Johnny Got his Gun 8

What Joe wants he thinks is a no brainer. It isn't like he wants a materialistic item like a yacht or a billion dollars. All he wants is to be back to normal. He wants to have his arms and legs back. He wants to be able to talk and listen and do thinks he used to be able to do. He realizes that the nurses and doctors are not going to be able to give him his legs back or all of the things he used to have, so he changes what he wants. He decides that now he just wants to be able to leave the prison he is in. He wants to feel the air on his face. He realizes that this would cost alot of money for him to survive because he would have to pay for his nurses and have some way to pay for all of his medicine. Then he decided that he would go out and speak against war. People would love to go and and see the messed up man with no face, arms, or legs. They go to the circus and see bearded ladies or other weird people, so they would be exxcited to see a man that is as messed up as he is. He could go out and talk agaisnt war and tell people what they are getting into. This was against regulations because they dont want to let people out and speak against war. Then in the future when there is another war the children will know what they have instore for them and they wont want to fight the war.

Johnny got his gun

Joe has to get sedated because the nurse has no idea why he keeps banging his head against the pillow and assumes that he is in pain and gives him medicine. This medicine made Joe completely out of it, and caused his mind to wonder. While he is drugged up, he begins to think about the women he saw at the train station. She kept asking where her son was because he was given the option of going to jail or the army, but he was too young. Joe then realized that the boy that women was looking for was actually Christ. Then Joe starts talking about playing cards with a bunch of other soldiers. One of the soldiers says he is thirsty, and then all of a sudden a drink appears to him because Christ made it for him. Then the men start thinking about how they are going to die, because for some reason they all knew how and when they were going to die. With this conversation and riding on the train with all of the men who were going to die, Joe felt jealous and upset. He was neither living or dying so he envied these men who could just die. Joe had to live his life full of suffering and just sitting. He wasn't able to live his life, but he couldn't die either. 

Johnny Got His Gun 6

Joe is sitting there and he hears visitors coming by their vibrations. The large group appear to be placing a medal on Joe, and this makes him extremely mad. How can these generals be wasting their time giving me medals, when they could be going out there and helping with the fighting also? He starts rocking back and forth to try and tell them that he doesn't like what they are doing, but they don't understand him. He started thinking, if i can tell the size, and shape of the visitors by their vibrations, what else could i do with them also. That got him thinking about how much communication would help him get through every day. He started tapping because he remembered doing mores code with Bill when they were kids. He felt like he could use his only movement of moving his head back and forth, and create a since of mores code. This was he would also be able to communicate with his nurses, and find out the answers to questions that have been bugging him since he first got there. The second reason he keeps tapping is because if knows if he stops he will just start thinking about other things, and the tapping distracts him from letting his mind wonder.

Johnny Got His Gun 5

Joe was sitting in his hospital bed trying to do a bunch of things and he was getting frustrated. He started doing multiplication problems but once he reached the triple digits he couldn't do them anymore. Then he tried to name all of the planets, and he couldn't do it. He continued to recite many different things, but could never finish any of them. This was really frustrating for him, because his mind was the only thing he had left, and he couldn't even do anything with it because when he wasn't hurt, he didn't pay enough attention. He then figured out that if he could figure out time, he could be connected with everyone again. " If you can keep track of time you can get a hold of yourself and keep yourself in the world but if you lose it why then you are lost too." Obviously, he felt as though time was extremely important because it kept you connected to a world, and if you lost time, then you would know know when and where you are either. His first idea for figuring out time was simply to count the minutes between nurses visits, and then once he got to 24 hours, and he knew how many times the nurse came within those 24 hours, he would figure out how long a day was using nurses visits as his unit. This didn't work because it is basically impossible for someone who is completely healthy to stay awake for 24 hours without loosing count of the seconds, and converting them to minutes. If it was impossible for a healthy person to do this, how in the world was someone as messed up as Joe be able to do it. Then, he figured out a different way that he felt would work better. He figured the only sense he has is the sense of touch, so why not play up that. He decided he would try and figure out when it was sunrise by when his cheek felt a change in temperature. Before doing this, he had to make some assumptions about how many times a day the nurse would come and how often and when she did basic things like give him a bath and change his sheets. These assumptions helped him get on the right track, and finally he could tell when sunrise was, and when a new day started. This made his time fly, because he had something to do with it.

Johnny Got His Gun 4

He believes people should fight for something they can see, feel or pin down, and also it has to be something that is more valuable to them than their life. These too criteria for fighting also have many sides to them. He believes you should fight for something you can see like a woman for example, but when you start fighting for lots of women, you just begin fighting for a word, which is pointless. Also, he says fight for something that is more valuable than your life, but if you are fighting for something to help you live, what is the point of risking your life, because then you won't even be able to experience what you fought for because you are dead. He thinks that you should not fight for words, like freedom, liberty, honor, because what is freedom really, and what is honor. Are these things that are worth more than you existing, and being able to think, and breath, and hug you child, and have fun? The people who are forced to fight these wars of words do not always care about them. When they are on the floor bleeding to death, they are not jumping for joy because they died because of freedom, but they are wishing they could have more time to live and could see their family again. The people who die are worthless after they are dead, and is that really worth anything? These are the sorts of questions Joe is asking himself when it comes to what you should fight for. In the end, Joe decides there is almost nothing worth being dead for.

