The Great Gatsby reading journal: Chapter 9

Chapter nine; in which Nick arranges Gatsby's funeral, Gatsby's father is met and the story comes to an end.

Reader's thoughts:

• In this chapter, while arranging Gatsby's funeral, Nick receives a call from Mr Klipspringer, a guest of Gatsby's who had stayed in the Gatsby house earlier in the novel. He doesn't want to attend Gatsby's funeral (he has a "picnic or something") but instead asks whether the Butler can send him his tennis shoes. This putting material goods before people seems to be quite a theme in The Great Gatsby. Consider, for example, George Wilson, who, whenever he sees Tom, asks when he will sell his car to him, yet pays very little attention to his wife, who, it has to be said, pays her husband very little regard and, instead, looks out for Tom because he is rich and will buy her a fancy flat by Central Park.

Miscellaneous points:

• Nick sees himself as alone on the side of Gatsby, so despite "disproving of him from beginning to end", Nick was Gatsby's only friend.
• Nick tells us of how he imagines Gatsby talking to him. "Look here, old sport" Nick imagines him saying. This isn't the first time that Nick has imagined a person saying something when in actuality, they have not. He imagines the Buchanan's butler saying that "the body" was "too hot to touch" when he wanted Tom to be out of the way in chapter seven also. It would seem that, whenever Nick really wants anybody to say something, he would put the words in their mouths. He wants Daisy to get rid of Tom just as he wants to hear Gatsby's voice again.
• Nick talks to several people over the telephone to ask if they are planning on attending Gatsby's funeral in this chapter and when speaking on the phone, he even mentions the pauses in conversation. Could this mean that Nick is very lonely after loosing his friend? That he remembers every conversation that he has with anyone after the murder, even if it was just with their voice. Also consider that every phone conversation in the book is quite important to the plot, from us finding out that Tom is having an affair all the way to Klipspringer asking for his shoes instead of feeling sorry for Gatsby. 
• Gatsby conducted his business over the phone, as we find out in this chapter when "Slagle" calls Nick accidentally and tells him that "Young Parke" is in trouble. He was "picked up" after "handing bonds over the counter". When Nick tells Slagle that Gatsby is dead, he hangs up. This means that he didn't care about Gatsby as much as the money that Gatsby made him and his partners in crime.
• In the first chapter, when Gatsby stretches his arms towards Daisy's green light, he "trembles". In chapter nine, when we see Henry C Gatz, Gatsby's father, he "trembles" too. Does it run in the family, or is it just a sign of weakness?
• Henry C Gatz reads of Gatsby's death in a "Chicago Newspaper". Gatsby has also read a Chicago paper "for years" just on the off chance of seeing of Daisy’s name.
• When Gatsby dies, his importance to everyone but Nick and Henry C Gatz dies with him. Jay Gatsby was only important to the mass character of the crowd at his parties because he had money and gave them free alcohol. Now, while he has nothing because of his death, he is only important to those that loved him and not his money. Those people, incidentally, are Westerners, proving Nick's thoughts that the West is better that the East because people care about people in the West, as opposed to how much money they have. Fitzgerald/Nick hates the Eastern materialist culture.
• Meyer Wolfshiem's voice tells the story of Gatsby when he first knew him after the war, just like Gatsby's voice tells the story of Gatsby's last few days with Daisy before the war in chapter eight and Jordan Baker's voice tells the story when Daisy first met Gatsby in chapter four. 
• There is pathetic fallacy in the rain falling on Gatsby's funeral. The weather is mirroring Nick's feelings.
• "Life was beginning over again in the summer" is a quote from Nick in chapter one. If life begins in the summer, then that means that it must be dieing or dead in the Autumn, just like Gatsby.
• Gatsby's father speaks as if he was uneducated "oggsford". Gatsby speaks as though he was educated at Oxford "old sport".
• Maybe Gatsby didn't actually love Daisy as much as see her as a link to how he was before the war and the start of his criminal activity? A link back to his own innocence before he had seen the horrors of war. This could explain why Daisy always wears white because one of the connotations of the colour white is innocence.
• When Nick remembers his University days in the Mid-West, they are heavily romanticized. Everyone knows each other and it is Christmas.
• The last time that Nick sees Tom, he is looking in the window of a jewelery shop. He could be buying jewelery for a new mistress, but this theory is not explored. Nick mentions that he might have bought a "pearl necklace" as this is what he bought for Daisy for their wedding, but then takes that back and says that he might just have bought some "cuff buttons". The thing is that Nick simply doesn't know. Tom's ending is ambigous.
• Tom and Daisy "smash things" up before "retreating into their money" and make others take the blame and clean up after them, says Nick. By things he could well mean people, as both Myrtle's nose and Gatsby's dream are smashed by the couple before they retreat into their money and run away.
• The penultimate sentance in the novel meantions "streatching our arms out further" just like Gatsby did in the first chapter to try and reach Daisy's green light.
• At the begining of the novel, Nick is alone in the East and friendless, at the end of the novel, Nick is alone in the East and friendless. The book goes full circle.

The big question:

• I looked at Yale univercity (where Nick was educated) on a map and, would you believe it, it is actually FURTHER EAST than Long Island and therefore further away from Nick's beloved Mid-West. Is this just a coincidence, does it mean anything?

Something to remember:

• Nick says of West Egg that he "sees it as a night scene by El Greco: a hundred houses, at once conventional and grotesque, crouching under a sullen, overhanging sky and a lustreless moon." This is the painting that he is talking about. The clouds probably symbolise the lack of morals.

The Great Gatsby reading journal: Chapter 8

Chapter eight; in which the summer comes to an end, Gatsby tells Nick his life's story and Gatsby takes a dip in his pool.

Reader's thoughts:

• In this chapter, Fitzgerald uses rather a lot of references to time and he even counts down in the last two sections before Gatsby is murdered! The penultimate section begins with "By six O'clock". Michaelis, the Greek restaurant owner who was Wilson's neighbour went to sleep and "four hours later" he returned to Wilson's garage to find him gone. For "three hours" Wilson "disappeared from view". By "half-past two" he was in West Egg. The story then goes backwards slightly to "two o'clock" when Gatsby puts on his bathing costume. Fitzgerald cheats slightly with the one. In fact, he doesn't write one, but "once" instead as Gatsby disappears into the yellowing leaves.

