Miranda: English II, Section F

Blog # 6: Reflection on Body Bio

Overall, I think the Body Bio was an enjoyable and successful experience. I enjoyed working on the project (the actual butcher paper), developing a thesis about my character, trying to illustrate that thesis in a creative way, and then presenting it to the class. I think the project was very successful because it really forced me to delve deeper into my thesis than just finding quotations to support it, but also, having to illustrate it in a creative way made me ask questions like: What is my thesis really saying? What is the most important part of the thesis? I have discovered that questions like that are always questions you should ask about any piece of analytical work in order to discover the true essence of what it is saying.

I think the Body Bio also helped me in that it was an experience with a deadline in which me and two other people essentially had to create an analytical thesis and argument about a character, with supporting quotations and significant happenings, and illustrate it on a piece of butcher paper in three class periods (in addition to a few Free periods). I think the project improved my skills in working and communicating with other people. Although in some situations, I felt like I was being bossy and taking hold of the situation too much, I think it payed off in the end, but that was definitely really hard for me to have to do. I thought both of my other group members, Caitlin and Emily worked hard and diligently to create a successful project, and that we all worked together well and became closer through the experience.

Our actual project, as in the butcher paper realization of Jordan Baker and our thesis and argument about her, I think was really successful. We all worked hard to illustrate our argument in a creative way, and I think we were successful in getting our point across.

Although we did struggle at times with problems within our group, our working together was successful, with very few exceptions. I don’t think we went through any other difficulties besides that, which, when that occurred, it was very short-lived. My group and I used ichat to communicate about our ideas for the project, which really worked, with a few exceptions when we got distracted from the job that was at hand.

I personally thought our oral presentation was good, and I think we were able to further explain our thesis to the class when we explained the color and our choice of quotations.

Overall, I really enjoyed the project and I thought that it was a great, artistic way of communicating a thesis and argument without writing an essay. It was a great project that gave us a chance to express ourselves and our ideas in a very creative and artistic way, rather than writing papers.                                                   

Body Bio: Jordan Baker: Foul Dust

 

Thesis: Jordan Baker is an anchorless, amoral, superficial woman who feeds off, embodies, and expels the foul dust that corrupts the upper class social sphere.

Anchorless: anchor with a broken chain

Amoral: stepping on a cross

Superficial: thought bubble, social ladder, climbing, trying to get to the top

Feeds off foul dust: grabbing it with both hands

Embodies foul dust: foul dust all over her

Expels foul dust: outlined with foul dust, and foul dust coming out of her mouth

Significant Happenings:

1) first time Nick sees Jordan, seems to be floating, anchorless, also, holds head high

2) Bad Driver

3) Last Scene, Baker is in a big chair with her head held high, doesn’t really care about what Nick is telling her about

4) A party scene, Nick says she carries herself jauntily

5) At some party scene, with rich people, showing that she is trying to be part of the upper class

 

Visual Symbols: foul dust, colors of shirt and pants: yellow=corrupt, social ladder, depictions of scenes in the book, anchor and broken chain, stepping on cross

 

Quotations: Minimum of Three

1)    Miss Baker leaned forward unashamed, trying to hear. (14)

2)    Seemed to have mastered a certain hardy skepticism (15)

3)    Critical unpleasant story (18)

4)    Leaning a little backward and looking with contemptuous interest down into the garden (42)

5)    This is much too polite for me (45)

6)    Urban distaste for the concrete (49)

7)    There was a jauntiness about her movements as if she had first learned to walk upon golf courses on clean, crisp mornings (50)

8)    This clean, hard, limited person, who dealt in universal skepticism, and who leaned back jauntily just within the circle of my arm (79)

9)    Her wan, scornful mouth smiled (80)

10) “there’s something very sensuous about it—overripe, as if all sorts of funny fruits were going to fall into your hands” (125)

11)  begun to balance an invisible but absorbing object on the tip of her chin (134)

12)  too wise (135)

13) uncertainty of her own movements between hotels and clubs and private houses (155)

