is about greediness, and how Human Kind can choose money over life. Hoe many times have you given out someones trust for a something you wanted?

During this story three drunk guys decided to kill someone. Through the years alcohol  has showed its effect on society's morals. That is not the point on the story, because while looking they found a strange guy who told them the location of a bag of gold, and when they found it, greediness took over them. Maybe you prefer to kill you friends to win some more money and at the end with what are you left with? nothing. Does money brings happiness or comfort? although society has taken a long time to discover this, money is not all. You enjoy spending without any pleasure or to be with friends spending it in something that everyone will enjoy? PEOPLE OF THE WORLD MONEY DOESN'T MATTER!.

This story basically talks about this greed will never take us somewhere, because the true meaning of life relays on those who truly love you and respect you.

Gabriela

Going Through The Road Of Good And Evil

The Road, by McCarthy is a story in which human kind has gone to its darker side. During pages 100 through 150 we see how the boy and the father have to face a new human being that leaves all decency behind, and becomes a monster that would do anything for survival.

In this story we see the creation of two groups, the good and the bad bad guys. Good guys represented by the boy and the man, are the ones that would rather starve than leave the little humanity they still have after the catastrophic events that lead to the end of human society as we know it. The bad guys, are those who leave morality on the side, creating confusion and fear between one another, and preventing human race to recover from this tragic event.

The good guys, or this two brave people not only survive and maintain their morals no matter how hungry they are, but they also are able to help they do although they may fight about it. An example of this is the scene of the old man when the boy and the man have the following conversation,
"He was just hungry, Papa. He's going to die.
He's going to die anyway.
He's so scared, Papa.
The man squatted and looked at him. I'm scared, he said. Do you understand? I'm scared.
The boy didn't answer. He just sat there with his head down, sobbing.
You're not the one who has to worry about everything.
The boy said something but he couldn't understand him. What? He said.
He looked up, his wet and grimy face. Yes I am, he said. I am the one." 
At the end helping the old man was the answer because in a world turned into ashes we only have one another.

Is it maybe that all the ashes named on the story where created by human mistakes? maybe the author is trying to tell us how we where the bad guys all along and how all our daily actions are converting this world in the piece of land full of ashes and bodies that The Road shows us. Global Warming and war are driving us into that world of destruction in which animals and people are no longer distinguished. Something as normal as calling a friend a really bad name is causing humanity inside each of us to decrease more and more.

Surviving is the excuse for this people to eat between one and other and to kill others like if they where only miserable animals. Is Surviving an excuse? as economics has showed us, there is a substitute for almost everything and this is not the excuse. McCarthy is showing us how we can survive without leaving our morals to the side by his two main character the boy and the man. Maybe this lesson is not only useful in catastrophic events such as the one described in the book, but maybe we can use this new teaching in our daily life. There is always a way to survive a fight or a broken heart without leaving our morals. An example is the book by Meg Cabot The Mediator in which a girl kills herself just because her boyfriend left her. Life always has other options and those options are almost always in favor of decency and dignity.

Never forgetting our humanity is what will give this world another chance to become the Utopia we want it to be.

Gabriela

Existentialism On The Road

Why is it that this man, our main character, needs the little boy to know there is something to live for? Philosophers all over the world have deciphered that any person need another Human Being to know they are alive, because the other are the ones that confirm your existence.

The man in this history prefers to die of hunger before living the kid go to bed without eating. Through out the story the kid and the man have various fights about why the both should eat or why the kid should eat instead of the man. Another example of their bond is this man's wife, which leaves him because he already has the boy. Human kind needs someone else to know they are alive and that there is something worth living for. Why live while dying when you can die and be happy? because there is another human being that needs you to protect him and be part of his or her life, as you need someone to protect you.  Everyone needs somebody to take care of and to be taken care of, everyone needs to know why life is worth living and fighting for and that is why humans need another human being.

At various point of the book, the man shows the boy how much he needs him by telling him things such as "Listen to me, he said, when your dreams are of some world that never was or some world that never will be, and you're happy again, then you'll have given up. Do you understand? And you can't give up, I won't let you." (McCarthy, The Road) With this the man shows how he needs the boy, another human being to know there is hope of surviving the terrible world they now live in.

For who are you willing to live?

Gabriela

A Road Of Ashes

The Road by Cormac McCarthy, is not another sad novel. This is a story in which strength, will and love are the keys of real survival, without leaving aside your morals and the morals of society. During the whole story the two main characters have to fight against various obstacles which hold them from their goal, south.

"Guiding the cart on the curves with their bodies in the manner of bobsledder. It was the first he'd seen the boy smile"(pg 19) Happiness was something taken from this world in which human kind had became something totally different of what it is today, or is it that this book represents the road human kind is heading too? Maybe our world already became this place full of ashes and death bodies all over. We see the different news on TV or the newspapers, in which groups like the FARC or even criminal juvenile organizations kill other people, whether it is directly or by what here in Colombia is called a "Bala Perdida".