Sectional notes:

• There are eight mini-sections within this one chapter. 
• The first section tells us of Nick going to warn Gatsby and being told about Gatsby's past after the warnings fall on deaf ears. 
• The second section tells us of Gatsby leaving Daisy to go to war in Gatsby's own words. 
• The third section tells of the reason that Daisy married Tom, practicality because "there was a certain bulkiness about his person" and Daisy was "flattered".
• The fourth section tells us of Gatsby's trip to Louisville while Daisy was on her honeymoon, Gatsby's decision to use his pool for the first time and Nick's final words to Gatsby "I enjoyed breakfast, Gatsby". 
• The fifth section tells us of Nick's telephone conversation with Jordan Baker.
• The sixth section tells us of Michaelis's conversation with Wilson and that the a mad George Wilson  believed T.J. Eckleburg to be God.
• The seventh section tells us of Wilson's path to Gatsby's mansion
• The eighth section tells of Nick and the servants discovering Gatsby's body

Miscellaneous notes:

• Gatsby says that, at four o'clock in the morning, Daisy went to her window. Gatsby was in the drive, so Daisy's window probably would have been on the front of the house for Gatsby to see it. This would mean that she was looking away from the Sound as the Buchanan household's back garden leads out onto it. All of this is a convoluted way of saying that, to contrast with Gatsby stretching his arms towards Daisy's house in the first chapter, Daisy looks the other way from Gatsby's house. She has left him behind and is willing for him to take the blame for the mess that she had created.
• In the second section, Gatsby's speech tells the story, just like Jordan in chapter four.
• There is some unpleasant plant imagery used by Nick imagining what Gatsby's last few thoughts were. There are "frightening leaves", "grotesque roses" and "scarcely created grass".
• Suspense is built up in the first section.  "morning would be too late"
• The tone of this chapter is slow and tired, just like the characters. Nick, Wilson and Gatsby all didn't sleep the night before, so the tone is reflecting this fact.
• The summer is over. There is a definite "autumnal feeling" in the air and all of the leaves have turned yellow just one night after the hottest day of the summer.

Something to remember:

• The last time that Jay Gatsby is described alive, he is disappearing through yellowing leaves. Fitzgerald wants this to be our lasting image of him. As an extra comment here, I will add that I didn't actually realise that Gatsby was dead here. I thought that he had murdered Wilson. I was, it turns out, wrong.

The Great Gatsby reading journal: Chapter 7

Chapter seven; in which Gatsby goes to Daisy's house, the main characters all go to the Plaza hotel for an argument and Myrtle Wilson gets hit by a car.

Reader's thoughts:

• How come, in moments of drama, Nick's usual exhaustive descriptions of things, for example, his train journey to the Buchanan's house takes 21 lines to describe (in my edition), just stops? When Tom breaks Myrtle's nose, that only takes two lines. When Myrtle is hit by a car, it only takes seven words("The car...wavered tragically for a moment"). Could it be to highlight the event by making us readers read it again (blink and you'll miss it) or could it be, by leaving the event un-blurred by "flowery description", Fitzgerald wants us to see it clearly, without stopping to describe the blueness  of T.J. Eckleburg's eyes or the numerous boxes on Gatsby's car.

The heat and what it could mean:

• The day is described as "broiling", which is like coming to the boil, much like this book in this chapter.
• The heat causes Tom to block out all of the light from the Buchanan home. This could represent him shutting out all the light from Gatsby's life by staying with Daisy.
• The day gets hotter as Tom gets angrier. 
• Could it be the heat before a thunder storm?

• In this humble reader's opinion, the heat of the day that the Buchanan's, Nick and Gatsby travel to New-York is probably meant to foreshadow the "prolonged and tumultuous argument" that occurs there in the Plaza hotel.
• Another reason that it could be so hot is so that it represents the heat of the moment that Tom decided to have an affair with Myrtle and Daisy decided to have an affair with Gatsby.
• Yet another reason could be that everything seems less real in the heat-haze, and it keeps getting hotter until the evening when Myrtle is murdered by Daisy when everything gets cooler and clearer.
• Naturally, it could also represent the Buchanan's marriage, with things getting hotter and more uncomfortable as Daisy murmurs how much she loves Gatsby, Gatsby sees Daisy's daughter, who he didn't believe existed before and Gatsby and Daisy stare into each other's eyes (which apparently proves how much they love each other).

Other, non-heat related points:

• In the first paragraph, there is personification of cars. "Automobiles which turned expectantly" and then "drove sulkily away". 
• Despite "reserving judgement", Nick tells us after one glance at Gatsby's new butler that he has a villainous face. Could this be him remembering him with the knowledge that he was somehow connected to Meyer Wolfshiem, or actually what he thought at the time.
• Nick fantasises about the butler of chateau Buchanan talking on the telephone about how Tom's dead body could not be touched because of the temperature. The important thing here is that he imagines things about telephones and modern technology plays such an important role in the novel. 
• When Tom stands in the doorway, he "blocks out the space", just like Myrtle in chapter two. He is blocking out the hope for Gatsby.
• Nick, just like he was at college, is the middle man wile Tom, Gatsby and Daisy are arguing.
• The novel moves from a romantic tone to more tragic in this chapter when we realise that Gatsby's dream will never be fulfilled. I think that Fitzgerald/Nick first lets us in on this when Gatsby sees Daisy's "bles-sed pre-cious", Pammy and realises that there is more to Daisy's relationship with Tom than just love.
• When there are pauses in the dialogue during the argument in the Plaza hotel, Nick mentions them.
• The first few pages take place in the Buchanan's house. These are full of tension, just like the other time that Nick goes there and is told that Daisy thinks of everything as terrible. She also acts as though she and Tom were part of their own little secret society. Could this have anything to do with why she stays with Tom and not Gatsby?
• There is a contrast between Gatsby's politeness and Tom's rudeness. This seems to turn stereotypes on their head, as the stereotype of the criminals who made their money during the prohibition is that of being money-grabing and rude and the stereotype of the old-money millionaires is that of a paternal politeness.
• Gatsby uses the same "familiar yet unrecognisable look" as he does in chapter five.
• Gatsby offends Tom by calling him his term of endearment, "old sport".
• There is a theme of giving up in this chapter. Tom whimpers when Myrtle is murdered, George Wilson slumps and Nick says that he has had enough of all of them. The exception to this rule is Gatsby who, even after Tom won the argument and Daisy is back in the house with him, he waits outside at the end of the Buchanan's drive just in case Daisy needs help with Tom. He doesn't want to give up because his dream of running away with Daisy has failed and he has nothing else to do. If he gives up his dream, he has nothing left. Tom still has Daisy and Nick still has the Mid-West, but, like Gatsby, George has nothing left.
• Gatsby's car with Daisy driving comes out of the "gathering darkness". This MUST symbolise something! The gathering darkness of Gatsby's life perhaps, or was it just an embellishment by Nick who wanted the event to seem to forecast some major event that is yet to come in the story.

Something to remember:

•  Daisy says to Gatsby "you resemble the advertisement of the man". I presume this means the T.J. Eckleburg who looks down over the ash heaps and the story. He is always mentioned by Fitzgerald whenever anything amoral is going on, for example, when Tom and Myrtle go and have a drunken party on Sunday, the holy day.

The Great Gatsby reading journal: Chapter 6

Chapter 6; in which Jay Gatsby is revealed to be an act, Daisy attends a party and Gatsby wants to repeat the past.

Reader's thoughts:

•  This chapter is strange in that it starts out of chronological order! Nick tells us about James Gatz and Jay Gatsby's former life at the start of this chapter, despite the fact that he was told about it all "much later". Why? He says it's because he wants to stop us believing in the rumours that the crowd at Gatsby's parties pedal, but considering that he didn't know any of the stuff he tells us at the time, why does he bother telling us? Can't we make our own mind up about Gatsby before Nick ruins it for us!

