Streetcar 6-9

Reading scenes 6-9 of Streetcar was a wild ride, to say the least. In these chapters, we learn about Blanche's past, Stanley's frustrations, and Mitch and Blanche's relationship in more depth.

In scene 6, Blanche and Mitch return from an awkward date and clearly struggle to maintain a connection. Mitch is awkward and constantly apologizing, and Blanche is clearly hiding something. After going inside, the two somewhat make conversation before Blanche discloses just some of her background. Here, we learn that Blanche's past lover killed himself. The reason for this being that Blanche found out about that he was cheating on her with a man and tells him he is disgusting. This makes me wonder if Blanche was simply a cover for him and if he actually loved her. If so, it is heartbreaking to think that Blanche worshipped this man who did not reciprocate those feelings. Also in this scene, we learn why Blanche is always in the shadows, "And then the searchlight which had been turned on the world was turned off again and never for one moment since has there been any light that's stronger than this kitchen candle" (115).

In scene 7, we see Stanley's hatred for Blanche even more. He has been asking his friends about Blanche. He tells Stella that Blanche has been lying about her virginity to Mitch, had many rendezvous with men in a hotel, and also was caught with a 17-year-old boy. Honestly, this wasn't that surprising to me basing off of how Blanche acts to all the men in her life. It seems that after her past lover's suicide, she has become hyper-obsessed with men and sex. Whether it is the first encounter with Stanley, the young man, Mitch, or any other men who stop by the house, she is alarmingly fixated on them.

  In scene 8, the birthday party for Blanche is uncomfortable at best. Blanche picks up something and fears what Stella has learned about her. Stanley, as usual, lashes out. This time he shatters a plate because he is frustrated with being called a Polack and an animal. Although I don't agree with his methods, I see where he is coming from. He is only seen as a brute, which makes him act like a brute even more. Also, he is frustrated with his marriage because he believes that Blanche brings unnecessary tension and anger into the house. At the end of the scene, Stella goes into labor (I think)!

In the final scene of last night's reading, Mitch begrudgingly confronts Blanche. He is clearly frustrated with her and Blanche overcompensates to attempt to lighten the mood. Something I found offputting about this scene was how she reacted with the light. She has a full on freak out when he tries to see her. I feel that Blanche believes she must stay in the dark to cling onto Mitch. Here, she admits everything she has done. Mitch says that she is "not clean enough" for his mother and leaves. Once again, Blanche is left alone and she panics.

A Streetcar Named Desire, Act 1, Scenes 1-2 (Emily B.)

I first noticed how the stage directions started of with describing a building called Elysian Fields. This place is an allusion to Greek mythology. The Elysian Fields is a part of the Underworld where Greek heroes and virtuous citizens go after they die. In this way, it is known to be the best place to live your afterlife in the Underworld; however, it is still described as a bleak and depressing place. The stage directions for “A Streetcar Named Desire” describe it in a similar way: “poor,” “weather grey,” “rickety,” and “faded white” (13). Because of this imagery, I believe the setting will represent a place that is supposed to be enjoyable but is really depressing instead.

Also in the stage directions, I immediately recognized the use of color (some of which I already noted above). Whether it be the “turquoise” sky, the “brown river,” the “Blue Piano,” or people’s skin color, the idea of color is already important in defining things, places, and people. Throughout scenes 1 and 2, color continued to appear in both stage notes and dialogue.

As for the characters, Eunice and Stella share a house, with Eunice living in the top apartment and Stella in the bottom. Stella is married to Stanley and has a sister named Blanche, who comes to visit New Orleans. When Blanche arrives, she is immediately described as nervous, proper, and out of place. Dressed in white (as it is a translation of her name), Blanche is horrified to see her little sister living in a tiny apartment. As we later learn, Blanche and Stella are from a wealthy, plantation family but, as Blanche tells Stella, Belle Reve, the property, was recently lost.

Overall, I think Blanche is an obstacle in what seems to be Stella and Stanley’s perfect life. Arriving out of nowhere, Blanche is already keeping secrets and has a constantly changing mood that causes tension for everyone in the apartment. Now that she’s learned about Stella’s pregnancy, she seems even more interested in intervening in her sister’s life. Because of this, I believe that like the ending of scene 2, the next sections will be “red-hot!”

The Great Gatsby Chapter 7

In chapter 7, we learn a lot more about each of the characters when Tom discovers Gatsby and Daisy’s affair. Set on the hottest day of the summer, we see another example of pathetic fallacy as the weather mimics the heat and anger between Gatsby and Tom.

