The Rez

Wellpinit is the home of the Spokane Indian Reservation where Arnold lives with his mother, father, sister, and grandmother. The Spirit family have lived on the reservation all of their lives, and Arnold is known there not by his first name, but simply as "Junior." The reservation, though, is a pretty rough place. Fist fighting is a way of life and, since Arnold is a stuttering outcast, he gets picked on and beaten up regularly. Arnold is constantly bullied and belittled, making him a regular member of the "Black-Eye-of-the-Month Club". The reservation is a rough place in other ways, as well. Poverty is a given for most Indian families, and its effects, as Arnold tells us, can be pretty soul-crushing. "Poverty," he writes, "doesn't give you strength or teach you lessons about perseverance. No, poverty only teaches you how to be poor." Arnold's family often lacks the basic necessities, such as money for gas or food in the refrigerator. Alcoholism is rampant on the reservation. Both of Arnold's parents are alcoholics, as is, well, almost everyone. This situation, unfortunately, leads to many, many senseless deaths. Arnold loses both his grandmother and his sister in alcohol-related accidents. Arnold's father's best friend Eugene gets accidentally shot in the face while fighting over the last drop of alcohol in an almost-empty bottle.
Despite all this, I also see a correlation between the more positive points of the Spokane Indian Reservation and the community I live in, which is Chinatown. The reservation is home to a very close-knit community of Indian families where everybody knows everyone else. Arnold writes that "you know every kid's father, mother, grand parents, dog, cat, and shoe size. I mean, yes, Indians are screwed up, but we're really close to each other." In a way, I feel like this is very much an accurate description of the Chinatown community because everyone that lives in the neighborhood is connected in some way and everyone knows each other or knows people that know each other. Everyone recognizes one another and grows up together being one community. Arnold also often mentions that barely anyone ever leaves the reservation because people are comfortable living where they are in an environment that is familiar to them. I think that is similar to the majority of people that live in Chinatown, especially because many families live near one another within the neighborhood, so it doesn't seem convenient for many people to move farther away from their family. I don't believe that the fist fighting, alcoholism, and poverty are points that I could find similar in my community, but a big part of both the reservation and Chinatown are that they are huge centers of culture and traditions.

Native Sons

Like Bigger, Max feels a deep sense of exclusion from American society. As a Jew and a Communist, he suffers in myriad ways because American society is dictated by the prejudices of the majority. Perhaps because of his own experiences living on the fringes of society, Max is willing and able to understand Bigger’s life story. He sympathizes with the idea that factors outside of Bigger’s control created the conditions that caused Mary’s death. He makes a compelling argument for the judge that life inside prison would allow Bigger to live as a man among equals for the first time in his life. Max concludes his argument for Bigger's life with a speech in a final attempt to persuade people to see the greater good in letting him live. His purpose is to convince that public as well as the judge that Bigger's violent nature is spawned from the oppressive society that keeps him and other African Americans in constant fear and poverty.  "The complex forces of society have isolated here for us a symbol, a test symbol. The prejudices of men have stained this symbol, like a germ stained for examination under the microscope." This simile shows how the white public looks down upon the African American population as a "germ" or plague of society, under constant interrogation and examination. Max extends this simile by relating society to a "sick social organism". He describes the "new form of life", the African American oppressed as "like a weed growing from under a stone", which expresses the immense burden of the white public. Max also illustrates the African American lifestyle as "gliding through our complex civilization like wailing ghosts; they spin like fiery planets lost from their orbits; they wither and die like trees ripped from native soil." This shows the aura of distress and hardship of the African Americans. Despite Max’s sense of failure when he couldn't grant a stay of execution, he does connect with Bigger and is ultimately the one who helps Bigger see his worth as a human being, no matter what he’s done or not done in the short time of his life.

Green Lights, Yellow Cars and Church Steeples

The green light at the end of the pier in front of Daisy's house represented Gatsby's dream that he was trying to reach for. At the end of the story, "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning——So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." I think that F. Scott Fitzgerald is saying that we are always going to be striving for a dream in our lives, and that dream often is influenced by our lingering feelings toward the past. Even though we often focus too much on our past and tell ourselves time after time that some thing should be left in the past, it affects us. But we still move forward against obstacles because eventually, we have to move on and let our past be our past. Daisy was Gatsby's past and Gatsby's objective was to resume their lives 5 years ago and pretend that nothing has changed, but that wasn't possible. Gatsby's obsession with the past between him and Daisy was what got him killed.
Gatsby's yellow car was significant because that instigated the game changer, causing Myrtle's death. Even though Daisy was driving, it was Gatsby's car that physically hit Myrtle and no one knew that Daisy was driving except for Gatsby and  Nick. From Nick narration, we know that Tom knew it was Gatsby's car who hit Myrtle, so when Wilson, distraught and hung up on revenge, approached Tom, Tom told Wilson that it was Gatsby who owned that yellow car and who had killed Myrtle. From this information, Wilson probably also assumed that Gatsby was the one that was having an affair with Myrtle because he knew that Myrtle ran out to try to talk to someone in the car, which was how she got hit. Needing to justify Myrtle's death, Wilson shot and killed Gatsby and then himself. As for the church steeple, “There was nothing to look at from under the tree except Gatsby’s enormous house, so I stared at it, like Kant at his church steeple, for half an hour.” Kant was a philosopher that debated and emphasized morality and honest, and said that lying was always morally wrong. Because Nick is now involved in Daisy and Gatsby’s relationship, he is now in a dilemma deciding whether or not he should tell the truth about the knowledge that he knows about both Daisy & Gatsby and Tom & Myrtle. Especially since Nick said that he was one of the only honest people he ever met, he is conflicted about what kind of role he should play in this situation. On the other hand, Nick was raised learning to remain objective and keep his opinions to himself in any situation, therefore he wouldn't be honest since he doesn't say what he actually believes and retains judgement. This was exactly what he did as his role in the sticky situation between the rest of the characters and as a result, Gatsby and Myrtle were both killed. If Nick had made a difference in the affairs of his friends, we don't exactly know if it wouldn't prevented these deaths, but we're convinced that it would've changed the outcome of this story.