Jay Gatsby is a character:

•  Jay Gatsby is a character who was invented by James Gatz. James Gatz was born in North Dakota but then moved to the shores of lake Superior to work as a "clam-digger" and a "salmon fisher". He was 17 when he changed his name to Jay Gatsby and with the new name came a new personality. James Gatz "knew women early" and grew tired of them whereas I believe Jay Gatsby is scared of getting on the wrong side of women. "He wouldn't even look at a friend's wife" and, when a random woman of the crowd at one of his many parties accidentally (and presumably, drunkardly) rips her dress, Gatsby sends her a new one worth a lot of money being but two pieces of evidence for this theory.
• James Gatz seems to be a good actor and sees Jay Gatsby as the main character in his own personal play. He seems to act very well and keeps the compulsive (he rows out into the middle of a bay to tell someone he doesn't know that a storm's a'coming) James Gatz from cropping up in public and this puts a metaphorical curtain between him and reality. One of the only times the façade is dropped involuntarily is in this chapter when he says "I know your wife" to Tom! 

Theme:

• "Sticking your head in the stand" seems to be the theme for this chapter. For example, when told that "you can't repeat the past", Gatsby says "why of course you can". Only an idiot would actually believe this, and Gatsby is no idiot, he is simply hiding from the truth. 

Other Miscellaneous points:

• Dan Cody, the multi-millionaire was Jay Gatsby's "fate". He made him into a non-drinker by his extreme drinking, a fearer of women because Dan Cody's mistress murdered him and stole his money and gave him his classical education.
• Daisy is "appalled" by West egg which she sees as a shadow of a shadow. She thinks of it as an "unprecedented place that Broadway had begotten upon a Long Island fishing village".
• Nick is very much a judgemental character. His tone changes and lots of sympathy is shown towards Gatsby.
• The East corrupts Nick's moral
• Gatsby points people out to Daisy at his party to make Tom feel unimportant.
• Tom takes an instant dislike to Gatsby because he knows his wife. Tom says that he doesn't like how his wife talks to people without him knowing. This is old fashioned and sexist.
• Most of the actions that Gatsby makes are defensive (hands in pockets ect.) bar when he says to Tom that he "knows" his wife.
• West Egg and it's residents symbolise the idea that money/power is more important than thoughts and feelings, or so Daisy thinks anyway. This is not true of Gatsby, who's feelings for Daisy cause him to buy a large  mansion and hold extravagant parties so that he can see her green light at the end of her pier.

Something to remember: 

• Gatsby is frightened of women and specifically, mistresses and the act of having an affair because Dan Cody, Gatsby's old "best friend" was murdered by his.

The Great Gatsby reading journal: Chapter 5

Chapter5; in which Gatsby goes to tea at Nick's house with Daisy, Gatsby shows his weaker side and Daisy loves the beautiful shirts.

Reader's thoughts: In this chapter, Daisy cries stormily into Gatsby's shirts. Now she says that this is because they are "such beautiful shirts", but what could the real reason be? Does she still have feelings for Jay Gatsby, or could it be that she doesn't and is just pretending in order to annoy her husband, who she knows has a mistress?

Times the weather is mentioned in this chapter:

• "The day agreed upon was pouring rain"
• Gatsby says that "the rain will stop about four", the same time, it turns out, that Daisy turns up.Could it be that Fitzgerald, when he makes Nick say that it's two to four just before Daisy arrives, is trying to tell us that when Daisy comes, everything will be alright and the rain will stop? It doesn't end up that way, in fact, the rain increases when Daisy comes in, but when the rain does stop and Nick goes back inside after standing under a tree in his garden, everything IS alright. Gatsby is literally glowing and Daisy is crying, her throat telling of her unexpected joy.
• There were "twinkle bells" of sunshine in the room, as if the weather were mimicking Gatsby's glowing mood. This is called pathetic fallacy and it was also used with the rain. Gatsby was nervous when it was raining, nervous about talking to Daisy. Nervousness is a negative emotion and what negative weather could be used to show this? Why, rain of course. The rain increases when Daisy first enters Nick's house, as if to show us Gatsby's nervousness increasing. The way that the weather is used to underline Gatsby's feelings just goes to show us that he is the most important character in the novel and that you should be interested in him because even the weather is.
•  Daisy cries "stormily" into Gatsby's shirts, as if the clouds that had been clouding her true feelings towards Gatsby had broken.
• An actual storm happens later in the evening while Gatsby and Daisy are listening to Gatsby's pianist playing. Could the weather have left them and started doing what it wants, like Nick?

Other Miscellaneous points:

•  There is a contrast between Gatsby's clothes and his appearance.
• Gatsby shows his weaker side publicly for the first time. Nick saw him like that in Chapter one, but Gatsby didn't know anything about it.
• There is a thorough description of Gatsby's house and some of his possessions for the first time wile Daisy is being shown around. It's almost as if Gatsby has it all just for her.
• There is a second reference to the Palace of Versailles (after chapter two in Myrtle's flat)
• Daisy never searched for Gatsby. She only wants him now that he is rich. She is a materialist.
• Daisy just wants to score points against Tom. He has a mistress, so why shouldn't she have Gatsby. She wants to use him.

 Something to remember:

• Is there anything in the fact that all of Gatsby's shirts that are described are in soft colours? Could this say something about the character, or was it just the fashion?

The Great Gatsby reading journal: Chapter 4

Chapter 4; in which Nick "finds out a little" about Gatsby's life, goes to lunch with Gatsby in New York and Jordan Baker tells the story of Daisy's marriage to Tom and first meeting Gatsby.

Reader's thoughts: This chapter seems to concentrate on Jay Gatsby's past. Does the fact that, in the very third paragraph, Nick goes back to the present and tells us readers of an "old timetable" he wrote back in that one Summer in New York giving a list of party goers somehow summarise the rest of the chapter; looking back into the past? Also, on a completely unconnected point, Gatsby has a Cream coloured car and Daisy has a white one; is there any significance in this?

Times within this chapter that Gatsby's past is mentioned:

• When Gatsby is driving Nick to New York to have lunch. He lies about his family for example, he says that he was the "son of some wealthy people in the Mid-West" when in fact, his parents were farmers as we find out later in the novel. He also lies about "living like a young Rajah" before the war as we later discover that he, in fact, wandered around Lake Superior fishing for salmon and inventing the man he was to become, Jay Gatsby, the Oxford educated (he was there for two weeks after the war for his contribution to defeating the Axis) gentleman who "doesn't want trouble from anybody".
• Mr Wolfshiem describes Gatsby when he first met him as being a man of "fine breeding" who was the "sort of man you'd take home and introduce to your mother and sister". The most important piece of information that the character of Meyer Wolfshiem gives Nick is that Gatsby would "never so much as look at a friend's wife" and that he is "careful about women". As we know, however, Daisy is his one weakness in this area.
• Jordan tells Nick of when she first saw Daisy and Gatsby together when he was just an army lieutenant and she was 18. They were "engrossed in each other" (kissing) in Daisy's white roadster. Daisy was prevented from going to New York by her family. She was going to wave goodbye to Gatsby before the war. This shows that she loved him, but "by the next Autumn", she was "gay again" (probably meaning that she was in love with someone else) and, as if to prove this hypothesis, by next June, she was married to Tom Buchanan, but not before she could have a cry the day before her wedding when receiving a letter from Jay Gatsby, the man she used to love.