Nick, Jordan, and Gatsby join Tom and Daisy at their house for lunch. Here, Daisy and Tom’s daughter, Pammy, is introduced. Gatsby’s surprised reaction shows his realization of Tom and Daisy’s relationship, as Pammy is a physical representation of their marriage. 

As the day progresses, Daisy and Gatsby outwardly show their affection for each other, causing Tom to become aware of their feelings. On the way to the city, Tom, Jordan, and Nick stop by Wilson’s garage, where they learn that Wilson discovered Myrtle’s affair, although he does not know it is with Tom. Nick comes to a realization, “I stared at him and then at Tom, who made a parallel discovery less than an hour before - and it occurred to me that there was no difference between the men” (95). It is interesting that this interaction takes place because it questions Tom’s morality. If he was okay with having an affair, why does he become so outraged when he learns of Daisy’s?

Later in New York City, Tom confronts Gatsby. Tom asks about Gatsby’s time at Oxford and we learn that Gatsby only spent five months there. We also learn that Tom’s assumption was right - Gatsby may be a bootlegger. Gatsby’s lies come back to bite him, as Daisy begins to have mixed feelings. At the start of the day, she couldn’t help but show her love for Gatsby, but as the fight continues, she admits that she did love Tom, “‘I did love him once - but I loved you too’” (100). Here, we see references to the past in both Gatsby and Tom’s relationship with Daisy.

Another notable event that happened in chapter 7 was Myrtle’s death. Returning home from the city, Myrtle is hit by a yellow car, believed to be Gatsby’s. We see a new side of Tom that contradicts what we know of him. Tom is angry and rough, but after Myrtle dies, Tom becomes caring as he tries to comfort Wilson. Tom also begins to sob as they drive back to West Egg, “In a little while I heard a low husky sob, and saw that the tears were overflowing down his face” (108). While Tom believes Gatsby was driving the car, Gatsby admits to Nick that it was Daisy. We see Gatsby’s continuing love for Daisy as he says he will take the blame for her, and watches her inside the house to make sure she is okay.

I would love to discuss Tom's reaction to Daisy's infidelity, knowing that he has had many affairs, as well as how Gatsby and Daisy's relationship seems to change during Tom and Gatsby's fight.

The Great Gatsby - Chapters 5 and 6

Chapter 5 opens with a description of Gatsby’s house being lit up and making the surrounding area look like it’s on fire, possibly a reference to the cover. Gatsby is getting ready for his tea with Daisy and passive aggressively tells Nick that he needs to fo the same. Then, Gatsby offers Nick a way to make some extra money, but with fear that it might not be a normal job, Nick turns it down.

In this chapter, the reunion of Gatsby and Daisy took place and it is nothing like how I imagined it would go. This is the first time we have seen Gatsby look anything less than perfect, breaking his illusion that he has put on for the world. He is described as “pale, and there were dark signs of sleeplessness beneath his eyes” (84). He was also noticeably scatter-brained.

When Daisy arrived, Gatsby left Nick’s house and then knocked, furthering the illusion of this whole tea. The way Gatsby acted really threw me off when I first read it, but now it makes sense. He is described as “pale as death, with his hands plunged like weights in his coat pockets”, “in a strained counterfeit of perfect ease”, and looking with “tense, unhappy eyes” (86, 87). This discomfort is because, like we talked about in class, he has built this moment up so much in his head that, now when it’s actually happening, he is trying to make sure it plays out the way he imagined it to. At the end of the chapter, Nick even says “there must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams--not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion” (95). Throughout the whole encounter, Gatsby is looking for Daisy’s approval and, as Nick says, revaluing everything according to her response.

There is a shift in Gatsby’s character after Nick leaves and examines Gatsby’s house and then comes back in, “he literally glowed” (89). I thought this was a quick switch and wonder what happened while Nick was gone.

The idea of illusion was apparent when Nick described the rooms as if there were “guests concealed behind every couch and table, under orders to be breathlessly silent until we had passed through” (91). It’s almost like there were people staged in each room to make sure Gatsby looks perfect in Daisy’s eyes, but it’s not Gatsby doing the work. Along the house tour, they encounter a man, Mr. Klipspringer, who is doing “liver exercises” (91). At first, I thought this was a figment of Nick’s imagination, but after Gatsby calls him in to play the piano, I realized he was real and “liver exercises” are probably a reference to drinking.

The green light reappeared during this chapter, but nothing was revealed about it other than that Gatsby noticed it every night.