Johnny Got His Gun 3

Right now, Joe is completely helpless. He has no arms, legs, and there is a huge whole were his face used to be that is festering and beginning to scab. One night a rat comes and starts crawling on him. The rat slowly begins to chew at his skin and open sores. The rat serves as many things. First off, it reminds him that he is completely helpless. The rat is crawling all over him, and biting him, but he cant do anything about getting him off. He tries to rock the rat off, but the rat seems to like that. He has no arms or legs to get the rat off either. Also, the rat gets him thinking about his time fighting, were the rat was the true enemy. The rat was healthy and striving while everyone else around was dieing, and because of all the deaths, the rat grew richer, not caring what side or who he was eating. The rat reminded him of his time fighting. Lastly, the rat represented when he was sleeping or when he was awake. He realized that when he was sleeping was the only time the rat came and visited him, and then when he was awake the nurse was there. Because he had no other way to judge whether he was awake or asleep, the rat helped him with this. The rat overall stands for all the problems Joe is facing right now. It reminds him of his injuries, reminds him how helpless he is, reminds him of his time fighting, and also reminds him that he is in such bad condition, he doesn't even know if he is sleeping or not.

Johnny Got His Gun 2

Joe remembers working at the bakery because he just realized he lost his legs, and he remembers walking around the bakery and walking too the bakery, and at the time he never realized the greatness of walking and legs, but now since he doesn't have legs, he is remembering all of the times he used to use them in great quantities and not think anything of it. He then starts to think about the bakery more, and he remembers Jose. He admires Jose because Jose comes and he listens one time and is able to do all of the work that all of the other mission people do but ten times better. He admires Jose because he comes to the Mission with a goal to make it to Hollywood, and while he is their he tries hard to obtain that goal. Also, most people that go to the mission make up excuses for why they are at the mission. Their stories are always made up of a lie about when they had moeny and they had to get away from it for one reason or another. Because everyone realized they all made op stories, everyone always listened and then forgot about it, and they never questioned them about their stories. When Jose came to the mission, he had a story about a girl who had lots of money who was obsessed with him and because he didn't love her he had to get away. Like al of the other stories, the people at the mission didn't believe him, but they just acceptedit and went on. This was the case until Jose got a letter from the girl, and he didn't know what to do. The people were all extremely jealous that Jose had both the job offer at Hollywood and the true story of why he ran away.

Johnny Got His Gun

In the first three chapters, we find out Joe is very sick. He is constantly going in and out of memories. One of the first memories we experience with Johnny was of him going back to his house to after his father died. He says he continues to have this bad dream. Later he begins to remember his mother singing while she was preparing her jam and baking fresh bread. He is always slipping in and out of reality, and is very confused about the time he is in. He also just found out he was deaf, and he was missing his arms. Joe is extremely sick, and does not really know what is happening to him. He compares it to drowning because he keeps trying to fight it and get better, but then he gets pulled right back down, and there seems to be no hope for surviving. He will be feeling ok, and then all of the sudden he gets pulled back down to the slumps again. Also, he is frustrated with the fact that he is trapped. He cant do anything with his hands because they are gone. He tries to talk to people, but he can't communicate because he is deaf. He is just in a situation that shows no hope of getting better, and this is extremely frusterating to Joe.

Bell Jar,19-20

When Esther meets Irwin, at first she doesn't think anything of it, but after a few cups of bad coffee at the cafeteria, and then she went back to his house, everything changed. She could tell he was successful, and that was when she decided to " seduce him." She had always imagined that her first time would be with someone who was intelligent, which Irwin obviously was if he was a college professor at the age of 26, someone she didn't really know, and someone who was very experienced to make up for the fact that she wasn't experienced at all. Irwin fit all of these standards, so after a few alcoholic beverages, they ended up sleeping together. The reason she felt such a need was because he was the perfect guy, and she was in the perfect situation, so she might as well jump on it. After the experience, she at first couldn't tell if she achieved her mission or not so she didn't feel much, but once she felt the proof that her virginity was actually taken from her, she felt happy that it finally happened to her. She was proud, at first that she had to deal with the problem she had, but once it kept happening, and it got to the point where she had to go to Joan, she was sort of embarrassed, and didn't want to tell Joan what really happened because she was afraid that Joan either wouldn't believe her or would look down upon her.

Bell Jar,17-18

The first time we hear Esther compare herself to a bell jar, it is because she is talking about how she doesn't feel that grateful that Philomena Guinea is getting her into the special asylum. She feels like Mrs Guinea could buy her a plane ticket to Paris, or a hotel in another wonderful place in the word and she would still feel the same way, trapped. No matter where she goes, the bell jar will always be on top of her, preventing her from escaping, and keeping her trapped. She thinks her sickness will follow her everywhere she goes, preventing her from going and living her life and being happy. In chapter 18, when Esther talks about the bell jar, it is after she had her second shock treatment, and this one actually worked. When she woke up she said that the bell jar was suspended a few feet away from her head. This means that after the shock treatment, she finally began feeling better. Esther no longer felt as trapped as she had in her previous months and years. This treatment gave her hope, and she didn't have to worry anymore about her sickness bringing her down. This was true because after she began having the shock treatments three times a week, she also started being able to get more privileges. Esther was now no longer trapped within the asylum, or emotionally trapped, and as unhappy.