Cars:

• The Jay Gatsby of before the war (dare I say it, the "young pretender") and "by far the most popular young girl" in Louisville, Daisy Fay, become "engrossed in each other in Daisy's white roadster. White is the colour of goodness and innocence, could Daisy's car, and the fact that she always wore white be used to suggest that she has nothing to hide? Yes! Could Gatsby's "rich cream" coloured car be hinting at the exact opposite, that he has plenty to hide in his slightly murky past? Indeed. 
• Cars are very important in this novel and are often mentioned, along with other modern technology of the 20's, such as the telephone. In this one chapter alone, 8 separate automobiles are noted. 
• Other than Gatsby's cream machine, the most important car in this tale is the ONE that sits at the back of Wilson's garage, the "dust covered wreck of a Ford". Just an idle thought, but could the cars that the characters own contrast with them? Wilson's car is a dust covered wreck and, yes, when Nick first meets him, that's exactly what he is, but would a wreck of a man really avenge his wife's murder (O.K. I agree that that is a bit of a weak link, but it is just an idle thought, after all)? Daisy's car is white which epitomises innocence and goodness and, yes, again, when Nick meets her for the first time in the book, she seems to fill the description of her car perfectly. She is the faithful wife of the cheating scumbag and mother of his child. A woman who has known that she was being cheated on since her honeymoon and yet has never, herself, had an affair until she meets Gatsby again (the way Nick tells it). At the end of the story, she accidentally kills someone and lets the man she used to love take the blame. Not so innocent then! The most important car, Gatsby's, is a "rich cream" colour showing that he is rich and the cream-y bit saying that it is old (as in old paper going brown with age). The car makes the readers assume that Gatsby is one of the "old money" (someone who inherited everything he owns) and Gatsby himself insists that he inherited his fortune from his rich parents. Like the other cars though, this one lies, as Gatsby is a self-made man who was born a poor farmer's son, which, as with the other cars, we find out about at the end of the story.

Something to remember:

• In the 1920's it would have been quite rare to own a car, as most people (even Nick and he's not exactly the proletariat) couldn't afford one. They were items of desire and so that is why they are one of the main themes in the story. Fitzgerald might have also have been using the death of The American Dream as a motif in this book. Gatsby epitomises this way of thinking, the self made millionaire born to poor farmers, but then he is murdered through no fault of his own, showing the reading audience that even if you do make it to the very top of society by yourself, the American Dream is nothing but folly. Material goods cannot get you everything you want, which, in Gatsby's case, means Daisy.

The Great Gatsby reading journal: Chapter 3

Chapter 3; In which Nick attends one of Gatsby's parties and meets and talks to the man himself for the first time.

Reader's thoughts: The image that sticks with me from this chapter is that of the "five crates of oranges and lemons" arriving from New York and leaving as a pyramid of pulpless halves from Gatsby's house. Could this somehow sum up the chapter, with New Yorkers arriving as normal people, but leaving as drunkards/less than normal?

Images that stick in the mind:

• Gatsby's mansion being like a magnet, attracting the crowd at his parties
• The crowd at the party blurred together anyone in the crowd could easily be replaced by anyone else.
• Gatsby's understanding smile. A "rare" smile with a "quality of eternal reassurance in it". You "might come across four or five times in a lifetime".
• The drunkard "Owl eyes" being in the library to sober up being amazed by the books being real and convinced that if they were to be removed, the entire room would collapse. Could this be reflecting Jay Gatsby's character? If one part that made him were to be removed the whole act would collapse!
• The crowd actually being just parts of the scenery, like one of the pieces of machinery that Fitzgerald seems so fascinated by.

Sounds that stick in the mind:

• The background noise of crickets that you apparently get at night in America.
• Forced laughter of the party attenders.
• Jazz music being played by a full Orchestra.
• Silents after the party, possibly with the same "unquiet darkness that there was a the end of the first chapter.

Colours that stick in the mind:

• Gatsby's Chauffeur's uniform is "robin's egg blue". Could this have something to do with blue having the connotation of being trustworthy?
• Two women who talk to Jordan at the party are wearing yellow. Could this be because yellow represents optimism and energy, showing us that the crowd are enjoying themselves?
• The people attending the party have "blue gardens". This is because, like the phrase "blue blood", these people think that they are like royalty. 

Miscellaneous points:

• The crowd are superficial "introductions were instantly forgotten" and three crowd members called "Mr Mumble" being evidence of this.
• The crowd contrast with Gatsby. Gatsby is very intimate with his rare smile and his term of endearment "old sport" whereas the crowd moves around, talking to everybody and, indeed, anybody, forgetting introductions on the spot and getting more and more drunk.
• People at the party are very much characters played by themselves. Nobody seems to have a definite personality.
• Gatsby does not enjoy his own parties
• Nick is trying to create his own world like Gatsby. Gatsby has characters at his parties wile Nick goes to New York to see "attractive women" and imagine entering their lives. He doesn't know himself and he is definitely not the "well-rounded man" he aspires to be. Although he does consider the consequences of his actions before he does anything, unlike the other main characters.

Something to remember:

• The main theme for this chapter, and every other chapter for that matter, is that all of the main characters are outsiders even in their own home. Nick observes people but rarely talks to them and Gatsby invites people to his parties but does not himself participate in them.

The Great Gatsby reading journal: Chapter 2

Chapter two; In which Nick goes to New York with Tom and meets Myrtle Wilson

Reader's thoughts: "Why would Tom Buchanan, a millionare with a wife and a child, have an affair with a poor garage owner's wife?"

References to death:

• Mr Wilson owns a "shaddow of a garage"
• Some of the nerves in Myrtle Wilson's body "were continually smouldering"
• Mrs Wilson walks through her husband as if he were a "ghost"
• Mr Wilson is described by Tom as being "so dumb he doesn't know he's ALIVE"
• The photograph on Tom and Myrtle's apartment wall "hovered like ectoplasm"
• Myrtle lives in "The ash heaps" when people are cremated, they turn into ash.

Other important points:

• Despite insisting in the first chapter that "reserving judgements is a matter of infinate hope", Nick's descriptions of Myrtle reserves nothing. When Nick first sees her, she has a "thickish figure" that "blocked out the light of the office door". In "Of Mice and Men" by John Steinbeck, when Culey's Wife is first seen blocking out the light and at the end of the book, her death gets a man shot. Hmm...
• Nick picks out the superficial things in this chapter as opposed to the dramatic stuff as if to emphasise that dramatic stuff. For example, 31 lines are spent with Myrtle buying a dog that isn't meantioned again after chapter two, whereas 2 lines are spent on Tom breaking Myrtle's nose.
• Despite being "cruel" Tom is never meantioned as being in the war.

