The Chagrin Twits

Most of the characters in The Great Gatsby disgusted me, largely due to their selfish nature. None of the characters ever make strong, lasting friendships by the end of the novel, because they spend their lives jealous of others, constantly working to attain a high social status and more wealth. While the atmosphere at Speech and Debate tournaments does not quite match up to the murder and mystery of Fitzgerald’s novel, it reminds me how easily people turn on each other, usually for petty reasons. The two sides in Forensics, Speech and Debate, represent not only different events, but also completely different people. Anna and I explained to the novices in our event from the start, “If you want to make friends, join Speech.” While we bond as a team, debate friendships will most likely end there as debate often proves more competitive, more cutthroat, to put it lightly. At a tournament two weeks ago, a boy came up to Anna and I and eagerly asked if we remembered him. Anna and I glanced awkwardly at each other, praying the other one would remember. We tried to give a noncommittal answer, saying we recognized him, but avoiding specifics. Then he kept pressing, asking if we remembered the tournament and round when we faced him. Several awkward seconds passed before we mumbled something about so many faces to remember. Thankfully, we escaped to our next round moments later and forgot about the exchange. On the bus ride home that night, Shan (our informant on all debate gossip) informed us that the boy now refers to us as the “Chagrin Twits.” But such a remark is hardly the worse we have heard—comments range from “I hate them” to “I want to kill them,” another delightful phrase Shan once overhead our opponents utter as they exited from a round with us. Needless to say, what happens in round does not stay in round. But, hope still exists. Last tournament, two underclassmen girls shadowed us all day, asking for advice on debate and college applications. Such a scenario occurs every so often, when we meet that rare debater who does not yet understand the drama of the debate world and naively looks to make friends. Most likely any possible friendship will fade away the more we compete with them, as all past friendships have similarly died. However, Anna and I have learned to enjoy our hated status among competitors, amusing ourselves with what we hear of our opponents’ rants and how ridiculously worked up they become over the simplest interactions. So for now we embrace our position as the “Chagrin Twits.”

Guess What!

As children, my siblings and I rarely managed to keep secrets. Once, my uncle took my sisters and I with him to a jewelry store. At the ages five, seven, and nine, we could not believe our luck. We stood, mesmerized by all the pretty, sparkly jewelry, so much better than our plastic rings and necklaces. My uncle let us look at all the jewelry and “help” him pick out a ring as a present for his girlfriend, but we needed to keep it secret until he gave it to her. Hours later, all my relatives met at my grandparents’ house for dinner. Immediately, My sisters and I eagerly raced over to my uncle’s girlfriend, yelling "Guess what uncle Greg got you" before raving about the pretty ring he bought her. Little did we understand, but one should keep engagement rings secret. Lately, people in AP English have also commented on difficult babysitting experiences, causing me to remember my own childhood babysitters. My siblings and I always loved when my parents went out, leaving us with a babysitter. Our favorite babysitter, Courtney, always brought over barbies and played with us for hours. However, one night she could not sit for us so a new babysitter came over. She did not meet our expectations. First of all, she failed to bring over barbies. My sister and I were not impressed. Then, she spent the evening on the computer using whatever social network sites people used in 2002. Towards the end of the night, someone knocked on the front door. The babysitter reluctantly dragged herself off the computer and answered the door to find Courtney standing there with my five-year-old brother.  Somewhere in the midst of our babysitter’s self-absorbed actions, he became bored and decided to leave the house and wander around the neighborhood to find my parents…who left to attend a dinner over half an hour away. Fortunately, Courtney had returned home and found him. With my brother safely inside the house once more, our new babysitter quickly began showering us with attention and played barbies with us for the rest of the night. She also not so subtlety suggested that we keep my brother’s disappearance a secret between us girls. We agreed without hesitation and took advantage of her new attentiveness. However, as soon as our parents returned home, we ran to greet them, shouting, “Guess what the new babysitter did!” The night turned out much more exciting than we ever thought possible and needless to say, we never saw the girl again. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, mystery and secrets surround each character. Tom and Daisy cheat on each other, Myrtle escapes every so often to New York to live her fantasy life with Tom, Daisy kills a woman and keeps it secret, and no one appears to truly understand Gatsby’s complicated past that he rarely mentions. As a child, I barely kept a secret for five minutes. While I believe my ability to remain quiet has improved, I could never keep as many dark secrets as the novel’s characters and not become crazy. Everyone lies to each other and uses others to keep their immoral behavior secret. Despite the characters’ attempts to keep secrets, the truth tends to emerge and destroy characters’ lives because they try to hide their flaws for so long. Reflecting on my childhood and the novel, I realize nothing remains secret forever and the longer people hide the truth, the more it hurts them in the end when it comes to light.