Throughout this whole chapter, I was confused as to whether or not Daisy likes Gatsby or not. In the beginning, I got the sense that she didn’t but in the end, I started to think she did.

In chapter 6, it is revealed that Jay Gatsby’s name is not really Jay Gatsby, or at least it didn’t used to be. He changed his name from James Gatz when he was 17. This is just one more example of the illusion that he has created and Nick recognizes this, “The truth was that Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself” (98). This helps explain why we see Gatsby being selfish and passive several times: because he is still playing the character he made up when he was a teenager. It is also revealed that he lied about where he was from and where he went to college, so it can be inferred that he has lied about other things as well. He is actually from North Dakota and went to a small Lutheran college in Minnesota, but only for two weeks.

In this chapter, there was also a strange encounter between Gatsby, Nick, Tom, a man named Sloane, and a woman without a name. I’m not sure why this happened but it seems very strange for Gatsby to have his love interest’s husband over. He even outed himself to Tom when he says, “‘I know your wife,’ continued Gatsby, almost aggressively” (102) and later Tom ponders, “‘I wonder where in the devil he met Daisy. By God, I may be old-fashioned in my ideas, but women run around too much these days to suit me’” (103). This also bothered me because Tom has no right to hold Daisy on a short leash when he is running around with another woman.

During the party, Daisy gives Nick permission to kiss her at any time throughout the evening. This confused me because they don’t have a romantic relationship and she is his cousin…

Along with Tom expressing his concern with Daisy running around, there is growing tension between Tom and Daisy in this chapter.

The most important part of chapter 6, in my opinion, was the conversation between Nick and Gatsby at the end when Nick says that you can’t repeat the past and Gatsby says “‘Why of course you can!’” and then “‘I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before...she’ll see’” (110). This further proves that he is immature and unrealistic. He is stuck in the past, holding on to feelings he felt 5 years ago.

Chapters 5 and 6 were full of a lot of new information revealing more about Gatsby’s actual life and what is just his illusion. I’m interested to see how Gatsby’s plan of bringing back the past is going to play out, but my guess is not very well.

            Chapter 4 gives us a lot of insight that helps to understand the characters, especially Gatsby. Nick does this by getting the perspectives of Gatsby, Meyer Wolfshiem, and Jordan Baker. The chapter begins with Nick describing all the people that come to Gatsby’s parties. These people live extravagant lives, but there are so many that you don’t remember any of them. He then describes a day trip he took with Gatsby to New York. Gatsby calls for this outing because of a certain matter that Jordan will later talk to him about. On the way there, Gatsby once again starts talking about himself and how he was raised by a wealthy family in the Midwest, traveled around Europe collecting precious jewels, and went to Oxford. Nick is suspicions about whether Gatsby is telling the truth. When Gatsby is pulled over by a cop for speeding, he flashes a white card and the police lets him go and apologizes for stopping him. This goes to show how Gatsby and others of his wealth live in an elite society that has different rules than those of the regular community.

            When at lunch, Gatsby introduces Nick to Wolfshiem who is said to be responsible fixing the 1919 World Series by gambling. At this point, we can tell Nick is in the midst of rich men doing shady business. By the way Wolfshiem talks to Gatsby, Nick thinks that Gatsby may have something to do with some underground business. When Gatsby and Nick are finishing their meal, Nick sees Tom Buchanan and brings Gatsby over to meet him. When they shook hands, “a strained, unfamiliar look of embarrassment came over Gatsby’s face,” (74). Gatsby quickly leaves, which leaves us being confused and thinking that Gatsby must know Mr. Buchanan in some way. This is the only person whom Gatsby has put up a cold front to, which will be explained later in the chapter.

            When Nick meets up with Jordan later that day, Jordan explains Daisy Buchanan’s past, the same subject she was talking to Gatsby about at his party. She recounts to Nick that during the war Daisy fell in love with Gatsby, who was then a military officer and stationed near her home in Louisville, Kentucky. When he left to go overseas, Daisy married Tom Buchanan, but before her wedding Jordan found her “as drunk as a monkey” with a bottle of wine in one hand and a letter from Gatsby in the other. Ever since, Daisy has not seen nor heard of Gatsby until Nick brings him up in the first chapter. However, we learn that Gatsby bought the mansion he lives in to be near Daisy and has waited five years until he’s had the perfect moment to reconnect with her, which is available with the help of Nick. Gatsby’s desperation for Daisy is very unlike his professional and powerful appearance, and is very alike to F. Scott Fitzgerald in that he did everything to get the girl. Gatsby’s master plan is that Nick will invite Daisy over to his house while he is there in hope that they will reconnect. Some interesting topics from this chapter to discuss would be the new side of Gatsby we learn of, what Wolfshiem gives us insight to, and Jordan and Nick’s place in Gatsby’s plan to reconnect with Daisy.

