Kaeley’s Comments (group member since May 27, 2016)

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

Kaeley Cahill Period 1

"Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind;
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind." -A Midsummer Nights Dream



This quote is an explanation of what love should truly be. Love is a powerful thing that can make anything feel or even look more beautiful than you originally imagined it to be. Shakespeare explains that love isn't what you can see, but what you can feel and know inside of you. It shouldn't be about a physical appearance because the love that you feel for someone else should purely be created by knowing who the person is on the inside and shouldn't be seen on the outside. This connects to society today because I feel that we have lost this idea. Media has made all ideas of relationships completely based on the looks of a significant other and if that person doesn't meet our standards we don't even bother to learn more about them or get to know them on a further level. Love, today, is based entirely on physical attributes we decide to find attractive and this quote should be used as a place society should try to return to, a place where people fall in love blindly.

Jenna wrote: "Jenna Eisenberg
Period. 1

The ending I find more appealing and emotionally fulfilling is the second ending featured and finalized in the novel. It is superior to the original ending because it con..."

Kaeley Cahill Period 1

Although the classic "fairy tale ending" is very pleasing universally to audiences, I'd have to argue that the original ending provides more substance. It's a very melancholy conclusion to the novel because it doesn't cater to the characters happiness. The revised ending serves for the enjoyment of the readers. The story of Pip is never about marrying or commiting to his relationship with Estella or being happy with her. It isn't about a journey or a quest for love. In the way the story ends in the original version, Pip gets what he deserves and nothing more, unlike the second and revised ending. Instead of a more conventional and conformist ending, finalized as the second ending in the novel, the original version is raw and connects better to the tone of the rest of the novel.

Kaeley Cahill Period 1



The original ending is absolutely most effective for "Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens. It's a more realistic idea of an ending unlike, the second version. The original ending doesn't seek to please an audience expecting a happy ending for unhappy characters. The book ending acts as a fairytale end for a novel that's unlike a fairytale in every way.

In the published ending the main character Pip definitely receives more from life than he actually should have. Pip is the character to act completely immoral and a bit naive throughout the entire novel, but then is rewarded for his wrong doing. By doing this, Dickens makes the audience question true meanings behind morality in the novel. But the original ending shows the audience that wrong desires lead to well deserved consequences. In the original ending, characters are also able to remain the same. In the second ending Estella becomes a soft, almost innocent character, which is entirely unlike how she is in the previous portions of the book. While in the original ending, Estella remains superior to all others like Pip always perceived her to be.

Dickens explains in a letter to John Forster, "You will be surprised to hear that I have changed the end of 'Great Expectations' from and after Pip's return to Joe's, and finding his little likeness there. [...] I have put in as pretty a little piece of writing as I could, and I have no doubt the story will be more acceptable through the alteration" (pg. 540-541). In this letter, Dickens explains that he lightened the ending order to please the audience, when in reality, it just confused the audience. Dickens wrote such dark and romantic novel that gets cut short in the second ending. I definitely believe that the original ending is a more effective and powerful addition to the novel that never should have been replaced.

Kaeley Cahill Period 1


"Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens is full of distorted ideas. One scenario that stuck out the most while reading would be Pip's expectation for winning Estella's love. Pip believed that if he became a wealthy and respected man, he would would win Estella's heart. This plan though, did nothing but turn Estella's family against him and eventually force Estella to resent him. Pip states, "The unqualified truth is, that when I loved Estella with the love of a man, I loved her simply because I found her irresistible. [...] I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be (29)." This statement is distorted because Pip is almost lustful towards her instead of actually being truly in love with her. He basically convinced himself that she is the "perfect human" (29) and creates this tunnel vision idea of his life with Estella. This "expectation" is also distorted because Pip thought that by completely changing the man he is and gaining materialistic objects would help him receive one of the most valuable, intangible objects people can posses.

This also connects to literary realism in many ways. In today's society, people believe that by having a certain reputation and being wealthy will get you all you need in life. People become obsessed with being "rich" and forget to focus on the way they treat others. Pip does the same when he gets completely wrapped up in the way Estella perceives him and in doing so lost his true identity. Pip lost all sense of who he was and ended up never getting the one thing he completely changed for, much like people have done in today's society.

Kaeley Cahill Period 1

In F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel, The Great Gatsby, the "illuminating" moment would be at Gatsby's party in chapter 6. This is the moment that Nick realizes that all of the elegant and extravagant parties were to win back Daisy and recreate the past. In this moment the audience is finally able to see the true reason that Gatsby is the way he is. He was just a man seeking the return in love that he felt for Daisy and wanted to reconnect with all of the things he had before he moved away from Louisville. Nick Carroway states, "He talked a lot about the past, and I gathered that he wanted to recover something, some idea of himself perhaps, that had gone into loving Daisy. His life had been confused and disordered since then, but if he could return to a certain starting place and go over it all slowly, he could find out what that thing was" (pg. 132). In this quote the readers are finally able to see what the mysterious, almost detached, character was searching for all along. Using his parties and crazy lifestyle, he was just trying to winback Daisy and reconnect with the way he felt 5 years ago.

Kaeley Cahill Period 1

One aspect keeping The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald imperfect would be the setting for the novel. Fitzgerald wrote a book about the struggles and times of which the people of East and West Egg were trying to find their way through the world. He wrote about searching for clarity and what makes someone important to the world yet placed the story in a time when America couldn’t have been more unclear. 1920’s New York was a time when Americans were lost in all things lavish and lustful. Americans didn’t care about anything but extravagant parties and drinking, the crime rate was the highest in history and people only cared for themselves. Fitzgerald states, “I spent my Saturday nights in New York, because those gleaming dazzling parties of his were with me so vividly that I could hear the music and the laughter, faint and incessant.” (pg. 179) It was a time when everyone lied to themselves to keep the party going. Fitzgerald’s characters go on a journey that requires nothing but truth, when in reality the book is set in a time full of lies.


Fitzgerald talks about the differences in people of East and West egg but there’s no actual description of each place itself, only the people inside them. Fitzgerald is constantly describing the types of people that come from these places but never explains the reasons for that in a physical sense. By doing this, the readers lack a bit of insight to the characters and are less able to understand and connect to them.

Kaeley Cahill Period 1

Seeking adventure yet remaining faithful to your birthplace is something I believe every character struggles with in The Great Gatsby. People living in the west were all rich, spontaneous and a little lost and trying to redefine who they were. The East was full of people trying to get to the west. The East acted as a stepping stone to the West and was a place of everybody's past. But both places shared one common hope, a hope for a better, more full, future but somehow the characters were always held back from truly achieving that. They all had one piece of history stuck to them that always seemed to keep them from truly moving forward. One big symbol of the future tying both of these themes together would be the green light. Fitzgerald wrote, “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 then one fine morning- So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
Gatsby was very lost through a large portion of the novel. His big eccentric lifestyle, was the result of trying to fill a void left in his heart. And the green light was a sense of hope for Gatsby. It reminded him that the future held endless amounts of possibility, but with all this possibility followed a big presence of history and things no one could forget. But using this green light, Gatsby was able to mold both the East and the West together, with the East representing the past he lived and the West acting as the future.