Something to remember:

• There is a big contrast between Gatsby and Tom! Gatsby is a self-made man but Tom was born rich ect...

The Great Gatsby reading journal: Chapter 1

Context and Characters; a background

•  The Great Gatsby was Published in 1926 and sent in about 1922, seven years before Black Tuesday and the stock market crash.
• The book is set on Long Island in New York State in two "giant eggs",  West-egg (where Nick and Gatsby live) and East-egg (where Daisy and Tom live). I think that the eggs are villages by the shores of an expance of water that isn't named.
• Just what makes Gatsby so Great? In fact, what is a Gatsby? The Title of the book gives nothing away, so how would readers know that he was, in fact, a man? Surely the question of WHAT Gatsby IS could be linked to the people who attend his party's curiosity about WHO he is! The entire novel is narated by a character who found him "facinating"
• The main character and narrator, Nick Carraway, comes from the twin cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul in Minnesota, which is a boring mid-western state (and believe me it IS boring, i've been there...). Nick insists that he is not judgmental, fought in the Great War and uses large words. At Yale University, he was known as The Politician because he was nice enough to everyone and he observed people rather than anything else (Hmm... that reminds me of Gatsby, Luke). Also Nick's family owns a Hardware Shop.
• Daisy, Nick's second cousin, once removed, hails from Louisville, Kentucky.
• Jay Gatsby was born on the "shores of lake Michigan" so he could be from Illinois, Indiana, Michigan or Wisconsin. Gatsby stands for everything Nick hates about the East, despite being from the Midwest, just like Nick! He also has an "extraordinary gift for hope".
•  Tom Buchanon is from Windy Chicago. All of the main characters are outsiders. 

Chapter One; In which Nick moves to Long Island and sees Gatsby in the shadows

• Yep, Nick moves to Long Island, West-egg, in the house next door to Gatsby, who lives in a mansion while he lives in a "cardboard bungalow". In this first chapter, no description of the Gatsby is granted to us, as he was standing in the shadows and reaching out for a light at the end of a pier in East-egg.

Comedic and serious elements in Act Five of Much Ado About Nothing

At the begining of the first scene in this, the final act, there is a serious speach spoken by Leonato to his brother Antonio about how very sad he is regarding the "death" of Hero. He and the audience both know, however, that Hero is not really dead, but mearly pretending in order to force Claudio to calm down and regret what he did to her. It follows that Leonato is instead most probably grieveing over the loss of his dignity after Claudio publicly insulted him and his daughter. In the time that has passed in between act four, scene one and this scene, Leonato has changed his mind as regarding Hero's innocence, as evidenced in line 42 where his "soul doth tell" him "Hero is belied". Maybe if he had come to that conclusion during the accusations he could have defended his daughter rather than wishing death upon her, then the whole odd situation where she has to pretend to be dead would never have happened...

From line 46 to line 108, Leonato and Antonio confront and challenge Claudio and Don Pedro about the "slandering" of Hero. What starts off the angry exchange of words is a simple piece of punctuation! An exclamation mark! This happens in line 47, when Leonato exclaims "hear you, my lords!". Without the "!", that sentence would have just been like any other and pressumably the "my lords!" bit at the end wouldn't have been taken as an insult. In line 53, Leonato calls Claudio a "dissembler", showing that he meant to insult him earlier, but Claudio is evidently not taking his (literally) old friend seriously, as he "jests" by pretending to reach for his sword. Naturally, though, this action has the effect of making Leonato angry, angry enough to spend fourteen lines explaining why he is angry, with an exclamation mark at the end, of course! If you thought that Leonato was cross, then he was nothing, NOTHING, compared to his brother Antonio, because Antonio didn't know that Hero wasn't really dead. Instead of Leonato challenging the young lords to a duel over his and his family's honor, Antonio is challenging who he sees to be the murderers of his niece and so is downright furious with them! He's so furious that in line 91 he insults them five times in the same line, "Boys, apes, braggarts, Jacks, milksops!". These insults are probably intended to sound serious in the play, but that line, it has to be said, reminds me of Captain Haddock's long streams of wierd insults in the Tintin books, which are used for comic effect. More appropriately, think, who are the other characters in the play that use insults, why, Beatrice and Benedick and, as we have already established in earlier scenes, they are comedic characters... Could it be that, if acted in the right way, the Antonio we see in this scene could be the same comedic character we saw briefly from lines 100 to 110 in act two, scene one? If Hero were actually dead, then Antonio's insults would definately be taken seriously by everyone, as they are by the lords, but that not being the case, the raging old man with his Haddock-esque reem of insults seems, dare I say it, down right comic!

After this, the old men leave and Benedick enters. He also challenges Claudio to a duel, calling him a "villain" for "killing a sweet lady". Benedick has been told to do this by Beatrice and the lords guess this and joke about it, leading to a small amount of comedy. The main, overriding theme of the confrontation, however, is one of seriousness, because when the joint most witty character in the play is seriously challenging people to duels, you know that's the way that the entire play is heading! After Benedick has exited the stage, more "comic" characters come onto it, Dogberry (the clown/fool), Verges and the watchmen. To be sure, there is a small slice of comedy when Dogberry (the clown/fool) can't remember his numbers and Claudio copies his number forgetting ways, but after that, it's all serious! Borachio admits being payed 1000 ducats by Don John to pretend to "talk to" Hero, when in fact he is "seeing" Margret, his lady-friend, dressed-up like her. After hearing this, Don Pedro is quick to curse his brother and Claudio is quicker still to fall back in love with Hero, the fickle so-and-so. This quick falling back into Claudio's favour of Hero backs up the point that I made in one of the previous act evaluations about her being an object that Claudio wants to own. It is always bad to treat a person as a means as Claudio does with Hero here and so this is serious...or so it should be, if not for the fact that it takes almost no thought of  Claudio's before he desides that he loves her again. If acted in the right way, it could be comedic, but Shakespeare most probably intended it to be sincere.

Claudio insists that Leonato gets his revenge on him for "killing" Hero and insulting Leonato. The revenge, it turns out is to (271) "hang an epitaph upon her tomb" and to marry Antonio's daughter, who, despite these people all knowing eachother for a long time, nobody knew existed. Serious? I THINK so, but it could be comedic because the punishments are so puny for "killing" a woman and insulting the governor!

Act five scene two begins with Benedick asking Margaret to help him write a speach for Beatrice for 24 lines. Benedick is back to his usual comedic self in these few lines and Margaret is surprisingly witty too, leading the audience into a scene of comedy where the two B's find out that challenging Claudio to a duel isn't nesesary after all and that Claudio has admitted that he was wrong in humiliating Hero and Leonato! It also contains Benedick singing, it's that comedic! The comedy in this scene is mainly, however, composed of Benedick and Beatrice's witty conversation, as ever.

