Peers, Shells, and Something, Good Something

First of all, I am happy to say that I do have peers.  Now if only I could figure out how to make new friends... but that can wait until later.

Anyway, I circulated my thesis idea to some people in my art class.  I got a few interesting responses.  A girl named Maren/Marin told me that she had never actually read The Great Gatsby.  After half a minute of explaining the general plot, guy falls in love with girl, guy disappears, guy comes back and makes something of himself, she made an interesting comment.

Even if we do not intimately know either book, we can see one stark difference between Jay Gatsby and Alice.  That idea focuses on the idea of fate.  Alice goes along with fate, and takes most things as acceptable, or normal.  Jay Gatsby fights against fate.  We could go on for hours, and possibly days and months, about the class problems implicitly and explicitly shown in the whole of Gatsby.  But focusing on that detracts too much from the main idea; Gatsby fights his fate.

Another girl, Sidney, had some good points about the story too.  Gatsby wasn't at all random.  At all.  There is nothing random to the plot of The Great Gatsby.  The characters are random, as is everything in AIW and Looking Glass, but the plot and Gatsby himself are not.  Gatsby breaks from the norm of the random and pointless, and largely fake, people and events.

Again, he fights fate.

By the way, I have to admit that I did not finish anything that resembles the shell for my paper, I just did not know what to state for my thesis.  I changed my ideas a few times on what to state, or really focus on.  My sister Jenny, friend Jeremy, and the two above mentioned ladies, helped me to cement my idea to where I finally know what direction I am taking.

Expect the bone structure of my paper very soon!