estpbarca’s Blog

“A feeling of coldness and fear took hold of her. She felt far away from things and lonely”.(46)

Janie’s exhusband, Logan, is a no good man who is ugly and disgusting, she is only with him  because her grandmother thought his wealth would take good care of Janie but when Joe comes along she feels the urge to runaway with a man who is keen to improve his life and the lives of people in his black community. This man represented Janie’s likeliness and a promise to a better life. They settled in a small town whose roots were just beginning to form. Joe helped create a post office, establish a parlimentary and a store that had everything. But just as things were begginging to look good, Joe started abusing his power. Janie took a notice and realized that things were grasping away from her and she would find herself subordinated by the unhapiness that she once tried to run away.

“You know honey us colored folks is branches without roots and that makes things come round in queer ways. You in particular”(16).

Janie’s grandma is very worried for her. She knows death is right around the corner and Janie has no one to take care for her. She wants her to marry a rich white man, logan Killicks but Janie diasaprooves of him. Grandma gets very hostile and begns telling her about her mother and the struggles she went through. First, when Grandma had Janie’s mother she was kicked out because the baby was white. she spent days in the woods trying to hide but at the same time there were snakes and dangerous animals around. Later when her daughter was seventeen she was raped and had Janie. Now, Grandma doesn’t want Janie to suffer because the lives of Black people were were nothing, with no roots, and no destiny.

We are only three chapters into the book and we finally meet the great Gatsby, unlike Moby Dick we had to wait 100 and something chapters to get a feeling of Moby Dick. In this chapter we clearly see that Gatsby (by the way his first name is Jay) is the man because he throws huge parties with all kinds of food, wines, people, invites everyone even people he doesn’t know. He gives people expensive presents to avoid any trouble and is very elegant and polite, “He excused himself with a small bow that included each of us in turn”(48).

Overall, Gatsby seems a perfect man with a perfect image which is why he provokes people to think he is hideing something because come on, no one is perfect, and althouugh he throws parties he really doesn’t have a “party”, “But no one swooned backward on Gatsby, and no French bob touched Gatsby’s shoulder, and no singing quartets were formed with Gatsby’s head”(50). This makes him an even more mysterious man and makes wonder that the Jordan and the girls might be right about him killing someone and being a German spy.

In chapter two a lot of character interaction is happening with Nick meeting Tom’s girl and chilling at her crib. Once again we are reminded of how the vasts amounts of money these people especially if look at Mrs. Wilson who is a perfect example to describe the capitalist american: she changes clothes everytime she dines, she buys all kinds of perfumes, makeup and magazines and lets several taxiabs drive away before she picks the best one. She also sees a dog she likes and gets it with no second thoughts, “I want to het one of those dogs, I want to get one for the apartment. They are nice to have- a dog”(27). These people clearly have a lot of cash to spare with no limits.

 I’de also like to comment about the style of writting inscsribed in this book which is so good and descriptive especially when describing characters, “The sister, Catherine, was a slender, worldly girl of about thirty, with a solid, sticky bbb of hair, and complexion powdered milky white. Her eyebrows had been plucked and then drawn on again at a more rakish angle but the efforts of nature toward the restoration of the old alignment gave a blurred air to ger face…”(30). I don’t think you can describe a person any better. Once I have learned that money does not make someone happy because when you look Tom and his girl, they like eachother but will never be together because they are both married. how sad:(

After finally getting through Moby Dick, my head doesn’t hurt as much and things are starting to go well especially with the new arrival of the Great Gatsby and its story about the journey of Nick and Mr. Gatsby his next door neighboor living in a big mansion. While reading half way through I got my first insights of the book and noticed that the reading will be very good but there will be a lot of racism. A good example would be on page 13 where Tom the husband of Nick’s cousin says”This fellow has worked out the whole thing. It’s up to us, who are the dominant race, to watch out or these other races will have control of things.”(13). Then his wife says, We’ve got to beat them down. This very much relates to the racism that was going on in the early 20th cntury with white and black people. I feel that the book will have a lot to do with these issues. I also found an interesting article about racism and how poeple think it may be over but with the new presence of Obama in the white house, it might become a bigger issue. http://www.reuters.com/article/vcCandidateFeed7/idUSN05317033