Bell Jar 15-16

Esther goes to a new asylum because Philomena Guinea, the person who paid for her scholarship, hears about her in the newspaper, comes to Boston, and offers to pay for Esther to get help, because when she was younger she had to go to an asylum herself. The new asylum was like a country club in that it had golf and badminton and other activities for the patients to do. When Esther described it, she said that there was alot of the same furniture, but the room she was staying at did not have bars on the windows, like the other hospital did. Also, at this hospital, she had a female doctor, which was sort of different for her. She also had much more freedom at this hospital. If she got well enough, she would be able to go into the town and shop or see a movie. She can leave her room whenever she would like, and go out side for walks. At the other place, she would have been stopped. Also, when the doctor at the new location heard about her shock treatment experience, she was told that isn't what it was supposed to be like, and that she wouldn't have to go through that, which was good news for Esther. If Esther stayed at the other hospital, she would not have gotten any better. She would have been less likely to courperate, and then been treated worse and worse, which wouldn't have helped her at all.

Bell jar

( I accidentally answered skipped a question and have been answering a question ahead of what I should be answering. Last thursday I talked about the hospital she was at when she was first found after she took the pills, and when it asked about why Esther tries to kill herself, i talked about the razor instance I think, so here is my Dr. Gordon question that I skipped.)

Before she goes to Dr. Gordon, Esther assumes that she will be able to walk into his office, and he will look at her and solve all of her problems. When she meets Dr. Gordon for the first time, she notices right away that he is an attractive man. Then, she looks at his desk and sees a picture of his perfect family, dog and all, that is half facing her and half facing him. She gets really upset at this because she feels like he is doing that to show off that he has a perfect family. Then when he starts asking her to tell him what she thinks is wrong with her, he doesn't really do anything to acknowledge that he has any idea what is wrong, or that he really cares. He asks her what college she went to, and if it had some program he was affiliated with, which just shows he doesn't really care about figuring out Esther's problems, and he would rather talk about something that has no significance. He does not give any advice, and at the end of their meeting, all he says is "I'll see you next week." His sessions are $25 a hour, and after a few sessions he recommends that Esther goes to his hospital, for shock treatments. Dr. Gordon isn't helping Esther at all, he is just doing it to get money. He hasn't given her any advice or help since she started going there, and the only thing he has done was shock her, and cause her pain.

Bell Jar, 13-14

At the new asylum, the people there are not very positive. When she firsts gets the the asylum, she says she is blind and one of the nurses simply says yes you are but it is ok, you will find a blind husband. The truth was she was not blind, and the nurse did not do a good job trying to calm down Esthers nerves. Also, the nurses are quick to get angry at the patients, and you would think at a place where there are mentally unstable and suicidal people, they would try their best on making it a positive environment for them, and try to use as much positive reienforcement as possible in order to make them better in the long run. Also, another example of them being negative is when Esther wants to look at herself in the mirror. Instead of the nurse making up an excuse about why she can't see a mirror, she simply says, you won't be happy with what you see because it is not beautiful. This is not something that would help a person with so many problems, like Esther has. It is probally better for Esther to be moved to Mrs. Moles room, because she does not take all of the crowds well. she says she hates talking to groups now, so this would probally limit th eneed to talk in a group some. Also, if she is so secluded, then random people might stop going to visit her.

Bell Jar, 11-12

Esther is just a messed up girl. She doesn't know what she wants from her life, and when she thinks she is happy, she does something to make herself not happy. Also, part of Esther's problem is that she doesn't think she is crazy. She wants to stop seeing Dr. Gordon, which makes a little bit of sense because he isn't doing much, but if she stops seeing him, she doesn't realize that she is sick and needs to go see someone to help her. Esther has gone completely off the deep end. She spends the latter part of her scholarship time in New York, worrying about what she will do once she gets out of college. Then she finally decides that she will be a writer, because that is the only thing she is good at, but the first thing she finds out when she gets home to Boston is that she didn't make the writing class. This completely turned her life upside down, because now what she planned to do the rest of her life was not going to happen, or at least happen the way she wanted it to. Esther had this all on top of her already crazy life and personality, which did not help her at all. All of this probably had a impact on her thinking about killing herself. She is not happy with her life, and that she isnt really successfull, on top of the fact that her mother is upset that she isnt normal.

Bell Jar 9-10

When Esther returns to she is really weird. She goes through a phase where she doesn't want the dried blood on her phase to fall off, because she likes it there, and likes sort of the idea of what happened. She is also very irritated and sort of lazy when she returns. She sits and just watches the woman with the baby for a while, and then proceeds to go and lay down in her bed. When she is in the bed her phone keeps ringing, and she very angerly gets up. When her friend Jody is on the other line, she shortly tells her she didn't get in the class, and she doesn't want to stay with her. After that she starts writing a story, which she quickly runs out of things to say. Then she goes through 20 other possibly things she could spend her summer doing. In a period of around 3 hours, she goes from writing a short story, to wanting to spend her summer in Germany until she can speak both German and English perfectly. She is extremely indesisive once she gets back to Boston, and is also in a bad mood. This could be because of what happened with Marco. He was a complete jerk to her, and pushed her into the mud, and ripped her dress. This would explain why she was short tempered.

Bell Jar,7-8

Esther is very unhappy with the double standard of pureness between men and women. She is upset that men can be as un pure as they want, but the second women become unpure, they are now untrustworthy, and unappealing. The same men who tricked them into sleeping with them, and now telling them that they want nothing to do with them because if they were so easily tricked with them, they might do the same thing with other men. Also, while reading an article about chastity that her mother sent her to college, it talked about what the men felt, but never mentioned anything about women, which also made Esther mad. When Esther meets Constantine, one of her first thoughts was that she could get with Constantine, and make it so Buddy and her are equal when it comes to sleeping with people. She doesn't like the fact that men can live the pure and unpure life, while women have to go through their whole life with only one person. This is why she wants to try ang get with Constantine. He is extremely cute and talented, and while she thinks he is much better than she is, she thinks he still might be willing to seduce her. When she gets to his house, he doesn't seem has down with the plan as she is. They start holding hands, but nothing seems to be happening after that. She asks him what the deal was, and if he had a girlfriend she didn't know about, and he responded by saying he didnt get involved like that. They ended up sleeping in the same bed, which was a first for Esther, yet nothing sexual came out of the night. This was not something most men would do, which makes it intersting.

