"That was always my experience—a poor boy in a rich town; a poor boy in a rich boy's school; a poor boy in a rich man's club at Princeton…I have never been able to forgive the rich for being rich, and it has colored my entire life and works."
–F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Life in Letters

This quote shows that as an author, although Fitzgerald was writing fiction stories, he was still writing about himself. Just as Fitzgerald described himself, Nick Carraway was a man who was in a lower class than those around him.

Before the book takes place, Nick was a student at Yale who was poor considering the other students. Due to this fact, Nick kept to himself, not making many friends. He described himself as quiet throughout life, although the difference in social classes most likely gave him another reason to stay away from the others. They were privileged and knew nothing of the struggles of the poor, and Nick felt no connection to them.

After his graduation, Nick went to the war before coming back to America. He decided to move to New York and settled on the West Egg. Its no coincidence the majority of the residents on West Egg for middle to lower class, save for Gatsby. However, Nick still found himself keeping wealthy company in the likes of Jordan Baker, Tom and Daisy Buchanon, and Jay Gatsby. Throughout the book Nick comes off as uncomfortable, sensing he doesn't belong with this crowd. In the end, Nick decides to move back home, away from the lavishness of the friends he had made.

As Fitzgerald says, he was always a poor man in a rich man's world. As Fitzgerald also says, he could never forgive the rich for being rich. It is interesting to consider this quote when compared to The Great Gatsby, where Nick Carraway always found a way to be surrounded by the rich, and constantly sought a means to escape them.

As of the conclusion of chapter three, I realize that I had Nick figured out all wrong. For the better part of the first three chapters, I thought Nick to be a soft spoken man who kept to himself, and didn't really go to wild. By the end of the third chapter, he has shown a slight tendency to drink and go to parties, as well as make a few eccentric friends. Among these friends are the abusive, adulterer Tom, the cheating Myrtle, wildy famous Jordan Baker, and the mysterious Jay Gatsby.
I was initially surprised when Nick attended the party in the second chapter, but thought he had perhaps not known the wild event he was attending. After attending Gatsby's party, I see I was wrong in my assumption that he was a man who wouldn't enjoy somewhat of a wild life. Furthering my surprise is that he has become somewhat close friends to Jordan, a person whom i thought he might want to avoid, especially given her seemingly rude introduction at their first meeting. Even more, he expresses that he has developed feelings for Ms. Baker, although he seems to have a girlfriend back home.
Although Nick is showing signs of being some type of party animal who might be fame hungry, I think he might still have more in common with my first opinion of him then it currently seems.

Herman Melville

Herman Melville was born in New York City on August 1, 1819. His parents were financially unstable, in over their heads having three kids. In 1830 the family moved to Albany in a futile attempt to join the fur trading business. By the time the family moved to the area, fur trading had become much less prosperous.
Once he set out on his own, Melville suffered many setbacks. He failed as a cabin boy, a school teacher, and at whaling. He exploded as an author, however, writing popular novels such as Typee and Oomo. His whaling experiences led him to write one of the most famous English novels ever, Moby Dick.
Although experiencing much success as a writer, Melville never made enough money to live off of. When his riches began to disappear, he turned to poetry. He failed miserably in his early years, eventually leaving the medium all together for many years. After retiring from a position of customs inspector that he held for 19 years, he returned to poetry, where he become somewhat successful for his work.

“There is sobbing of the strong,
And a pall upon the land;
But the People in their weeping
Bare the iron hand:
Beware the People weeping
When they bare the iron hand.”

http://www.poetry-archive.com/m/the_martyr.html

This is a short excerpt from Melville’s The Martyr. He doesn’t follow a specific rhyme scheme throughout the poem, although he does rhyme on a somewhat consistent basis. He used a lot of repetition in this poem, as evidenced in this excerpt, and also uses contrast between a strong person and their weeping to stress the tragedy of the martyr’s death.


