American Lit.
...e near impossible but he doesn’t give up. If that was true he must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream. He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about…like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding towards him through the amorphous trees. (Fitzgerald 167) Unfortunately, Gatsby didn’t win back the heart of Daisy. This quote shows a more downtrodden outlook on pursuing one dream. Even though he failed at his overall goal we can learn a lot from how he handled himself along the way. Next, in the novel One Flew over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey the character Randall McMurphy attempts to bring about change in an insanity ward. He comes to the ward a very upbeat man, shaking every body’s hand, introducing himself, etc. He soon becomes accustomed to life on the ward and begins to milk it for all its worth. He takes the patients money by doing everything from playing poker to flustering Nurse Ratched. As time progresses, MacMurphy begins to help the patients by inspiring to think for themselves. His ultimate goal is to show the patients who committed themselves that they do not need the ward. He helps them by bringing life back to the ward. He takes the patients on fishing trips, gets them hookers, and gets them new privileges. In the end of the book he accomplishes his goal, but pays the ultimate price, his life. The ward door opened, and the black boys wheeled in this Gurney with a chart at the bottom that said in heavy black letters, MCMURPHY, RANDLE P. POST OPERATIVE. And below this was written in ink, LOBOTOMY. They pushed it into the day room and left it standing against the wall, along next to the vegetables. We stood at the foot of the Gurney, reading the chart, then looked up to the other end at the heat dented into the pillow, a swirl of red hair over a face milk-white except for the heavy purple bruises around the eyes. (Kesey 269) This shows that even though patients have left the ward, MacMurphy still has paid a huge price for what he has done. From his death we can learn that success comes at a price. Next, in the play Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller, Biff Loman does not want to follow in the legacy of his father, Willy. Biff, a star athlete, struggles with his school work, especially math. To fix this Willy offers to speak to the teacher for Biff, Biff refuses to allow him to do so. Biff: Dad, I flunked math. Willy: Not for the term? Biff: The term. I haven’t got enough credits to graduate. Willy: You mean to say Bernard wouldn’t give you the answers? Biff: He did, he tried, but I only go a sixty-on...