14) she lay perfectly still, listening, in a big chair (177)

15) chin raised a little jauntily (177)

16) engaged to another man (177)

17) “I don’t give a damn about you” (177)

18)  “You said a bad driver was only safe until she met another bad driver? Well, I met another bad driver, didn’t I? I mean it was careless of me to make such a wrong guess” (177)

 

unashamed

hardy skepticism

unpleasant

contemptuous

“This is much too polite for me”

urban distaste

jauntiness about her movements

clean, hard, limited

dealt in universal skepticism

leaned back jauntily

wan, scornful mouth

too wise

uncertainty of her own movements between hotels and clubs and private houses

she lay perfectly still

chin raised a little jauntily

engaged to another man

“ I don’t give a damn about you”

“It was careless of me to make such a wrong guess”

Initial Brainstorming and Close Reading

“I looked at Miss Baker, wondering what it was she “got done.” I enjoyed looking at her. She was a slender, small-breasted girl, with an erect carriage, which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet. Her gray sun-strained eyes looked back at me with polite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan charming, discontented face.” (11)

Elegant, proud, dignified.

Holds herself up.

Slender, brown tanned skin, grey eyes, autumn yellow hair.

Carries herself nobly, almost to an exaggerated extent, so that she seems like a “cadet.”

“She got up slowly, raising her eyebrows at me in astonishment, and followed the butler toward the house. I noticed that she wore her evening-dress, all her dresses, like sports clothes—there was a jauntiness about her movements as if she had first learned to walk upon golf courses on clean, crisp mornings.” (50)

Athletic. Carries herself in an almost arrogant manner. Bounces with nobility when she walks. Kind of rigid at the same time. 

Passage about Daisy: she was very envious of Daisy: rich, went around with a lot of guys. (75)

“ It was dark now, and as we dipped under a little bridge I put my arm around Jordan’s golden shoulder and drew her toward me and asked her to dinner. Suddenly I wasn’t thinking of Daisy and Gatsby any more, but of this clean, hard, limited person, who dealt in universal skepticism, and who leaned back jauntily just within the circle of my arm.” (79)

Golden shoulder, clean, hard, limited person, dealt in universal skepticism, leaned back jauntily.

Tan, but also presents herself as noble by the way she carries herself (jauntily). Clean, hard, simple, not complicated, their relationship is based on convenience, they are just there for each other. Limited person. Means the same thing, not complicated, not deep or full of problems, kind of on the surface. An observer like Nick. At the same time, not objective, synical and arrogant. Carries herself in a noble way.

“her wan, scornful mouth smiled” (80)

“ ‘Those big movies around Fiftieth Street are cool,’ suggested Jordan. ‘I love New York on summer afternoons when every one’s away. There’s something very sensuous about it—overripe, as if all sorts of funny fruits were going to fall into your hands.’” (125)

Likes it when every one’s away, kind of likes having only a few people in the city.

Sensuous/ Overripe

            -I don’t really know what to think about that. Interesting passage…to be explored in the future. I don’t really understand what it says about her and her character.

“It’s a swell suite,” whispered Jordan respectfully, and every one laughed. (126)

Not really arrogant around people of higher class, or at least, not in this one example. Kind of shows that she is not of Daisy and Tom’s class, because she doesn’t take it for granted.

“ It was Jordan Baker; she often called me up at this hour because the uncertainty of her own movements between hotels and clubs and private houses made her hard to find any other way. Usually her voice came over the wire as something fresh and cool, as if a divot from a green golf-links had come sailing in at the office window, but this morning it seemed harsh and dry.

…We talked like that for a while, and then abruptly we weren’t talking any longer. I don’t know which of us hung up with a sharp click, but I know I didn’t care.” (154-155)

End of relationship b/w Jordan and Nick, pretty much.

She moved around a lot.

Usually had a cool, fresh voice.

 “I saw Jordan Baker and talked over and around what had happened to us together, and what had happened afterward to me, and she lay perfectly still, listening, in a big chair.