Janie

In order for Janie to marry her first husband, Logan, Nanny had to continuously convince her that marrying Logan would be the best option for Janie's future. She assured Janie that the most important thing was for her to have stable surroundings and financial support, which was what Logan could provide her with if they got married. Janie's dream was always to find love and the reason for her to be hesitant about marrying Logan was because she knew that she didn't love him. Although she knew her feelings, Janie allowed herself to be persuaded by Nanny that she would naturally grow to love Logan after marrying him. I think Janie was naive in believing that love comes after marriage because if she didn't love the person, or even know the person, in Janie's case, and didn't find any attraction towards that person, I don't see marriage as a reasonable decision in achieving that love. Quickly after marrying Logan, Janie realized that she will never love Logan and ended up leaving Logan for another man, Joe Starks.
Being the businessman that Joe was, he became a highly regarded "government official" in Eatonville by establishing new and improved institutions and with Joe's responsibility, he quickly provided Janie with financial support and impressive living conditions. He added to Janie's life everything that Nanny had ever dreamed of for her granddaughter. But this was not what Janie dreamed of. Being married to Joe for more than two decades, he had not showed her much respect nor affection, making their relationship extremely hard to bare. Janie did everything Nanny had told her to do in terms of marrying well and becoming stable in life through a man, but because Janie listened to Nanny, this caused Janie to resent her. She hated Nanny for twisting her ideals about love and giving her false pretenses that if she was well off, that she would also be happy. Even after Nanny died, Janie wanted to grant Nanny's wish so she did what she thought Nanny would want her to do, but once she met Tea Cake, Janie realized that she should think for herself, instead of her grandmother. I think that Janie did the right thing in listening to her heart, even if trusting Tea Cake was risky, because she had followed Nanny's wishes for so long that she never had the chance to act upon her own dreams.

Thankful For My Classmates

Around this time every year, people often take more time to reflect and think about what aspects in their lives that we appreciate the most. Thanksgiving is a time to share thanks for what you have in your life. I'm grateful for the family that has remained so reliable in my life, for the old friends that have basically become my second family, and new friends that have continuously introduced themselves into my life. In my English class, I am most thankful for my classmates that sit around me, including Josh, Max, Kyle, and Sally. I am thankful for Josh because in addition to the other 5 classes we share together, having English class together has allowed us to become more familiar with each other as friends. We're able to ask each other urgent questions we might have concerning the other classes that we share together. I am thankful for Max for accompanying me every day to the second period study hall that we have together during passing periods. Because I didn't know Max before this year, I'm glad that English class brought us together to become friends. Although I have known Kyle for quite a while, I'm thankful for him because we were able to become much closer as friends this year. He's a good listener and we're able to understand each other's problems. I'm additionally thankful for Sally because she's able to guide our discussions very well and offer interesting input during our group work.

A Principle We Should Keep

In Cormac McCarthy's The Road, we see that a key principle that the man and the boy are keen on keeping is never resorting to cannibalism no matter how desperate their situation gets. We also see that this principle isn't followed by some that the man and the boy encountered in The Road. The man and the boy is keeping this principle because cannibalism is the last straw that strips away a person's humanity. In The Road's post-apocalyptic world where hope is gone and death always surrounds them, the boy and the man aren't going to allow themselves to stoop to the level cannibals, in order to keep their humanity intact.
I think that in our world, a principle that we should keep is to not harm any other person, unless the purpose is for self-defense. I believe that no matter how far into the future we get, people shouldn't harm others solely for the purpose of harming them. There are also instances where the reason for hurting another person is for revenge because that person had hurt them in the same way, but I don't think that revenge solves anything. Harming another person will only cause more trouble and won't relieve the pain that they had felt. When we hear about people intentionally hurting others, I think that the two most common reasons for their behavior is either for self-defense or because they wanted to instigate revenge on someone else. Revenge only allows people to take their anger out on another and when they do, they aren't making the situation better in any way. Revenge never fixes the situation, and often only makes things worse. I see self-defense as being the only acceptable excuse, if any, for intentionally harming other people.

Hemingway.

Ernest Hemingway's distinctive writing style is simple and direct, although his exact words were, "Yet, I sometimes think that my style is suggestive rather than direct. The reader must often use his imagination or lose the most subtle part of my thoughts." In every one of Hemingway's short stories, his descriptive writing plays a big role in how the story comes across to the readers. Because understanding the setting often adds great comprehension to the plot of each story, Hemingway dedicates a large part of the text to the description of the situation. He puts emphasis on nouns, rather than adjectives, and strings those nouns along by means of conjunctions to paint a clear and distinct picture of the story's conditions. Hemingway describes every sight, movement, sound, smell, and feeling that he wants the reader to experience with him, creating a captivating scenery that brings the readers along into the story. Following in the footsteps of Mark Twain, Hemingway also takes advantage of commas and semicolons to write long, detailed sentences, where even some good-length paragraphs are only formed by one continuous sentence. By using this method of writing, he captures a snap-shot moment of what is occurring and it also creates one simultaneous action. In Hemingway's short stories, Nick Adams is the name that he gave to the fictional persona, largely autobiographical, whom he often wrote about. Like Hemingway himself, Nick is the son of a doctor ("The Indian Camp") and he relishes fishing and hunting in the northern peninsula of Michigan ("Big Two-Hearted River").