One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest 3

1.  Why didn't patients leave the ward when they were unhappy with the Nurse?
I think that a lot of the patients stayed because it was a place where they could be around other people who understood them and liked them. Out in the real world, things would be different. I also think they stayed because staying was what expected for them to get better, even though Nurse Ratched wasn't helping them very much.

2. What was the significance of the "fog" that the Chief described?
The fog represented the Chief's own little world, where he was detached from reality. It was a main aspect of his hallucinations that really showed the readers that he had a disorder. However, as the book goes on, the fog becomes milder. This is because McMurphy is helping Chief become better by helping bring down the Nurse and the "Combine".

3. Does McMurphy actually have mental problems worth hospitalization?
I do not think McMurphy actually had anything wrong with him, and if he did, it must have been small. I think he just had a unique, flamboyant personality that was not typical in these days. The hospitalization of McMurphy really says a lot about society during this time period; if anything was not conformed, they tried to make it conform. They just wanted McMurphy to be "normal", and the same thing goes for lots of the other patients.

4. To what extent did Chief Bromden's mental problems affect the audience's view of the story?
The Chief's hallucinations and delusions could have really affected the story. There were many things, such as fog and people being nailed to the walls, that he was obviously saying through his disorder. But there could have been many other things that Chief had a very skewed view and opinion on that we will never know what really happened. While I was reading the book, a lot of times I thought that the Chief might be exaggerating and things weren't really as bad as he saw them, but when people started killing themselves and getting into lots of situations because of the Nurse, I thought that maybe the Chief's view wasn't very farfetched.

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest 2

By the end of Part 1, I would say that McMurphy is winning the rivalry. By standing up to the policies and regulations and bringing other patients along with him, he is making the Big Nurse very angry and very nervous. This is seen when the Nurse is "red and swelling like she'll blow apart any second" after McMurphy makes her angry, and how she starts sort of twitching with that "sideways jerk of her head".

I think the Chief is really showing signs of mental illness. He seems to be hallucinating a lot and sort of babbling on about side stories. As readers we don't know what's really happening in the story. He talks a lot about fog and how he's floating in it and trying not to get lost in it, but there isn't really any fog in the room. McMurphy has made the Chief have hope, but he also seems to be lost in his own world even more. His hope was shown when he raised his hand and contributed to the rebellion against the Big Nurse.

I am currently rooting for McMurphy. The Big Nurse is abusive and controlling and McMurphy is the only one willing to stand up to it.

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest 1

It is hard to identify a hero in a situation like in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest because a hero generally lines up with the morals and views of the audience, and that it difficult to achieve in this distinct situation in a mental institution. Taking the situation into account, I believe the hero in this book is McMurphy. He stands for what the audience believes in because the audience is against cruel treatment such as in this hospital, and so in McMurphy in a sense. He is against the cruel treatment because he is against the Big Nurse's power and authority. The Big Nurse is obviously the villain in this book. She treats people hatefully and horribly, such as by getting staff that have "just enough hate in them" and allowing them to basically torture the patients. She is against the hero (McMurphy) because she is against any sort of rebellion or threat to her power, which is exactly what McMurphy plans to do.

The Great Gatsby 3

What do Daisy's choices about her love life say about the upper class?

Daisy's choices show that money and status are the most important things to someone from the upper class. When she was young, Daisy really loved Gatsby. But she married Tom Buchanan because she wanted to get her life started; she didn't want to wait for Gatsby to get back. It says that she was flattered by "his position" and needed a force of money. This shows that money and status are more important than everything, even love, to the upper class.

According to evidence from the book, what may become of Tom and Daisy?

Despite everything, it seems that Tom and Daisy may be okay. After Tom finding out that Daisy didn't really like him, and after Myrtle dying, they seemed to be okay. It was said that they weren't happy but they weren't unhappy either. This implies that things may be okay between them. It's very likely that Daisy would be distraught over Gatsby's death, but in his absence, it will also likely that she will be with Tom, just like what happened when she was young.