The third scene in the act is but 33 lines long and consists of Claudio reading an epitaph (3-11) to  Hero's grave and Balthasar singing a song to and about the same. All of this scene is serious and not a comedic element does it involve. As an interesting note, I would like to point out that this scene is said entirely in verse and as I said in the act four evaluation, verse = seriousness and blank verse = comedy.

And so it comes to this, the last scene in the play! This is it people, hold on to your hats, for this is act five, scene four! At the begining of the scene, Benedick asks Leonato's permission to marry Beatrice, Leonato's niece (30). He does so seriously as they love each other at that point. After that, Claudio gets married to "Antonio's daughter" without ever having so much as seen the girl. Could this be Shakespeare commenting on the bizarre and slightly sinister act of arranged marrage? Or could it just be a continuation of the "masked" theme that runs through the play (masked ball, masked love [Benedick & Beatrice and Maragret & Borachio], masked marrage ect.) After Hero unmasks and tells Claudio that she is "another Hero" there is a bit of comedy with Benedick and Beatrice realising that they were tricked into falling for each other but, by Jove, now each actually does love the other. The final line in the play is the serious one in this scene, Benedick says that he will "devise thee brave punishments for him" about Don John. Meaning torture, probably. What a wierd way for a comedy to end, with one of the characters going to be tortured. Sounds more like the ending of a tragady to me!

Comedic and serious elements in Act Four of Much Ado About Nothing

So we've finally made it. This is it readers, the most important scene in the play, the scene the whole story pivots around. This is Act Four, Scene One AKA the wedding scene. It is odd, then, that this scene, of all scenes, starts with an (admittedly very brief) bit of comedy involving Claudio saying "No" (line 5) to the question of whether he would marry Hero and everybody just ignoring it and proceeding with the marrage ceremony. Naturaly, however, this comedic start is then plunged into much more serious waters shortly afterwards, line 28 in fact...

From line 28 to line 40, Claudio rails off a pre-prepared verbal assult on Hero, who he calls a "rotten orange" and a "maid". Answer me this, does Claudio once in the barrage make any reference to Borachio the man who he saw "talking to" the woman he thought was Hero? No he does not. Why? Because he doesn't want to "own" Borachio. He wants to "own" (as Elizibethan men did to their wives) Hero, like you would own an orange, or a maid. Claudio wants Hero as a status symbol, as I have typed before, and he would rather shame and humiliate Hero (and to a far lesser extent, Leonardo) than, y'know, maybe ask her in private or judge her character and assess whether she is likely to have "spoken" to any men in the past. Of course, the second option doesn't seem very likely, as if you can't tell that Don John isn't to be trusted after going to war with him for pressumably quite some time, then I very much doubt that Hero would be within the realms of assesability for gullable old Claudio. The entire speach is said in verse, like most of Claudio's lines. I assume this is one of Shakespeare's ways of communicating to the audience that this is serious, as most bits of comedy in this play are in blank verse. Could it be that verse is used for serious elements of the play and blank verse for the comedy?

After Claudio's public denouncement of Hero, he and the brothers Don proceed to convince Leonato of her guilt from line 41 to line 107. It really doesn't take the three men very long at all to convince HERO'S OWN FATHER of her dishonesty. Surely Leonato of anybody would not believe Hero's guilt, but that fine honour would fall with Beatrice, Hero's friend. Could Shakespeare be making a comment on Elizabethan England disguised behind the mask of a play set in Messina? Could he possibly be suggesting that rich fathers ought to know their children more? It would certainly help Leonato if he knew Hero more, because Beatrice, who, having been Hero's "bedfellow" for a year, actually knows Hero and so believes her to be innocent and wrongly accused by Claudio and the two Princes.

Read line 107. Read it? Good. "Hath no man's dagger here a point for me?". This line said by Leonato has two possible meanings, that he has been shamed by the accusations or that he is being overly dramatic about everything in order to pile more humiliation on Hero. I am inclined to believe that it is the latter, as he exclaims rather melodramatically that "death is the fairest cover for HER shame" (line 115). He refers to the shame as her's, rather than his or the family name. I accept that he must feel a little ashamed, because why else would he do something so morraly repugnant as to wish death upon his child, but as I say, he still refers to the shame all being on the shoulders of Hero.

Now read line from 123 to 125. Did Leonato really just say that? This man has been utterly convinced of Hero's guilt that he would murder her, had she not passed out already. This is serious subject matter for a supposed comedy, in fact, i'd go as far as to say that it was damn near tragedy matterial! And what evidence would he murder her on? The words of three men and nothing more. Again, Shakespeare could be making a comment here on Elizabethan society. Three men accusing one woman of misdeeds and the woman being killed without a trial or any investigation into the misdeed? Sounds like a witch hunt to me, which were common in Shakespeareian England. Could it be that Shakespeare was against such practices and included evidence of this in his plays, or am I reading too much into it?

From line 153 to line 167, the Friar has a speach, in which he declares that he is on the side of Hero. Hero, being a christian as everyone had to be in Messina by law (and England, what a coincidence), would have gone to confession and confessed all of her various and pressumably minor sins to the Friar. So, in that way, the Friar would know that she wasn't the sort of person to do such a thing. The Friar is the only male character not to believe Claudio's tale of misdeeds, and he is also the male character that knows her the most. This scene is all very serious...

In line 202, the Friar hatches a plan to make Claudio and the other men (minus Benedick and Leonato) believe that Hero were dead. Do you know of any other Shakespeare plays in which a friar has a plan to make it seem that a lady is dead, when in fact, she is not? Yes, Romeo and Juliet. That play was a tragedy, so could it be that Shakespeare is trying to imply to the audience that this play is heading that way too?

After the Friar, Leonato and Hero leave in order to set up the Friar's plan, Benedick and Beatrice the comedic characters are left alone. In line 285, grief stricken Beatrice says a very un-comedic thing indeed. She asks Benedick to "Kill Claudio". How could it be that even the comedic characters are now acting serious? This play has taken a turn for the tragic.

Right, now that i've typed eight paragraphs about the first scene in the act, we'll move onto the one that I am going to write about the second scene. The second scene that I mention is very much light relief after the wedding scene. In fact, almost all of this scene, in which Borachio and Conrade are questioned by the police, is comedic, bar prehaps two lines that Dogberry (the clown/fool) says. The two lines of seriousness are lines 39 and 40, where Dogberry calls it "flat perjury" to call Don John a villain. Could it be that Shakespeare was making a comment on the royal families of Europe's immunity to the laws that they themselves created? Yes, I think he could.

Comedic and serious elements in Act Three of Much Ado About Nothing

Act three scene one is 116 lines of comedy in which Hero and Ursula convince Beatrice that Benedick loves her by disgusing the matter within her earshot. This is the exact same way that Benedick was convinced of Beatrice's love for him, but with his friends rather than Beatrice's being the perveyors of the news. It is a comedic scene for the same reason that act two scene three was, the way in which the audience knows more about the situation than the main character in the scene does. Benedick doesn't really love Beatrice, we, the audience know this, but by making Benedick believe that Beatrice loves him and Beatrice believe that Benedick loves her, it creates a couple of comedic scenes. Nothing serious here.