Bell Jar,5-6

When Esther firsts meets Buddy, she spends alot of time admiring him from a far. They went to church for a while, and whenever both of them were home, they saw each other on Sunday's, but their relationship didn't really mean much. Then one day during Christmas break, he told her he might stop by every once and a while at her college to say hi. Well he finally did this, and ended up asking her to the Yale Junior Prom the same day. When they were first dating, they both were extremely happy. Buddy would always plan things so they could always say they had a good time and were never bored. What Esther wanted out of Buddy was for him to be more honest to her. She felt as if he was acting like she was the prettiest, and sexxiest person on the planet, and that he was more innocent than her, when really he was having all sorts of relations with a skanky waiter. She didn't really care about him and the waitress, she just wanted him to be able to tell her, and not act like he is this perfect angel with he is with her. To be honest, while this is a little rude of Buddy to do, I just think Esther is doing like she does with everything. She never wants to be happy with anything she is doing, and once she gets to that point, she starts to think her way out of things.

Bell Jar, 3-4

Esther's plan to miss chemistry was quite tricky. Because of she got an A in physics, when all of the other girls failed, she figured that she would get an easy A in this class also, so what is the point in taking it. She decided to send in a petition to the school asking if it was alright if she took a Shakespeare class instead of Chemistry, because she was an English major, not a science. Also, college's had gotten rid of the second year of science requirements, so Esther really had no reason to take that class. She told the board that she was going to get an easy A, so she wanted to talk a more challenging class, that was in her major. This made all of the teachers happy with her. The chemistry teacher was also happy because he realized that she didn't want to take his course just to get an A. She was so willing not to get graded in that class, that she willingly agreed to go to her Shakespeare class on top of attending the Chemistry class just to go and watch, which gave her extra brownie points. I don't think Esther wanted to take this class because she is afraid of doing better than other people. She was extremely embarrassed when all of the other girls failed and she got an A, and also on the trip she is at, hundreds of girls would die to be there, but she doesn't like the fact that others envy her.

Bell Jar, 1-2

"It was a cool and sultry summer, the summer they electrocuted the Rosenbergs, and I didn't know what I was doing in New York."

The first line of the book means that Esther was feeling upset about the Rosenbergs, and she didn't think she had anything to do about it. The second half of the line means that Esther feels lost in New York. The second line especially just shows that Esther is extremely lost. She doesn't have a sense of purpose in life, or in New York. She is apart of this fashion contest that hundreds of girls would die to be apart of, yet she doesn't feel the same excitment. She is living through her life contemplating things, and second guessing her self. Esther knows this contest was a big deal, but she still can't bring herself to feel happy about the whole idea. This sentence shows that she kind of thinks her being in New York, going to all of the parties, wearing all of the glitz and glam, is extremely pointless for her. As for the middle part of the sentece, she is saying they because she doesn't want to be associated with the idea of the Rosenbergs being electrocuted at all.

Mona Lisa Smiles 2

Throughout the movie there are many examples of women both conforming to society and going against it. Betty Warren is a perfect example of someone who did exactly what society expects her to do. While Miss Watson is showing the girls a painting they have never seen before, she is the first to say how awful it is because it isn't famous it therefore isn't art. She says the right people have to say its good for it to actually be good, and since it wasn't in any of their textbooks, it obviously couldn't be good. She also was the first one to conform to society and get married, even though it was obvious that she did not really love her husband. Betty always writes about people in her articles, and in a way serves as the Wesseley police force. Gissle is the complete opposite. She is the one who is going against the society. While talking about the same picture Betty hated because it wasn't famous, she thought it look good and wasn't bad at all. She is the rebel who uses illegal contraceptives, her parents were divorced, and she wasn't completely focused on settling down in her life. These two are complete opposites. Betty has the same values has the rest of the perfect society, while Gissle is the rebel of the group that does not want to conform at all.

Mona Lisa Smiles

During the 1950's, it was a time of strict social rules that everyone followed. For the most part the woman's only job was to do stuff at the home while the husband went out and did the real work. The exception to this was when women went to school, only to waste time and not really use the education she got. Like I said earlier, this was a time when there were strict social rules that for the most part everyone followed. This is seen lots of times so far in the movie. When the teacher first arrives at her room, she is given a list of rules, which included the playing of your radio at certain times and the last of which says that you aren't allowed to have men in your room. If you did such a thing it would be promiscuous and it would go against society. When the teacher went to the next housing location, the host spent most of the time explaining the aspects she has added to the house, like the matching embroidery, and she seemed extremely proud about this, which goes along with the goal to be the perfect house wife. She also spent alot of time priding herself on how the teacher doesn't have to worry about cooking dinner because she will be taking acare of it, and for everything else there is a shelf in the fridge. The girls in the teachers class were all perfectlywell behaved also. They all did their homework before class and very activily participated. This just shows that for the mot part, people did what they were told.