In this book we see how the author constantly talks about the ashes. This may be because they are a symbol of the destruction human kind causes. Global Warming, Illegal groups, Black arm market, Drugs and many other things that human kind does to make this world a place full of ashes. McCarthy through his first 5o pages is showing the reader how we through every daily action make our world be better or be burned and turned into ashes. Is there someone to blame about this? The government, the country, the neighbor or why don't we simply blame ourselves and try to change so that this world can become the place we ant it to be.

Human kind has a long way to travel before knowing that we are actually taking care of our planet Earth.

Gabriela

Dying While Your Living

The Raven by Edgar Allan Poe, is a poem which uses symbolism to illustrate the authors feelings. The raven, is the typical black bird everyone sees on the cemeteries and funerals. In movies we relate this bird with someone's death as soon as we see it. In this poem the raven is not used to symbolize somebody's death but it represents death itself.

During the whole poem the main character talks about the different ways in which his life has been miserable, and with this he asks the raven the questions he need to ask before going to another world, and the raven just answers never more. With this words "raven said nevermore" we not only see a symbol of how the other world may look like a paradise for who is dying, but its also a way to attract the readers attention by repeating the sounds of the letters E and N making it sound more rhythmical, technique that helps the reader stay focused on the poem. An example of this form of literacy is when the  main character asks the Raven to tell him if "Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”

Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.” (Poe, The Raven). 

Death is something human kind has feared since the beginning of times, but is it that death is another beginning, maybe we will be better on another life in which suffering is not part of our daily living and happiness is a rule. In the last years philosophers have said that "life is dying, every birthday, every day, every month and every year means you are getting closer to your death, but while you are death its life, because you know that one is never going to end".

Religion has also interfered in what it has to be said about this phenomena that happens to everyone. Buddhist believe in rebirth and ending up in a social class depending on what you did in your last life. Christians believe ing god and think that when you die you will be by his side, and although people deny the existence of ghost many people think they are part of our daily living.

In this poem our author thinks that death means going to another life, a life where you will be better and things like a broken heart will just be a forgotten memory. Now a question you have to ask yourself is what do you think happens after you die?

Gabriela

The Ugly And The Pretty

After the Prologue the story of the Wife of Bath is finally told. Once again this women shows her point by telling the tale of another great Knight that has become a women's servant. Here the author has once again showed his point of all travelers to be the same in power and in will.

In power, this story has shown how even king Arthur had to redeem someone else's life because of his wife. Women has won its place on society by working hard and showing what we are capable of. Is it beauty that has taken us this long? Is it that we are smarter than men? or is it that at the end development has made us grow and notice the benefits of equality?. Having both sides of the story is very important, because in a decision, for example in a company, having a women and a man knowing whats better not only for both of them but for everybody, will create the world that everyone wants to see.

In this story, the knight was saved by a 2 women, but still he was sad to marry the second one, an ugly and very unattractive person. Why is women qualified by beauty? Why are we looked by our looks and not by our minds? In this story the knight learns that his new spouse can be as faithful and loving as any women can be although she is not as pretty, because what it matter its the inside and not the level of cuteness. Women and men are equally smart and must be seen equal, because thats the only way this world can really progress.

Gabriela

The Reason Why The Tale Is Interesting

The wife of bath, is another story told by one of the travelers in which for the first time on this novel we see a women talking about her way to see life. As all of them, this is a love story with a different ending. The author is showing us through this women's side, the other part of what love means. In the past tales, we have only heard what men had to say about this strange and wonderful feeling, but now it is the turn to hear the other part of what it may be the true meaning of love.

Biside a welle, Jhesus, God and man,
                Beside a well, Jesus, God and man,
16       Spak in repreeve of the Samaritan:
                Spoke in reproof of the Samaritan:
17       `Thou hast yhad fyve housbondes,' quod he,
                `Thou hast had five husbands,' he said,
18       `And that ilke man that now hath thee
                `And that same man that now has thee
19       Is noght thyn housbonde,' thus seyde he certeyn.
                Is not thy husband,' thus he said certainly.


This is how Chaucer presents our new character and one of the reasons she has bee wedded 5 times, but the significance of this story goes beyond the religious side to become a mater of equality and women's power.

Through the years, man kind has approved only one definition of this emotion with the common phrase "The love a man has for a woman", but what happened to the love a woman has for a man? is it only that way or should love be something given and received. In The Wife of Bath we see what the author may think of what the "love of a woman" may mean.

The story begins with the prologue, a small introduction to the one that is telling the story and what the others think of her.  Although she may have been with many men during the last years, she has become in what she thinks is aware of what a woman's job in this world is, and in what civilian status should a woman of her age be.

She had been married to 5 men and all of them as she said, had a debt they had to pay her. During this story we see how the author sees women as the "man of the relationship" she has become the one that manages the family, the marriage and although in this time it was not common, now a days women occupy very important positions on our society.

Women in this story is shown as a person that need to be wedded, when the husband dies the next one comes. and so on. It has to be taken into consideration that at those times women was seen as the pleasure object a man had and as a breeder, in other words a machine that produced babies. In this story women is shown like this, but with a little twist. As already said every man she married owed her a debt, every man she had, needed to please her and accompany her until the end, showing that the author broke the normal parameters of what women symbolized in that time to convert it in the only thing that can control a man.

Yes, women can be the "man in the relationship" and after years of change and development, women has raised to become equal to men.

Gabriela