Artur’s Comments (group member since Jun 01, 2016)

Artur’s comments from the Mills AP Lit and Comp group.

From fairest creatures we desire increase,
That thereby beauty's rose might never die,
But as the riper should by time decease,
His tender heir might bear his memory:
But thou contracted to thine own bright eyes,
Feed'st thy light's flame with self-substantial fuel,
Making a famine where abundance lies,
Thy self thy foe, to thy sweet self too cruel:
Thou that art now the world's fresh ornament,
And only herald to the gaudy spring,
Within thine own bud buriest thy content,
And, tender churl, mak'st waste in niggarding:
Pity the world, or else this glutton be,
To eat the world's due, by the grave and thee


This sonnet speaks of values and how those inheriting don't appreciate what they obtain as much as those who earn it. "Beauty's rose" being an accomplishment of a "fairest creature" that gives to the common man. The "tender heir" is anyone that is to potentially uptake the responsibility of the "fairest creature". At this point there could be two outcomes-one outcome would be that the heir also become as fair as those before them or where they lay waste to what has been done while taking with them the remaining benefits of "beauty's rose". By the end, Shakespeare asks this creature to take pity on the world and not take away the beauty this gift presents because if everyone will just consume the world's gifts like that there won't be a world left.

A parallel of today would be anyone inheriting any form of leadership like a child inheriting the money or company of their parents and not keeping up this chain of hard work that gave to the community making this child just another consumer of the parent's fruit of hard work.

Art is all about distortion as artist highlights patters and key elements in their stories to focus their audiences' attention to the bigger picture of their creations. In a book like 'Great Expectations' by Charles Dickens all of the supporting characters and setting are made to be very one sided with this technique and are presented in batches to aid the intended effect in its development.

At one point in this story the main character finds himself in London where he inspects an inn. And at particularly this part of the story the inn is described to be in near shambles with a "wicked gate", "dismal trees", "crippled flower-pot, cracked glass, dusty decay, and miserable makeshift". Later he'd be almost beheaded by a staircase window due to its wires having rotted away, and the illusion is again accentuated comedically with the door being "combated with". . ."as if it were a wild beast".


Not much later Pip enjoys dinner with a friend in the same inn which containing a kind vibe that doesn't belong with the previous description. This distortion goes hand in hand with the human mind and its memories the way our lasting impressions and irrational emotions influence what we make of our past experiences. In the case of this book all of these scenarios have already been transfigured for us. All we can do is relate to it as it is in the text.

The book opens with a short introduction of who is assumed to be the main character. It brings up a few of his ideals such as, "If you ever feel like criticizing any one... just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had." (Fitzgerald 1). But these ideas never seems to ever come into action. He mentions his father saying that he was a man of few words and we never hear from him again. And though it is a fine start, it leaves us with no real clue as to what our main protagonist is like in casual social situations, but further more he doesn't even mention his name in this intro, but is instead introduced by another character, Tom Buchanan, later in the book as he casually drops the line, "What you doing, Nick?" ( Fitzgerald 10). And though clever it may be, it clearly paints the rift between this character and the audience. Nick is so reserved that by the end of the 1st chapter Tom's brutish and arrogant behavior, Daisy's eccentricity, and the dilemma of their relationship outdoes everything that we hear about Nick.

The most of the book is tolled by Nick as his opinions slowly become less and less unique always allowing for room for all the more dramatic and charismatic characters of the book. He is more of a narrator that is there to introduce settings and describe characters, major and minor, in more detail than e ever will describe him self in. Even getting into more specific memories (which the narrator never shares his own with the audience). It is as if Nick is being reluctantly dragged along by all the other characters from one scene to the next and always tends to blend with the background as he makes rather general remarks that rely on the reader filling in the blanks as to what emotion they associate with the occurring. One could interpret it as keeping the leading character relatable in theory, but in practice it left me as the reader confused as to what were the main character's intentions and his general sense of character.