Streetcar Named Desire

At the end of the book, Stella tricks Blanche into going to a hospital, because Blanche is truly crazy. Stella does not handle this well. She was extremely upset watching the doctor and marton take her loving sister away. When the doctor and Blanche actually left, Stella was more upset about the situation than Blanche was, but then again Blanche was zoned out again because she now thought this doctor was a gentleman because he offered to shake her hand. Even though this was incredibly hard for Stella to do, this was the right thing for her. Blanche was extremely sick, and you were beginning to be able to see this throughout her normal everyday activities. She would stop in the middle of conversations complaining about the music she was hearing, even though the music was in her head. Also, her drinking was beginning to get out of hand for a women who claims she never touches the stuff. Lastly, she has done stuff in the past that could have messed up her future and the way she thinks. She saw her husband get killed, and then proceeded to react to this occurrences by sleeping with tons of other men, and hitting on underaged boys. She was a messed up girl, who needed lots of help, and Stella was doing the best thing for her. 

Streetcar Named Desire

In these chapters we find out alot about Blanche. First off, we find out that she walked in on her littler husband in bed with a man. At first she doesn't say anything to her about it, but then one night while they are dancing she tells him how disgusted she is and that she knows about it,and then her husband ran out of the room and shot himself in the head. Also, we find out that Blanche did have something to do with the Flamingo hotel. Lastly we find out that Blanche was never planning on going back to Laurel. She isn't on a leave of absence from the school she is working at, she was actually fired. This isn't the biggest part of the story. She wasn't fired because of how she teaches or a minor act done in the classroom. She was actually fired because she had an inappropriate relationship with her seventeen year old male student. She most likely wouldn't have gotten caught, but then the boys father found out. From then on out there were many meetings, and she fired. There are many truths about Blanche that come out throughout the reading last night. The only surprising one was about her husband killing himself because Blanche found out the truth. 

A Streetcar Named Desire 2

From the very first time we met Blanche we knew she was stuck up and thought she was better than everyone else. From the first sight of the living conditions Stella and Stanley were living in all the way to when she saw Stanley get completely wasted and start beating Stella, her beliefs of her being better than most people were just confirmed. Blanche first does not approve of Stanley because of how he treats Stella. She thinks he is a complete monster, and treats her like crap. She couldn't believe Stella would go back to a man like that so quickly, without much thought behind it. While this could be part of the reason for Blanche not liking Stanley, this was mainly a copout for the real reason. In reality, Blanche did not think that stanley was good enough for her sister or her family for that matter. She tried to get her sister to remember the type of men they used to be around to try and compare Stanley to them. The men they used to be around were pure gentlemen, but Stanley is far from that, and is always drunk. She then compares him to an ape, and tries to tell her sister that there are more evolved creatures than them out there, and she should look for them.

A Streetcar named Desire

Beginning in chapter 2, we see that Stella and Stanley start getting in a small argument about Stanley talking to Blanche about Belle Reve. The tensions are already high in the house because of this altercation, but then towards the end of chapter 3, they get taken to the next level. At 2:30 in the morning, the poker game with the men is still going on, and it is making both Stanley and Stella even madder. Stella stayed out extremely late so that when she got back to the house the poker game would already be over, but to her surprise it was still up and running strong. Stanley was annoyed that Stella was back already, and continued to get mad at her when she was talking and turing on the radio. He kept screaming at her and telling her to be quiet and leave, when she had no place to go really because it was 2:30 in the morning. Stanley's drunkenness and anger gets the best of him, and all of the sudden he is beating Stella. We have seen some verbal violence before this incident, but this is the first time we have actually seen Stanley hit Stella. After he realizes what he is done he soon feels bad about it and wants Stella to come back home, and Mitch goes on to tell Blanche that she most likely will because they love each other so much. The way Mitch puts it off as not such a big deal shows that it has probably happened before. 

Deffered essay

My first thoughts on this essay are that Willy and Norma are going to share alot of the same lines on the poem. Willy's dream of being a sales man dries up and basically goes away when he gets fired and even before that and Norma's dream of being an actress goes away too when speaking films come out. When we say dry up this means they were once successful, but then they dried up and lost all of their substance. Also, both of their dreams sag like a heavy load, but Willy's does especially. Norma has picture of her self all around her house and watches her old movies all of the time. She also has money to represent the success she had. Willy on the other hand does not have any of this. He is constantly trying to make ends meet money wise, and his dream of being a salesman is just holding him back. He wasn't reading to go on to a new dream, so his old dream just sulked around him while he hadno success. Also, i think both of their dreams "exploded" or at least tried to explode. All of the pressure around Willy's dream to have a successful business and family caused him to kill him self, and the lonliness Norma has gotten from the failure of her dream has caused her to try and kill herself also.

Willy and Norma

While only know Norma for a short time so far in the movie Sunset Blvd. you can already tell that Willy and Norma are alike in many ways. From what we know about Norma so far, she thinks she is incredibly good at what she does. She talked about how the films were good when she was in them, and when she stopped being in them and they started talking they got worse. She also assumes that everyone knows her and thinks greatly about her all of the time. At one time, Norma was somewhat successful because Joe knew who she was, but what Norma does not realize is that time is over, and she isn't the actress she once was. This is like Willy. He thought he was this wonderful salesman. A person that could do anything because he was well liked and successful. At one point in time, he most likely was a successful man, because he was able to talk to his boss about a possible raise, but then he lost it, just like Norma did. While they are alot alike in the fact that they both have these false images in their heads about themselves, they are different in many ways also. The main way they are different is Norma has a ton of money, while Willy was struggling to pay for his basic needs.