In the second scene, for the first 71 lines, or until Don John enters, would you believe it, there is some comedy about how Benedick has "gone soft" (soft enough to *gasp* wash his face) but from then on till the end of the scene, it gets all serious. This is the scene in which Don John tells Claudio that his wife-to-be is "unfaithful" and Claudio, the gullable Claudio who believed Don John last time when he told him that Don Pedro had woo'd Hero for himself at the masked ball, believes him again. If only he had been engaged to Hero a little longer, actually got to know her a little more, possibly if he had, and this is a long shot, actually "wooed" Hero himself, he wouldn't believe Don John without proof. But as it is, Claudio actually plans how he will humiliate the woman he is supposed to love without any evidence but the words of one man, Don John. However, Don John ISN'T just one man, he is the brother of the Prince. Could it be that, by setting this play in a foriegn land that Shakespeare is trying to cover some sort of message here about the extreame misuse of power in autocracies? Could it be that Claudio is only believeing Don John's wicked lies because he is in such a high place in society, or does he only want Hero as a status symbol, and what sort of status symbol is a "disloyal" bride? Could it be that he actually wants to marry Don John, because it would seem that he'd rather marry anyone but Hero his defence for her in the face of the disloyalty allegations is so weak, nay, non-exsistant? To summarise, then, act three, scene two is a scene of two halves, comedic, then serious.

From 1 to 92 in scene number three is comedic. It features Dogberry, Verges and a couple of watchmen discussing what to do in certain situations, but it's main aim is to show the audience that these are the clowns/fools of the piece. The second half of the scene is also pretty comedic, but this time, it's between Borachio and Conrade, Don John's companions. Borrachio has just "seen" Margaret in Hero's room and he is telling Conrade about it and what he is going to spend his thousand ducats on. That description made it sound as if the scene might have a slight serious element to it, but it really doesn't, unless you count the two men being caught by the watchmen at the end of the scene and them being taken in for questioning at the police station (and probably tortured...).

In act three, scene four, nothing much of note happens, bar Hero getting ready for her wedding and the ladies establishing that Beatrice loves Benedick in the same way that he loves her, but not in a particually comedic way.

Scene five of the act is also pretty light on content, i'm afraid! In it, Dogberry, the clown/fool tells Leonardo that they have captured "two knaves" but, being a clown/fool, does not tell him what they said about Hero. Despite including a clown/fool, though, this scene does not contain any comedic elements, or, for that matter, any serious ones either. It is simply there to push the plot forwards.

Comedic and serious elements in Act Two of Much Ado About Nothing

Act Two, scene one begins with some comedy. Interestingly, this time it doesn't involve the Benedick Vs. Beatrice arguments that so dominated the comedy in act one, it only involves Beatrice being witty to Leonato after having been told that she should get a husband. Nothing serious in that opening, but it just underlines that Beatrice does not want to marry.

From line 100 to line 110 there is some comedy that (shock) doesn't actually involve either Benedick or Beatrice! It's all about Antonio pretending not to be himself to Ursula. He is able to do this because by this point, all the characters are wearing masks at a "masked ball". Those ten lines of Antonio to Ursula flavored comedy, it turns out, were actually just a set up for the thirty lines that follow which taste distinctly of Benedick and Beatrice. In them, Beatrice insults Benedick to somebody in disguise. Of course, us audience members can tell that the person is actually Benedick, but Beatrice has no idea, which is what makes it funny.

From line 141 to 167, Don John convinces Claudio that Don Pedro is going to marry Hero. This could be taken as comedic, because of just how quickly and easily he falls for it, but personally, I think it to be serious, because, just like that, Claudio calls Hero a "witch" and says that "friendship is constant in all other things save in office and affairs of love" about Don Pedro. So Claudio is ready to denounce his best friend who he's been together with through a war and the lady that he fancies, just because of what Don John told him. This shows the audience that Claudio is an impulsive character and also foreshadows the events of act four scene one...

 After those serious few lines, we get some comedy. From 219 to 239,  Benedick rants about Beatrice and how he would never, ever marry her. In fact, Benedick makes it so clear that he would never marry her that the audience all know that he means precisely the opposite and before the end of the play, Benedick and Beatrice will be married. If it had been Claudio ranting about Hero, then everything would be different. It would be a serious rant because Claudio is a serious character, whereas the audience know that Benedick is joking because that's what he does, joke, although from line 255 to 258, Beatrice does give a hint that they have a history together. Apparently Benedick won her heart with "false dice" making her now say that she has "lost it". Again, as with Benedick's rant, if that had been said by a serious character like Claudio or Hero, then you might have had some misgivings about their relationship, but as it was said by Beatrice, the audience all but knows that she'll get it back. From the 335th line to the end of the scene, Don Pedro, Leonato, Claudio and Hero all conspire to get Beartrice and Benedick into a "mountain of affection", so even the characters in the play know that those two would secretly, deep down want to be together!

Act two scene two is an extreamely short scene, it's only fifty one lines, but all of them are serious. In this scene, Don John and his follower Borachio plot how to ruin Claudio and Hero's marrage. All very serious, but sometimes there needs to be serious scenes to make the comedic scenes more funny.

In act two, scene three, Benedick rants again about how he shall be a batchelor all his life, double underlining it to anyone in the audience that didn't get it the first time that Benedick will get married before the end of the play. From line 90 right through to line 214 Leonardo and Don Pedro discus, within the earshot of Benedick, how much Beatrice loves him. This is most definately comedic as we know that Beatrice says the very opposite about Benedick, but Benedick himself doesn't know this and is so tricked into believing that Beatrice actually does fancy him. The act ends with yet another comedic conversation between the two B's. It would seem rather like scene three were trying to make up for scene two's seriousness by containing so much comedy, for that's what the play is meant to be, anyway.

How is the comedy in act one of Much Ado About Nothing constructed? Also, what serious elements are emerging and how are they presented to us dramatically?

The comedy in Much Ado About nothing is mainly constructed from the word play between Benedick and Beatrice. The first time this happens is line 108 in scene one of the first act, where Beatrice starts an argument. Almost all of the comedy in the play (and definitely all in act one) is constructed in this way with the arguments between the two intriguingly "sharp tongued" characters. This is the only comedy to be found in act one which is mainly devoted to introducing the characters, their traits and their motivations.

An example of a serious element in this supposed comedy is that some of the male characters (Don Pedro, Claudio, Benedick, Balthasar and Don John, to be precise) have just returned from war. This is only touched upon very briefly right at the very begining of Act 1 with Leonato asking a messenger questions about it, but none the less, war is definitely no laughing matter.

Another example of a serious element is Don John being evil and saying to his followers (in line 25 of Act 1, Scene 3) that the would rather be a "canker in a hedge than a rose on his grace". A "canker" is a disease that plants get, so what Don John is saying is that he'd rather make a hedge ill than make "his grace"(god?) smell like roses. This and all of Don John's other lines in the first paragraph are said in blank verse, as opposed to the lines of his brother, Don Pedro, who speaks in verse ( most of the time iambic pentameter). This could be used to imply that he is a villain (although he admits this himself) or that he is talking about bad things. Either way, he is definitely serious.