Hamlet Act III Scenes 2-3

   Act III Scenes 2-3 are interesting, exposing, and quite hilarious if you ask me. Scene 2 begins with Hamlet preparing the performers for the play to put on in front of the court. Hamlet still does not know for sure whether his father's ghost is from heaven or hell so to find the truth, he gives Horatio the job of watching Claudius's reactions throughout the climatic moments of the play. It was so obvious the whole time how bitter Hamlet was about all of the terrible things going on in his life. He constantly made degrading and snappy marks to Ophelia and Gertrude such as saying that the prologue was as brief as a woman's love. I find it interesting how he is being so upfront about his anger and judgement as he says, "What should a man do but be merry? for look you how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died withins two hours" (110). The best part about this scene was how Hamlet pretended to not know what was to come of the play. I found myself laughing after the Player Queen said "None wed the second but who killed the first" and Hamlet says "That's bitter".  Hamlet even had the nerve to ask his mother after that scene if she liked the play....that was bold. I originally thought the play would hint at the idea of a man killing his brother and taking his wife, but I was shocked to see how literal and obvious everything was. The name Lucianus is incredibly similar to the name Claudius if you rearrange the letters. When Claudius asks Hamlet about the name of the play, he goes into a long overdue description and blatantly points out Claudius's guilt by saying, "Your majesty, and we that have free souls, it touches us not" (220).
    It was nice to see Hamlet finally receive some truth about this situation when Claudius stormed out of the castle, revealing the honesty and goodness of the ghost. In scene 3, we are able to see the inside thoughts of Claudius as he confesses his sins. He does feel guilt but at the same time, he does not want to give up what he has gained and his prayer shows that he does not regret his actions. I really wish that Hamlet would have just struck him down at this moment, but I guess I can understand his reasoning.
   In class, I would like to discuss the reason behind Shakespeare making this Act so funny, Hamlet's overly blunt attitude, and the conversation he has with Guilderstern and Rosencrantz because I was quite confused. I am excited to keep reading.

Hamlet Act III, Scene 1

Act III, scene 1 contains some of the most iconic Hamlet moments and is painful to read, and the plot becomes tumultuous from multiple perspectives. The act opens with Claudius discussing Hamlet’s strange behavior with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who aren’t able to conclude the source behind Hamlet’s strange actions. They realize that Hamlet is enthusiastic about the actors and theater, so they tell the king and queen about this. They decide to see the play that evening, but are still perplexed as to why Hamlet has been acting in such a disheveled and odd manor. Polonius and Claudius make plans to spy on Hamlet in secret, their mischievous intentions shining through. They want to see if Hamlet’s love, or lack thereof, for Ophelia has driven him mad. Claudius shows guilt in this moment, reflecting on the murder of King Hamlet in an aside: “Oh, tis too true/ How smart a lash that speech that speech doth give my conscience!/ The harlot’s check, beautied with plastering art/ Is not more ugly to the thing that helps it/ Than is my deed to my most painted word/ O heavy burden!” (3.1.49-54).

              As Hamlet enters, he delivers his famous “To be or not to be” speech. He grapples with the idea of committing suicide, wondering if he should fight through his struggles or end his life. Through his words, the reader is able to get a glimpse of how dark Hamlet's mind truly is at this point in the story. He makes points about death and the fact that as people, we ultimately have a will to live because we fear what comes after death. This idea made me wonder about Shakespeare’s late son, Hamnet, who died before the play was written, and how Hamlet’s character was inspired by Shakespeare’s life events. I wonder if Hamlet’s iconic speech was influenced by Shakespeare’s own uncertainty about what comes after death, since the sadness and agonizing tone of the speech is reflective of what Shakespeare must’ve been feeling at the time.

              Ophelia enters as Hamlet is still deep in thought, attempting to return Hamlet’s gifts to her. Hamlet angrily denies giving her the gifts and claims to have loved her, then denying it almost immediately, causing an argumentative tone to emerge from their conversation. Hamlet’s behavior escalades as he criticizes all women before storming out. Claudius and Polonius then emerge, saying that Hamlet’s behavior is a result of insanity, not just love for Ophelia. They make plans to send Hamlet to England in hopes that the vacation will help him act normally again.