She was dressed to play golf and I remember thinking she looked like a good illustration, her chin raised a little jauntily, her hair the color of an autumn leaf, her face the same brown tint as the fingerless glove on her knee. When I had finished she told me without comment that she was engaged to another man. I doubted that,

…

‘Nevertheless you did throw me over,’ said Jordan suddenly. ‘You threw me over on the telephone. I don’t give a damn about you now, but it was a new experience for me, and I felt a little dizzy for a while.’

We shook hands.

‘Oh, and do you remember’—she added—‘a conversation we had once about driving a car?’

…

‘You said a bad driver was only safe until she met another bad driver? Well, I met another bad driver, didn’t I? I mean it was careless of me to make such a wrong guess. I thought you were rather an honest, straightforward person. I thought it was your secret pride.’” (177)

She lay perfectly still. Chin raised jauntily. She clearly doesn’t want Nick to know that he hurt her, because that would make her feel weak, and she almost wants to make Nick helpless, by telling him that she is engaged to another man.

Significance of conversation about driving a car?

She still remembers it, but Nick has forgotten.

She admits that she is a bad “driver”, which can almost be extended to her admitting to being a bad person. She moves around a lot, is somewhat arrogant, from her physical descriptions, she lies, and cheats, but it gets covered up because she has a lot of connections. She is of a pretty low class, and her only permanent dwelling is her aunt’s house, but she stays with her friends around the country. 

Blog # 3: The Great Gatsby

 

First impressions: So far, a fantastic book. The writing is clever and wonderful. The characters are eccentric and interesting, but believable, likeable, and relatable at the same time.

Characters (first impressions):

Gatsby: vanishes, complicated personality, throws big parties but is also slightly insecure at times

Nick (the narrator): nice, clever, educated, determined (teaches himself about bonds), very likeable fellow

Daisy: nice, kind of flirtatious at times, fakes happiness but is very sad inside about her marriage

Tom: manly, strong, abusive, cheater (cheats on his wife), arrogant, athletic, seems to control the people around him (reminds me of Stanley from Streetcar)

Myrtle: don’t know much about her, cheats on her husband with Tom, seems kind of ditsy and child like, seems like Tom takes advantage of her, but I’m not sure

Jordan (Baker): LIAR, famous golf player, “hates careless people”

George Wilson: know very little about him, except that he is oblivious to the fact that his wife Myrtle cheats on him with Tom Buchanan

 

Gatsby:

 

Page 48: Gatsby:

 

“He smiled understandingly –much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of reassurance in it,  that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced—or seemed to face—the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey. Precisely at that point it vanished—and I was looking at an elegant young roughneck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd. Some time before he introduced himself I’d got a strong impression that he was picking his words with care.”

 

This is one of the first descriptions we get of Gatsby.

 

Says a lot about Gatsby. He is clearly somewhat mysterious, or he just doesn’t want to be known to his guests. He could easily make a big announcement that he is Gatsby and welcome everyone to his party, but he chooses not to. His smile is very interesting and it really affects Nick. It makes him feel like Gatsby understands and believes in him, and, that Gatsby is assuring him that he is the best he could ever want to be. It is kind of complicated, but it is clear that Gatsby seems to be a likeable character, if, the first time the reader is really given any information about him, it is to talk about his understanding smile. Nick also talks about the fact that Gatsby seems to have an eloquent speech pattern, that is slightly absurd, and that his words seem carefully chosen. In a later description of Gatsby, when he is telling Nick about his life, Nick notices that his story seems very rehearsed. Gatsby seems to conflict in so many different ways, he seems spontaneous in the way he constantly vanishes, but his speech patterns seem very rehearsed. Gatsby is proper in his manner, but he in no way conducts himself as the host of the party (except in that he doesn’t drink anything). Gatsby seems to defy stereotypes of rich people during this time period, in the way that Nick’s first impression, before he has even met Gatsby, is very different from what Gatsby is really like. Overall, like I have stated before, Gatsby seems like a very conflicted character, inside and out, and I am very curious to learn more about him as the story progresses.