Death of a Salesman 7

While Willy might have thought that his final actions were going to noble because they would give his family more than he was able to give while he was alive, and it would be an opportunity to help Biff make something of him self, almost all of Willy's actions thought out the book, including his last, show signs of weakness. Willy was in general a weak man. When he was having his spirts of confidence you might have not been able to tell that he was weak, but if one thing changed, his other side would come out quickly. The reason he lied so much about him self and his family was because he was weak and he tried his best to hide it by making up lies to make everyone around him sound better than they actually were. These last actions were especially weak because he was just taking the easy way out of things even though he thought it would "help everyone" just because he would be giving them a whole bunch of money. Now his whole family will be morning his loss, missing him, and blaming themselves for the rest of their lives. No amount of money is worth that ever. Willy was swayed easily by Ben's comments. When Biff began to cry, everyone thought everything was going to get back to normal, and Willy was somewhat happy again, and then when Ben started talking about how much progress Biff would make if he had the insurance money, there was no stopping him.

Death of a Salesman 7

death of a Salesman 6

Before Biff goes to Boston he has this picture perfect image of Willy, just like Willy has a perfect image of his sons, but especially Biff. He thinks his father is an amazing salesman, who is extremely well liked and goes throughout everyday meeting people and making money. When Biff goes to Boston, this perfect picture of his dad completely dissolves. When he first arrives, the first thing Willy does is lie about The Women who is in his bathroom, when Biff starts to ignore Willy because he knows he s lying, Willy starts changing the story to make it sound better for his sake. Then the Women completely ruins it for Willy because she asks for the stockings he promised her and keeps talking about how she is naked. Biff at this moment looses all trust in his father. He was someone Biff always looked up too, but when he realized he did something as low as have a mistress and give his mothers stockings away, Willy wasn't even worth Biffs trust anymore. He was a completely different man to Biff now. Also, the only reason Biff worked so hard in some of the things he did, like football, was because he wanted to make Willy proud. Before Boston, he was going to go to summer school, if the teacher wouldn't listen to Willy about the extra points, and pass the class so he could graduate, but now he has no reason to try and succeed because the man he was working hard for had died.

death of a Salesman 5

Willy has been working on commission for a while now at his job. This creates a problem because he isn't selling anything which means he isn't bringing home a steady income or any income for that matter. Linda and Willy are always talking about all of their bills they have to pay and things that keep breaking, so Willy's non paying job isn't helping them at all. Also, now he doesn't even have a job where he could have the possibility of finally selling something to rely on any more. Whenever he needs money now he goes straight to Charley, and Charley gives him $50 or how ever much he needs. For the past few times Willy has made a visit to Charley's office, not only has Charley handed over some money to help Willy make it through the next week, but he also has been giving Willy a job oppertunity. I don't think it was smart of Willy to keep deyning Charley's offer. It might have been okay for him to deny it when he had a job, but now he is jobless and has no reason other than pride not to accept it. He goes in every week to ask for money, why not work for it and get a little but more money instead of muching off of Charley. I think it is more embarrassing for Willy to go in always asking Charley for money and not paying him back, than for him to go in and work hard for the money he is going to earn.

death of a Salesman 4

Ben was a positive influence on Willy. He came from out of normal, and spilled his lies about success in front of willy, close enough for him to reach out and grab them. He belived everything Ben was saying. He fell for it when Ben was saying he just ended up in Africa, and after coming out of the jungle one day he was rich. Now Willy has this idea of instant success stuck in his head. He believes that it should be something easy to get, when in fact that isn't the case. Now he is living his life with those unreachable standards of Ben in his mind, and he is comparing everything he does to these standards. Ben might have been a good influence if his stories were real, but the fact that he is promoting something that is extremely unreasonable makes him an awful influence. Linda also believes he isn't a good influence. Ben is wanting Willy to pick up everything and move to Alsaks in order to strike it rich. Because Willy already has this god like image of Ben, he is easily swayed toward following him on his journey. Everything Ben is saying to him sounds wonderful. Wonderful enough to have him be able to get up and move everything in his life to the wilderness of Alaska. Linda hates that he is trying to convince her husband to do this. She thinks his life is fine where it is at. She also mentions something about her not being able to understand why people keep trying to rule the world now a days. This means that people are trying to do things that are much larger than they need to be happy. Also, they are doing things that are out of their reach.

Death of a Salesman 3

Happy and Biff's plan sounds like a stretch. They are extremely confidant that they are going to get the money, but 10,000-15,000 is an extremely large amount of money for a man to just give Biff after not seeing him for 10 plus years. They are relying on that money to get their idea in motion, and it just seems unlikely that they will be able to get that much money. Also, I don't think Biff will carry through with the plan. He is doing it to make his dad happier and to make him not as crazy, but they keep getting in aurguments over it. The sound of the plan made the dad extremely happy, but then he kept trying to give Biff advice. When Willy kept telling Biff what to do, it made Biff mad and he would start loosing his patience. Once he lost his paticience, he would say something that would hit Willy the wrong way, and then start to storm off, but his mother or Happy pulled him back to try and make things better with Willy. I don't think Biff will be able to follow through with the plan, because soon, he won't be able to handle Willy. Willy will then get mad and their hatred for each other will grow even stronger.

