Class Entry

This week in class we made character lists for each of the two books we are reading, As I Lay Dying, by William Faulkner, and The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. So far I am enjoying the characters in The Great Gatsby much more than the characters in As I Lay Dying. I feel that the characters in The Great Gatsby are more relatable, probably because there have been more descriptions of their appearance and personality so far. I’ll have to see how I feel about the characters in As I Lay Dying a little while later. Also, I think I may be able to understand the people in The Great Gatsby a little better because they speak in a dialect that is a little more familiar to me and the book isn’t written in stream of consciousness like Faulkner did in As I Lay Dying. So far, I’ve really enjoyed The Great Gatsby. I think the story is really enjoyable and entertaining. I’m really curious to see what happens later on in the book. So far, I like Nick, but every other character annoys me in their own little ways. Tom Buchanan is just a complete jerk, and Myrtle seems so obnoxious. I don’t understand why he would cheat on Daisy with Myrtle because Daisy seems much nicer. Daisy kind of annoys me also because she seems too proper almost. She seems like a Miss Perfect Princess sort of character who has some sort of secret. I actually find Jordan Baker quite likable though. It seems like her and Nick may be the only normal characters in Tom and Daisy’s weird little world. I feel extremely bad for Wilson though. The way Myrtle talks about him is very mean and he is clearly oblivious to everything that is going on. I am very anxious to learn more about Gatsby too. In As I Lay Dying, I don’t really like any of the characters except for Darl. It seems as though the story has focused the most on Darl so far, and that may be why I only like him. I may not know enough about the rest of the characters yet to really like them. I dislike Anse Bundren, but there’s a little part of me that likes him. He just seems like such weird old man. I think the reason I don’t like him is because he’s lazy and insensitive. But I think I sort of like him because he seems like a hopeless old man and it seems mean to make fun of him or hate him. Also, he was very obedient to Addie when she was alive because he never went to town even though he wanted to because she told him not to. I didn’t like that after Addie died one of the first things he thought of was that he could go into town and get some new teeth though. Also, another character I don’t have a good feeling about is Jewel. I don’t really know why, but I get a bad feeling from him.