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

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

Jenna Eisenberg
Period. 1

“If this fall into thy hand, revolve. In my stars I am
above thee, but not afraid of greatness. Some
are born great, some achieve greatness, and some
have greatness thrust upon ‘em. Thy fates open
their hands. Let thy blood and spirit embrace them.”

This quote spoken by Malvolio, in Twelfth Night, Or What You Will, Act 2, Scene 5, Page 7, is a very relevant and applicable message of its time and of today. Malvolio, Lady Olivia’s steward, is in a conversation with Fabian, a servant, as he reads a letter he thinks is written by Olivia, a rich countess, but is actually forged by Maria, Lady Olivia’s waiting woman. However, it does speak some truth to the dynamics of power, success, and talent in modern society and in our local communities. To paraphrase, the quote suggests to not be afraid or intimidated by other people’s greatness. Some are born great or into greatness, some work hard for it, and some are great due to someone else’s greatness. However, our fate for greatness is already in place, we just have to wait for it to happen, and accept it in body and spirit. Even today, fate raises a thought; if everything is determined beforehand, and no human effort can change your fate, there is no point in trying for greatness if it’s in your destiny.

Kaeley wrote: "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 orig..."

Jenna Eisenberg
Period. 1

I see how the happy ending to the novel could contrast with the rest of the book, but in a way that's what makes the book so interesting. This particular ending helps bring the plot back to a full circle and brings the readers back to the very start of Pip and Estella's relationship. I also believe that it does in fact have a realistic ending in the sense that Estella experienced the "trial and error" parts of life to finally realize that the one man she loved was beside her all along. Estella had to be apart of an abusive relationship, only to rekindle her relationship with Pip and finally reward Pip with what he worked so hard for all his life. It may not connect to the suffering presented earlier in the novel, but does offer readers a feeling of closure for the characters and the overall plot.

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 continues the relationship of union and estrangement and resolution. Although the original ending is creatively exposed and avoids pleasing the widespread readers to a conformist ending, the second ending highlights the connection of the past and the present, and Pip and Estella’s meetings at Satis House. This ending closes in the same spot as their first meeting so it gives a sense of closure to the story.

In the last chapter of the novel, Dickens writes, “To me, parting is a painful thing. To me, the remembrance of our last parting has been ever mournful and painful” (538). Here, Pip remembers the past and his last departure from Estella. Then the author continues, “When suffering has been stronger than other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but I hope into a better shape. Be as considerate and good to me as you were, and tell me we are friends. We are friends, said I.” Dickens highlights the issue of the present in this part of the ending. This connection gives me pleasure and resolution to Pip and Estella’s relationship throughout the novel because it is sentimental and it shows them solving the tensions Pip and Estella have experienced. The couple deserves to be happy after all the pain they had suffered.

The second ending is a fairy tale ending, which is another reason it appeals to audiences and to me, personally. It lingers on the image of the mist and the garden. Dickens writes, “I took her hand in mine, and we went out of the ruined place; and, as the morning mists had risen long ago when I first left the forge, so the evening mists were rising now, and in all the broad expanse of tranquil light they showed to me, I saw no shadow of another parting from her” (539). The image of Pip and Estella “walking off in the sunset together” is very settling to me because it embodies a close to the novel. It is a happy ending that satisfies the readers in knowing that the couple is finally reunited and it only took Estella an abusive relationship to find out that she sincerely does have compassion.

Jenna Eisenberg
Period 1

Pip has big hopes of becoming a wealthy, valued, knowledgeable nobleman and pursuing the heart of the unkind but picturesque Estella. Similar to people who want wealth and fame in reality, Pip’s vision turns out to be unrestrainedly distorted through the novel as he learns that his dreams were founded on untruthful expectations. The issue is that Pip wants to be successful for his personal gratification, not for the gratification of other people. Missing a past and an identity, he can transform into any being he chooses to be. One instance is the chaotic Christmas dinner at the beginning of the story when Mr. Hubble tells Pip that children are “wicious” (26). In chapter seventeen, Pip demonstrates this generalization, “See how I am going on. Dissatisfied, and uncomfortable, and-what would it signify to me, being coarse and common, if nobody had told me so!”(139). Here he associates obliviousness with innocence. It is inferred to Pip continually that he acts unmindful, and should try everything to fix his errors.

Pip’s character is generally harmless, however, his development into adulthood resulted in a distortion of his character and identity. A widespread truth of social behavior is that human’s imitations of his or her own selves are commonly molded and influenced by how other people perceive them. Many times throughout the book, Pip’s character is challenged as the realism of society changes him into the man he needs to become. This is seen in our society today especially in the transition of children to teenagers, and teenagers into adulthood, and so on. Pip, in a way, acts as a symbol for maturity and finding identity.

Jenna Eisenberg
Period. 1

The last scene of Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby functions as a “casement” or a window of insight into the meaning of the characters’ journeys. There, Nick Carraway revisits one of the themes of the novel highlighting the implication of history to aspirations of the future. The green light symbolizes this idea. Nick emphasizes the hardships that people experience to accomplish their dreams by exceeding and reinventing what has happened in the past, “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 our arms farther...” (180). Still, people are incapable of moving past history, “Can’t repeat the past? He cried incredulously. Why of course you can!” (110). As they row onward to the green light, the current lures them back, “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past” (180). The past serves as the foundation of their dreams and for what is to come, and they are trapped in it as they try to chase their futures.