An evaluation on 50 lines of Robert Browning's "The Pied Piper of Hamelin"

The fifty lines that I have chosen to evaluate are lines 205 to 255, from the end of stanza twelve to the end of stanza thirteen.

In the very first line of this extract, there is an example of a language feature, a Simile. The children who the Pied Piper is leading away have "teeth like pearls". Browning uses the word "pearls" because pearls are shiny and white, like the children's teeth. Adult's teeth in 1376 (the year in which the poem is set) would have been all manky and rotten and falling out because they hadn't invented toothpaste or false teeth yet! Whiteness was also a symbol of how rich you were, because if you had to work outside everyday on the land, then you would have been sunburned and crispy, but if you could afford to stay indoors all day while your servants did your housework for you, then you would have been whiter than white.

All the way through the poem (including my extract) Browning uses a rhyming scheme and, although it doesn't seem to follow any set pattern (e.g. AABBAA or ABAB) this creates a general atmosphere of a jaunty tale for children, as all poems for children have a rhyme to keep them interested. As an interesting side note to this, the sub-title of the poem is "A child's story", although whether this is because of the story's child friendly rhyming or because it's about the Pied Piper stealing all of the children is unclear. Another feature of this poem is it's clear splitting into stanzas. This could be argued to support the child friendly argument about this poem, because if everything is in one long block of text without stanzas, like Porphyrias lover, people tend to lose interest and which type of people have the shortest attention spans? Why, children, natrualy. These stanzas are also numbered like chapters in a book so the hypothetical child reading the story (or, to be fair, anyone) would know where to start reading the story again after having left it because they have short attention spans.

Line 214 contains another language feature, this time a metaphore. The line says that the Mayor was "on the rack". The Mayor was not litterally "on the rack", but by using a familiar term like "on the rack", Browning makes the tone of the poem more informal than, say, The Patriot or The Laboratory, and thus, more child friendly. I believe that this technique works because, well, have you ever tried reading up on Kantian ethics? Dull as ditchwater! If only they'd throw in some familiar phrases (like "dull as ditchwater") maybe i'd find RS easier, because I could relate to it, like I can relate to this poem!

As my last point, I would like to say that, at the start of lines 220, 221, 225, 229 ect., a grand total of 17 times in my extract, lines are started with the word "and". This would be to move the poem on at a very rapid pace when a person is reading it aloud, as you might to a child. The "ands" also serve as discourse markers, rather than simply just connectives because they are used so often, it's almost like saying "like" after everything you say, like. People in general tend to use discourse markers all the time in speach, which backs up my point of the informality of the poem. From line 246 through to 249, the "lame" boy's description is particularly full of these "ands", as the boy is presumably fondly remembering what the Piper told him and his "playmates" about what the reader could interpret to be heaven. The "ands" are also written here to show how often the boy has told his story, as the "ands" make it flow quickly.

Three connections between three of Robert Browning's poems

My Last Duchess, Porphyria's Lover and The Laboratory.

The first is set in Ferrara, Italy and is a dramatic monologue about a Duke remembering his old wife who he had killed, the second is set in the eponimous lover's house and is a dramatic monologue about a Man killing his lover and the third is set in 17th century France and is a dramatic monologue about a woman killing her rival in love. See the main connection? All three of these poems are told as DRAMATIC MONOLOGUES (i'll get to the murders in paragraph two, OK, be patient). A dramatic monologue is a poem told exclusively by one character and all descriptions of scenery and other characters come from the mouth of that character. Writing poems in this form, Browning makes us readers try to sympathize with these thoroughly unpleasant characters. If told in second or third person, the main characters in these poems wouldn't have a hope in hell of getting any sympathy, but told in the first person like this, it takes you longer to see through their lies.

These particular three poems are also connected by the way in which they all center around a murder having been committed, being committed and yet to be committed. In My Last Duchess, the Duke has murdered his wife BEFORE the poem, in Porphyria's lover, Porphyria's lover murders her DURING the poem and in The Laboratory, the poisoner lady murders her rival AFTER the poem. So, even though all three poems concern killing, they all take it from a different place in the timeline. The preparation (The Laboratory), the act (Porphyria's lover) and the aftermath/dealing with conscience (My last Duchess). This devise, the crux on murder, succeeds in making each poem feel similar to the last, but not exactly the same.

My Last Duchess uses regular Iambic Pentameter ( tum TE tum TE tum TE tum TE tum TE).
The Laboratory uses it too.
Unfortunately, Porphyria's lover just had to ruin everything by having four beats per line (tum TE tum TE tum TE tum TE).
Iambic pentameter is the form that comes naturally to us, as it sounds the most natural and flowing. Robert Browning uses this form in My Last Duchess and The Laboratory to show us that the characters think what they're doing is perfectly normal. He uses four beats in Porphyria's lover to show us that the Lover is scared and not at all sure that what he has done (Murdered Porphyria) was right. He even has to reassure himself in line 42 "I am quite sure she felt no pain". He had just said words to that affect in line 41. This proves that, the Lover, unlike the Duke and the Poisoner felt remorse.

How the story is told in Porphyria's Lover!

The story in Robert Browning's 1836 poem is told in the first person by the eponymous Porphyria's lover. The language used in about the first five lines to describe the weather is of the negative kind, for example, the wind is described as being "sullen" and being full of "spite". These negative words are then contrasted with the positive adjectives used to describe Porphyria, the woman who "shut the cold out and the storm"; "smooth", "pure" and "good". It's almost like, upon entering, Porphyria has made her lover forget about the bad weather outside, as it is not mentioned again in the poem. From line fourteen to line twenty, the word "and" is used at the start of all but one line to show us readers that everything is happening very quickly. This is during the part of the poem where Porphyria sits next to our protagonist and makes him put his head on her shoulders so the lover is probably feeling happy. You know the old saying, though, "time flies when you're having fun" this would explain the rushed, feel of these few lines! The poem then continues with this lovey fare until line forty where he strangles her. Line forty one contains the line "and strangled her.". By adding that full-stop, Robert Browning wants us to stop for a second and think about the last few words. It is a pause in the piece, designed to let the previous few words sink in, unlike a comma, which just breaks up the rhythm. The last time he did this was line thirty five "While I debated what to do.". Now, of course, we know why the poet make us reflect on that line, what with the murder to come and all, but at the time the author wanted to just make us think what that line could mean and remember it. The second half of line forty one and line forty two in all it's glory contain evidence of guilt: "No pain felt she, I am quite sure she felt no pain". The repetition here invites us to believe that the protagonist is reassuring himself that he didn't hurt his Porphyria. The guilty theme is also running through the last line in the poem, line sixty "And yet god has not said a word". God would be a voice in his head telling him he has done the right thing, yet god remains silent. He did wrong.