I picked the poem “The Apparition” at random, but enjoyed it nonetheless. It was somewhat short, but I thought it did a good job of entertaining. Melville is describing a sighting of a ghost, both what he physically sees as well as what he feels and the aura the apparition is giving off. Because of this glimpse of a ghost, he questions life and also life after death, and states a fear of success because of the failure or death that may follow.

http://www.poetry-archive.com/m/the_apparition.html



After reading through some of Melville’s work, I couldn’t really find any instance that flagged him as an American poet. Besides his vocabulary and possibly his choosing of topic, Melville didn’t really seem to separate himself from his international peers in terms of revealing exactly who is was.

Realsim in Writing

After reading some of Kate Chopin’s work, the difference between American Romanticism and American Realism is clear. Chopin spends much less time explaining the beauty of nature or the importance of respecting it, and looks deeper into the way people live their lives and their motives for doing so. She is much more invested in taking a look at Adrienne Farival’s opposing lifestyles and Mrs. Sommer’s newfound recklessness than taking time to smell the flowers. Ironically enough, that cliché of “smelling the flowers” is the only sign of progress from Romanticism to Realism that Chopin shows in her writing. In “Lilacs”, the story opens and closes with the blooming of lilacs playing a central part to the story. The smell of the flower is the driving force behind Farival visiting her convent, as it has come to be a tradition for her. Other than this instance, Chopin strayed from the principles of Romanticism and barely strayed from being a Realist writer.

In Chopin’s writing she explores the themes of people wanting to be someone they aren’t, and also of a world where people put themselves first to accomplish this sought after lifestyle. In “Lilacs”, Farival takes an annual trip to visit a convent of nuns, although she admits to not relying on the lord when she is away from the convent. Her life away from the convent is completely different, punctuated by a bad temper, impatience, and an indifference to religion. She also makes this trip a secret, knowing full well that Monsieur Henri is madly in love with her and spirals into depression whenever she leaves. In the case of “A Pair of Silk Stockings”, Mrs. Sommers indulges herself into an extravagant lifestyle for a day after finding some money. She is a poor woman who could have used that money for many other things, but decided to use her newfound money to treat herself in a way she had never experienced before. She did this despite knowing that there are much more useful ways she could use the money, such as spending it on her kids to make their lives more comfortable. I think Chopin is using her writing as a way to tell the world that people are becoming too self-centered, and she is trying to change that.

In writing, I think Chopin is trying to reach everyone, especially those comparable to her main characters. She is trying to show people the errors in the way the live their lives and wants to help them become what she would view as a better person. In that way she might be compared to a Romanticist, because she seemed to be urging people to be more considerate to their surroundings, although she focused mainly on the people that were being wronged by her main characters. Chopin is either writing for the women during her time period, those she perceived as being wronged by self-centered individuals, or both. The women of her time were still much oppressed and didn’t have many rights, so she would want to use her position of power to represent and uplift them. At the same time, as a Realist, she was expressing her views on the world and was trying to fix in the world what she saw was wrong.

Although the oppression of women that existed in her time is long over and would not have affected me, her stories still hit home to me due to the latter of possible audiences I had mentioned. We live in a very materialistic time where it seems people will do anything to get ahead, no matter who they hurt or what relationships they may sever. In that way, her stories are still very relevant and it is important that we all keep in mind her message that she portrayed through her stories. She seemed very bothered by the climate of society and I find it hard to believe she would be pleased at the turn it has taken in the 21st century.

“The play was over, the music ceased, the crowd filed out. It was like a dream ended. People scattered in all directions. Mrs. Sommers went to the corner and waited for the cable car.
A man with keen eyes, who sat opposite to her, seemed to like the study of her small, pale face. It puzzled him to decipher what he saw there. In truth, he saw nothing – unless he were wizard enough to detect a poignant wish, a powerful longing that the cable car would never stop anywhere, but go on and on with her forever.”
The ending of “A Pair of Silk Stockings” was a driving factor in me choosing Chopin for my analysis. The way Chopin shows Mrs. Sommers’ immediate doubt of her own judgement, and her self-pondering, drew me to her writing more than anything else did. It is also a great ending considering she was a Realist showing that people can realize their mistakes and change their ways if they get the chance.