Jenna Eisenberg
Period. 1

The Great Gatsby, a novel praised and perceived by thousands as “perfection,” lacks important insight to individual and relational emotion. There is no personal connection or likeable qualities in any of the characters, though none of them express unfavorable qualities either. Their lack of character depth is off-putting. Fitzgerald fails at depicting the characters in a more advanced psychological manner. His characterization process doesn’t include an intimate linking to the ideas of the American life he is trying to portray: capitalism, organized crime, and that money is power. Fitzgerald denies the audience access to the interior and very personal journeys and pasts of characters but attempts to script an emotionally compelling story. One example is Gatsby and Daisy’s relationship throughout the novel, “Who wants to got o town? Demanded Daisy insistently. Gatsby’s eyes floated toward her. Ah, she cried, you look so cool. Their eyes met, and they stared at each other, alone in space. With an effort she glanced down at the table. You always look so cool, she repeated” (119). This is the most insight into their relationship that the audience experiences throughout the entire novel. Their association and bond with each other is constructed of nostalgia and a vague past, leaving out physical adoration and tangible relation. The grand extenuating and passionate love that the whole novel is thought to be about, is actually lacking in emotion and knowledge of the expressive affairs between the two lovers.

The Great Gatsby is set over the time of one summer, three months split into three separate chapters. Throughout the story, nearly everything is a representative and figurative symbol, for instance: the cars, the respectable Midwest and malicious East, the parties, and the immured mansions. Ethical meaning needs ethical commitment: discomposure, wisdom, and change. Fitzgerald brilliantly involves these elements into his novel, but lacks in the extensive exploration of the details of the relationships between the characters and their involvement to their pasts.

Jenna Eisenberg
Period 1

In The Great Gatsby, one of the most in depth ideas discovered is the study of humans and their culture, specifically about wealth and how the rising billionaires of the early 1900’s diverge from the elite and prosperous families of tradition. Fitzgerald creates a story where West Egg and its occupants symbolize the new wealth, and East Egg and its occupants symbolize the traditional and elite families. The author depicts the newest wealthy people in the West as being unrefined, extravagant, and absent in communal elegance. Meanwhile, the traditional and rich elite families in the East have charm, finesse, and sophistication.

Jay Gatsby’s wealth and lifestyle in West Egg alter qualities in his behavior, as seen in chapter four as he picks up Nick Carraway, “He was balancing himself on the dashboard of his car with that resourcefulness of movement that is so peculiarly American- that comes, I suppose, with the absence of lifting work or rigid sitting in youth and, even more, with the formless grace of our nervous, sporadic games. This quality was continually breaking through his punctilious manner in the shape of restlessness” (64), Gatsby’s lust for adventure caused him to lose touch with his roots, creating an unbalance and eventually turning him into an extravagant and lonely man. West Egg is restless, unforgiving, and full of hope for people trying to achieve their dreams. This is a very common mindset not only today but in all of history, that moving west means prosperity.

If Gatsby embodies the gaudy icon that lionized wealth and chased the upper class to impress Daisy, the lady he treasured and loved, then Nick embodies the discreet, introspective Midwesterner directionless in the tempting east. That generates a prevailing personal struggle through the characters and the story. Although Nick is fascinated with the exciting life of New York, he realizes that it is outlandish and destructive. He states, “Or perhaps I had merely grown used to it, grown to accept West Egg as a world complete in itself, with its own standards and its own great figures, second to nothing because it had no consciousness of being so, and now I was looking at it again, through Daisy’s eyes. It is invariably saddening to look through new eyes at things upon which you have expanded your own powers of adjustment” (104). Nick’s relationship with Daisy alters his views of community values: that money corrupts and blinds self-morals, desires, and relational responsibility. He realizes this conversing with Gatsby, “She’s got an indiscreet voice, I remarked. It is full of- I hesitated. Her voice is full of money, he said suddenly. That was it. I’d never understood before. It was full of money- that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals’ song of it… high in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl…” (120). Daisy is infatuated with capital, wealth, comfort, and material indulgence. Daisy characterizes the unethical ideals of the highborn East Egg setting. People from the East demonstrate their inattentiveness to other people because they are so wrapped up in wealth and its capability to provide a comfortable lifestyle that they do not ever worry about discomforting others. This relates back to the topic that venturing outside of one’s childhood values and seeking adventure may alter one’s moral intentions.

This personal struggle is also represented through Nick and Jordan Baker’s relationship. He enjoys her high-spiritedness and her classiness, but is disgusted by her untruthfulness and her lacks of concern about other people. Nick recognizes that the wild lifestyle of partying in the East is a shield for the disturbing ethical desolation that the valley of ashes represents, after heading over the dreadful manifestation of Gatsby’s burial. Mellowing from this awareness, he travels back to the Midwest for a simpler lifestyle systematized by more conventional ethical and moral principles, “That’s my Middle West- not the wheat or the prairies or the lost Swede towns, but the thrilling returning trains of my youth, and the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark and the shadows of holly wreaths thrown by lighted windows on the snow. I am part of that, a little solemn with the feel of those long winters, a little complacent from growing up in the Carraway house in a city where dwellings are still called through decades by a family’s name” (176).