So, there are a lot of things going on right now, but the chapter that has captivated me was chapter 113 about the making of the “special” harpoon made nails from race horse shoes, his razors and blood from three men. Then he says “Ego non baptizo te in nomine patris, sed in nomine diaboli” which basically means that he is is batizing in the name of the devil. WoW, for the last 112 pages I was sure Ahab was crazy but seems like he is possesed by a demon. After so much suspense I enjoyed a small pause on chapter 114 when at times of peace and calmness everyone would forget about whaleing and their surroundings, “at such times, under an abated sun; afoat all day upon smooth slow heaving swells; seated in his boat, light as a birch canoe; and so sociably mixing with the soft waves themselves.”(405).  After the small pause life resumes when they meet the Bachelor, a ship full of oil heading home. Although this scene is very small you get a really good image and some foreshadowing about their forthcoming doom when the homeward bound ship gently rides with the wind and the Peqoud goes stubbornly against it, “And thus, while the one ship went cheerly before the breeze, the other stubbornly fought against it; and so the two vessels parted; the crew of the peqoud looking with grave, lingering glances towards the receding Bachelor” (408). Towards the end of chapter 17 I found something that was hilarious because Ahab blabbers about how he is Immortal on sea and on land. If I was there I would’ve have screamed at his wrinkly face saying, “you are going to die old man, like it or not.” Finally, I am sure that if Ahab dies everyone’s nightmares and when Starbuck was wondering whether to kill the old man or not, he shouldn’t have had any second doughts.

I would have to say that I liked enjoyed reading, maybee its because I’m on a good mood. Chapter one hundred was very interesting when Ahab meets the English captain. As usual Ahab asks about Moby Dick, though the captain has seen Moby Dick he also tells him that he lost his arm because of Moby Dick but because the captain isn’t dumb or crazy. He has cleverly decided to leave the whale alone,

“did’s thou cross his wake again?” “Twice.” “But could not fasten?” “Didn’t want to try to ain’t one limb enough”

And yes this once again shows how Ahab has no brain!!!!!

Ishmael then talks about how much supplies and food are needed for a 180 day sail and it is amazing of the great amount of food brought on board, two barrels of beer per man, for twelve weeks and a fair portition of 550 ankers of gin. Man, these people are fat, Although Ishamel might be making this up because he also says that a large sperm whale might weigh more than a one hundred thousand inhabitant village which is so fake. And lastly, captain Ahab’s peg leg finally snaps. YES!!!!

Becasue the book is wrtten by Herman Mellville, we once again get a full manual about cutting, cooking and getting the whale oil out. But while I was reading this ”interesting” catalog something really gross came up on chapter 95 that talked about the whales’s penis and how it can be compared to how clergymen dress. I don’t think this makes any sense, although I found it humorous when he says “pretty sure am I that you would have scanned with no small curiosity avery strange , enigmatical object”.

Apart from the whaleing I really enjoyed reading about how clever Stubb is when the Pequod meets the Rose-bud. Stubb asks bout Moby Dick and notices that there are two whales tied to the ship with no oil but the second one containing a vailable substance known as ambergris in the intestines. Then he says that this whale might pose a threat to the crew tricking the captain and leaving Stubb with a valuable whale. Then there is the story of pip which cativated me since he is a poor little guy who gets yelled at all the time, “we can’t afford to lose whales by the likes of you, a whale would sell for thirty times what you would pip in Alabama” and almost dies drowned in the vastness of the ocean twice. Poor little smeagel.

It is very clear that in these chapters, these is very little action going on. Ishmael just talks about captain Ahab and the strifle with Moby Dick. How they plan to get to it and that Moby Dick destoyed all Ahab’s boats and made him suffer a lot which is most likely why he gained so much hate towards the whale. He then talks about how when they aren’t doing anything, he makes a sword-mat with Quepeg.  Also the mysterious passenger aboard comes up again on chapter when two sailors are having a conversation but one is disturbed when he hears noise from the cargo room. This mysterious passenger keeps coming up and from what we’ve bee reading it doesn’t sound too good.

Unlike any other chapters we have read, these were the chapters that Mellville just goes on talking about whales with no actual relation to the plot. He includes a lot of information about many whales and how a whale is not a fish because it is warm blodded and has lungs.  Only on chapters 29 and 30 he refers to the plot when he talks about how Stubb got kicked by captain Ahab’s fake leg and how he ahould be honored because he is being punished by a whaleing legend, Flask says it is an honor to get corrected by Ahab. After all the information Melville gives us about whales he goes into chapter 35 which talks about the mast head which was impossible to get through.