Death of a salesman 2

Charley and Willy have a different relationship. They are continuously bickering. Everything that comes out of one of their mouths is always shot down by the other one. What they bicker about is never anything that is very important. Also, when Willy is talking to Charley, he always makes a point to make Charley feel bad about himself, in order to make Willy feel better about himself. For example, when Charley is asking Willy about his ceiling, Willy talks about how he put it up. Charley then goes on and says how he doesn't understand how someone could put of a ceiling. Before Charley could say something bad about Willy, Wily makes sure to make fun of Charley. He talks about how Charley is not a man because he does not know how to handle tools. This happens eariler when Charley is talking about his heartburn. Willy tries to make him feel stupid and tells him that he knows nothing about food or how to eat. Charley makes a sarcastic comment about how knows he has to eat through his mouth, and Willy got mad about him making a joke at what he said. Willy then went into further depth about how Willy doesn't know what he is talking about when it comes to food. All throughout their conversations they just bicker. You can tell that Willy is more dominant in the relationship because Charley is always afraid that Willy is insulted, while Willy openly pokes fun at Charley.

Death of a salesman 1

Biff and Happy are two very confused characters. Obviously, Biff is a young man who doesn't know what he wants out of his life. He is constantly changing jobs, and still hasn't found anything he is happy with or extremely successful with. Happy, who has a steady job and is looking to get moved up in, isn't at a point where he is happy in his life either. He is just wanting to stay in the job long enough to be promoted and be able to have that seat of power and see what it feels like briefly, before he runs off with Biff out west to try and find a place from them to get settled and perhaps become happy. While Happy is much more successful and has more than Biff has, he is still an extremely lonely young man. Throughout these first few pages he brags about his ability to get any girl he wants, but in the end he is still very lonely because he hasn't gotten settled with anyone yet, and that is what he wants more than anything. Neither one of these characters are very happy about their overall life. In order for Happy to feel good about him self, is to lure all of his executives wives or girlfriends in, and have an affair with them. This makes him feel powerful, and like he is better than someone in someway. Biff is happy for a brief time, and then he realizes that he has not made any progress in his life yet. Over all, neither one of the characters are very reliable. Obviously, neither one of them are very loyal because one is going behind his bosses back and having an affair with their lover and the other is switching jobs constantly which makes him not loyal to his employers at all.

Their Eyes are Watching God Chapters 19-end

After the storm, when Janie and Tea Cake go back to the Glades, Tea Cake gets extremely sick from the bite he received from the mad dog. Janie notices that he has a gun under his pillow after they get in a fight one night because Tea Cake thinks Janie is sneaking off to see Mrs. Turners relative. Janie decides she should have her rifle hidden just incase the mad dog inside Tea Cake tries to hurt her. She was right, one day the mad dog in Tea Cake did get angry, and he pulled the gun on her. When the gun clicked 2 times, Janie reached for the rifle to try and scare Tea Cake. After the third click, Janie knew the gun was about to go of the next time he pulled the trigger, so she prepared her self. Janie pulled the trigger two seconds before Tea Cake could, and ended up killing him. While she is on trial for Tea Cake's death, she barely says anything. This is because she doesn't really care if she goes to jail or not for his murder, because when he was killed, she was killed also. What she wants is for people to know that she loved Tea Cake with everything she had. She doesn't want people to think less of her or think she maliciously killed him because she didn't love him anymore, because that was not the case at all.  At the moment, all of Tea Cake's friends were extremely mad at her, because they just didn't understand what happened.  The only way to get to save Tea Cake was to get the mad dog out of him, and once that happened he could go on to heaven and be happy and calm, and that is what happened. She was putting him out of his misery as well as saving her self. When she was on trial, she wasn't exactly trying to tell people what happened to get herself out of going to jail. She just wanted to let people know that she loved him. 

Their Eyes are Watching God Chapters 16-18

In these chapters, there are many people fleeing Everglades to search for safety. At first it is a group of Indians that are leaving, and when Janie asks, they say that there is a hurricane coming and they are trying to get away. Then, Janie notices that most of the people around her are leaving, including some animal flocks. Tea Cake decides that he wants to stay behind, so him and the rest of the stragglers all join together at Tea Cake's house and have a party to wait for the storm to hit. When everyone else goes home to weather the storm, a man named Motor Boat stays with Janie and Tea Cake. The narrator says the "their eyes are watching God" as we are reading about them staying together as the storm worsens. They know that everything is out of their hands now, so all they can do is sit and trust that God will protect them. This just stands for how in life, there is only so much you can actually do, and the rest is up to God. All throughout the book, Janie is going through a sort of storm her own self because she has everyone around her giving her opinions and making her do things, but then she has her own idea of what should happen also, and when you put everything together it just stands for confusion. Now Janie needs to just live her life and "go with the flow" and realize that when it all comes down to it, God will lead her in the right direction, and choose her fate.

Their Eyes are Watching God Chapters 13-15

When Janie and Tea Cake first arrive at Everglades, and they get settled in in their house by the lake, she first starts off just cooking and hunting for Tea Cake. He begins to come home randomly in the middle of the day to talk to Janie, and Janie suspects that he has doubts that she is faithful to him. He explains that he just misses not seeing her that much, and all day is way to long to go without her and asks her to come out and get a job mucking with him. She is quick to take this offer. At first, it is probably because she was extremely lonely just sitting at the house all day cooking beans and desserts for Tea Cake by herself, waiting for the night time festivities to come along. The main reason she agreed so quickly was because this was sort of like a checkers moment. She had never been asked to play checkers before and when he first asked her too she was so excited to do it. She had never been asked to come and work with someone because they wanted to spend more time with them. Also, this was sort of like another way she could live her life. She was doing what was out of the norm for someone like her, who used to live in the white house and be the mayors wife. This working was different from the work she did with Logan and Jody because he actually asked her if she wanted to do this instead of buying her a mule to make her work and forcing her to spend all hours at the store.