This One Goes Out to Anna Witkin: My Enemy and Friend

The enemy: Anna Witkin. The battleground: the Intermediate School playground. The weapon: woodchips. In fourth grade, Anna Witkin and I viewed each other as sworn enemies…for no particular reason. Perhaps it began when we wanted the same swing at recess, but it turned into a never-ending battle where we daily kicked woodchips at the other while swinging. I distinctly remember Anna instigating all the conflicts, although if asked, she will make some absurd claim about her innocence. In class on Monday, we discussed the two neighbors in Robert Frost’s poem, “Mending Wall,” and how they build a wall between them for no practical reason other than the barrier always exists. Anna and I have discussed our past dislike of one another but still cannot remember how it started or why it continued. We fought simply because we had always done so…although Anna did act fairly obnoxious as a child if I remember correctly. In discussion, we noted how the neighbors in the poem meet to mend the wall and despite the barrier, or perhaps because of it, they work together and communicate for a short period before the wall divides them once more. Similarly, Anna and I gathered every so often in peace, in Girl Scouts. Somehow, our bitterness ended when we walked into a Brownie’s meeting and chanted the Girl Scout promise in unity. The wall of distrust and suspicion crumbled for an hour. Then, it came back stronger than ever when the meeting ended. Despite our mutual loathing, as much as ten year olds can hate one another, by sixth grade we became best friends, seemingly overnight. Today, we argue together as debate partners rather than against each other. Perhaps we began and ended our hostility so easily because children base friendships off of trivial actions and views. However, children also tend to accept differences easier and let go of the past quicker than adults. I view our complicated relationship as proof of the pointlessness of walls of distrust between people. While Frost’s poem repeats the seemingly positive quote, ‘“Good fences make good neighbors,”’ walls by definition separate people (27). Whether literal walls, like the Berlin Wall or the West Bank wall between Israel and Palestine, or figurative barriers between people made up of stereotypes and distrust, they prevent progress and tolerance. Walls allow people to separate themselves from what they fail to understand or do not want to acknowledge. Anna and I allowed juvenile ignorance and stubbornness to prevent us from creating a lasting friendship for two years. Fortunately, we overcame the childish drama between us and can now look back on the time and laugh or blog about it. I can only hope that similar walls of ignorance will break down over time. 

A Focus on Façades, not Happiness

In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s novel, The Great Gatsby, the author focuses on the vast difference between happiness and the facades people create to feel better about their dissatisfaction with their lives. When Myrtle claims that she does not love her husband, her sister, Catherine, reminds Myrtle, “‘you were crazy about him’” (35). Catherine’s observation about Myrtle’s earlier happiness in her marriage highlights Myrtle’s opportunity for a content, but poor, life. However, Myrtle chooses Tom, a selfish and rich man, over her kind and poor husband because society focused on wealth and status during the 1920s. While Tom and Myrtle pretend to have a wonderful relationship and allegedly love each other more than their spouses, their supposed strong bond proves weak under stress. As a result of Myrtle’s desperation to follow others and embrace the attitudes of the time, she finds herself in an abusive, shallow relationship. Characters like Myrtle try to mask their unfulfilled lives with glamorous appearances but they fail to realize that no amount of spending or partying will make them truly feel better about themselves. So far, most of the characters pursue what they feel should make them happy simply because others do the same. While the characters tend to annoy and frustrate me, I overall feel pity for them, especially the women. The female characters believe they only have marriage and status to help them improve their lives so they never try to achieve anything meaningful. At one point, Tom’s wife, Daisy, even states how she hopes her daughter becomes a ‘“little fool”’ (17). I find her view particularly depressing because I know she will pass on her negative opinions of the world and the role of women to her daughter. I view the lack of true happiness in the story especially disappointing because of the recent Thanksgiving. None of my relatives live in Ohio so holidays allow me to visit with family and the latest Thanksgiving let me see my grandparents and my sisters who live away at college. Thanksgiving always reminds me of the importance of family and friends and appreciating the people in my life, rather than the possessions. Unfortunately, Tom and Myrtle fail to understand the value of meaningful relationships with others and I could not help but compare the gathering of family members at my home to the odd grouping of characters in the New York apartment in the novel. While my family spent the day in the kitchen cooking and enjoying each other’s company, the characters only enjoy each other’s presence when they can tear them down or hear new, malicious gossip. Perhaps most striking, my evening ended with pumpkin pie and theirs with a man breaking his mistress’s nose in a moment of rage. The Great Gatsby thus far emphasizes the desperate side of human nature, when people think they need to constantly become better to fit society’s standards even when doing so threatens their own happiness.