Analyze what no one coming to Gatsby's funeral says about upper class life.
This was a statement about status and wealth. Gatsby always had hundreds of people at his house and parties, but not one of them came when he died. None of them actually knew him or was good friends with him. Although Gatsby was extremely popular, he lacked real friends. Upper class life is not as great as it seems because although lots of people know who you are, they don't really know you. You lack friends and this is a major flaw, and a place where lower class life is superior.

Which symbol in the book was most effective in showing a purpose or theme?
I think the valley of ashes was a useful symbol. It showed that upper class life was actually very dreary. The upper class citizens commonly went through the valley of ashes to get home and to get where they needed to go. The valley of ashes is a symbol for upper class lifestyle. Because they often went through the valley of ashes, it shows that underneath, upper class life is actually dreary and depressing.

The Great Gatsby 2

1) What is the purpose of Meyer Wolfsheim as a character? How does he affect the way we see Gatsby?
Meyer Wolfsheim leaves a mysterious edge to Gatsby's story, despite the other information we have gained in the last couple chapters. He affects how we see Gatsby by keeping it mysterious and showing a kind of sketchy side of him, since Meyer Wolfsheim is a gambler who fixed the world series.


2) What does the backstory about Jay and Daisy's past do to our impressions of Gatsby? 
The backstory of Jay and Daisy makes Gatsby a much more relatable character. Before, he had been sort of a mystery, and we didn't know much about him. This backstory provided a lot of answers about previous events in the book, and made Gatsby seem like more of a regular person. But it also kind of makes the reader feel sorry for him because he never got over his relationship with Daisy.


3) What does the story of the rest of Gatsby's past do to our impressions of him?
The rest of Gatsby's past shows that his life hasn't been as great as he makes it seem. It also shows that he lies to lots of people. For example, he didn't grow up in a rich family, and he didn't inherit his money how he said he did. Taking this backstory in to account, I think it makes him look bad.


4) How does your overall impression of Gatsby change over these three chapters - do you like him more, less, and why?
I like Gatsby more after these last three chapters. He seems much more relatable and it was easy to get caught up in his story. There were a lot of unanswered questions in the last chapters, and they have been answered in interesting ways relating to Gatsby, which makes me like him as a character.

The Great Gatsby 1

After reading the first three chapters of the book, it seems to me that Nick, Jordan, and Gatsby are important characters.
Nick is a hero. He states that he is "one of the few honest people [he] has ever known" (p. 59). This trait of honesty makes him seem like the "good" guy to the audience. Honesty is (hopefully) a valued trait by the audience, which would then make Nick the favorable hero.
Jordan is an antihero. She seems very kind and is popular but is "incurably dishonest" (p. 58). This contradicts with the audience's values and what is "acceptable", therefore making her an antihero.
So far, I have not been able to identify a villain in this book. What Gatsby is at this point is unclear. According to what other people say about him, he seems to be a hero. "He doesn't want any trouble with anybody" (p. 43). "He smiled understandingly -- much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced - or seemed to face - the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey." (pg. 48). This pure kindness that he possesses leads one to believe that he may also be a hero.

Death Penalty Articles

The death penalty is a controversial issue in our society. There are many differing opinions on this subject, as we have seen in the articles by Mencken and Kroll. Kroll's article is more effective because it is full of pathos appeals, which, when used on such an opinionated and moral subject as the death penalty, really get to the audience. He neglects what his friend actually did to get sentenced to death and just describes to us how he died and the process of the death penalty, which makes the reader feel very bad for Robert Harris and have a negative view towards the death penalty. He also describes the death penalty very negatively such as when he says, "We were in the middle of something indescribably ugly. Not just the cold-blooded killing of a human being, and not even the fact that we happened to love him - but the ritual of it, the participation of us, the witnesses, the witnessing itself of this most private and personal act. It was nakedly barbaric. Nobody could say this had anything to do with justice, I thought." This really gets to the reader because of its pathos (emotional) appeal. The strong emotional appeal in this article is much for effective than the argument of katharsis, or using the death penalty to get revenge, in the Mencken article.