Their Eyes are Watching God Chapters 7-9

Their is a passage at the beginning of chapter 9 that talks about how in the beginning of existence, there was only one many and lots of angels. This many shined so bright and was always singing beautiful songs, but then the angels quickly got annoyed so they broke the man down. After a while, they were still annoyed so they chopped the man down into even smaller pieces. These pieces were then covered in mud and lived the rest of their life longing to be put back together again. This story relates to Janie's experience in many ways. When she was first sitting under the pear tree, dreaming about love, she was all shines and happiness. She couldn't wait for the second when she could love someone. One of the first times when she was chopped down a tiny bit was when she kissed the man by the fence post and nanny saw. While at that moment her light shined brighter than before, she was soon dimmed because Nanny disapproved. When she married Logan, she hoped that she could find love in him, but she quickly found out that he had no real love for her. This was the first instance where she was chopped down majorly. Once Jody came around, she at first finally thought that she had found the one she could be happy with. The hole in her heart could possibly be filled. But after 10 years, she still hadn't found anything to plug up the hole. She starts to get verbally abused by Jody, and soon physically abused, and in return she is chopped up again. Now all of the bad things he is saying is the mud that is covering her. Everytime he treats her porrly, it is just another layer piled on top. Once he died, all of the men came courting her, but the mud is too thick for her to be able to go out and find someone again, even though her heart is aching for it.

Their Eyes are Watching God Chapter 6

In chapter 6, the towns people all get together and joke with Matt B about his mule. They sit on the porch of the shop and make fun of it for being skin and bones. They talk about how the woman are at the lake using its bones for a washboard. Janie feels for this helpless animal that is always mistreated by both Matt and is made fun of by the townspeople. She is treated poorly also by Jody. She is always told to do things like go and work in the store, just like the mule is always forced to work the field with an empty stomach. She feels for the mule because in her relationship with Jody she just does exactly what he tells her, she wants to feel like she is helping someone, because she cant stick up for herself. They both are mistreated for by their "masters", and she wanted to at least help one of them. When Jody bought the mule, Janie was extremely proud of Jody because he went out and helped the creature she wanted to help so badly.

Their Eyes are Watching God Chapter 5

Jody is able to act the way he does because of many reasons. First, he has a since of authority about him that makes people do what he says. While he doesn't ever hit anyone or do anything other than tell people what to do and when, people say " you kin feel the switch in his hand when hes talking to yuh." He has a sort of authority and presence that follows him everywhere he goes, and it makes people listen and do what they are told. Janie fell into this authority and sweettalk the first time she met him, and thats how she ended up here. Also, the first thing he did when he got to Eatonville was start building the town up. He bought land that was uncommonly big for an African-American to buy, and this awed everyone in the town. From there they slowly started listening to everything the Mayor said. Once they realized that he was a very bossy man, it finally hit them that they were following him like a puppet and at that point it was too late. He already had them all wrapped around his fingers. Another reason he can act the way he acts is because he is different from the people he is surronded by, and everyone knows it. He obviously has alot of money, and he isnt afraid to use it. Also, he has a better education, and is a very literate man. He has done alot for the city, so while people don't nessecarily like doing everything he says, they look around and notice that before he got their, Eatonville was nothing, and now it has grown up.

Their Eyes are Watching God Chapters 3-4

"They sat on the boarding house porch and saw the sun plunge into the same crack in the earth from which the night emerged."

There is imagery found all throughout this book, whether it is Nanny talking about branches or Janie talking about pear trees. In the last paragraph of chapter 4 there is a passage that has a reference to nature that stands for a much deeper aspect of Janie's life. Janie and her new husband Joe Starks just snuck away to another part of Florida and got married. Now they are sitting together watching the sun set, and in the distance night fall rises from the same area. This could stand for Janie's old life has just set and ended. She no longer is worrying about what her Nanny would say since she passed away, and now she doesnt have to worry about her old husband Logan any longer. Now she is sitting with her new husband, and is waiting for her new life to surround her, or night. She doesn't exactly know what this new life of hers will bring with it because night can be a mysterious and full of questions, but they are waiting for it to rise from where she left off. Also, this night could represnt that this new life isnt going to be as bright and happy as her old life was, even if her old life wasn't that great to begin with. She dropped everything for this new man and ran away with him without getting to know him. Who is to say he doesnt have anything dark hidden in his past.

Their Eyes are Watching God Chapters 1-2

When Janie returns home from her mysterious journey, she was greeted with gossip and side comments. The people who see her returning ask each other rhetorical questions about where she was, and why she came back. Was it because her younger boyfriend dumped her? Did he take all of her money? The townspeople make up their own stories for where Janie had been and why she went there, and no-one, except for Phoeby, went to talk to her to set all of the rumors that were being started straight.  In both Janie's returning from her journey and the story about her childhood, gossiping appears. The townspeople have nothing better to do but make up Janie's past inorder to either make them feel better about themselves, or to just pass the time. The children from Janie's childhood gossiped about her also. They would rub the fact that Janie's father was chased away by dogs to make her feel bad and they would make fun of the fact that she was staying in someone's backyard. Jealousy fueled all of these outbreaks of gossip and teasing. The school children were jealous that Janie was able to come in day after day in nice clothing and with ribbons in her hair, and they teased and made fun of her to make them feel better about their rags they were wearing. The townspeople could have been jealous about where Janie was or the fact that she had a younger boyfriend. Janie's reaction to the teasing and gossiping about her was different in both situations. In her childhood, she got really upset about the teasing and how the children made her father and her living conditions seem, even though they did not know the truth behind it. When she returned from her journey, and was greeted by rumors, she just walked right by and did not pay attention to it one bit.