Great Gatsby Chapters 4-5

                      “Taking a white card from his wallet, he waved it before the man’s eyes.”

        Here, Gatsby is speeding around long island city and a motorcycle policeman pulls him over. At Gatsby’s recognition of the policeman he pulls out a white Christmas card sent to him by a commissioner and the policeman immediately recognizes it and lets Gatsby go without any consequences. In this date and situation it may seem not out of the ordinary to get favors or not have any consequences when disobeying the law, but in present times this is extremely unusual and would not happen. This leads the reader to believe that if they lived in the early 1920’s and were highly respected because of their rank in the military or any other authority then they could get away with mediocre crimes and have the police wrapped around their finger.

                                    “The great bridge”

       Here the author tries to persuade the reader that the bridge in which they are crossing under, after previously being stopped by a policeman, is simply great a magnificent and the city that is just beyond it is truly amazing. The author uses the word “bridge” instead of different, more eccentric words that he previously has been using to describe other objects that he has surpassed. If this bridge is truly “great” and superior to any other such structure in the city then the author should have used more than one word to describe it. The author wants the reader to believe that this bridge is amazing and flush with every other object in the book but he does not point that out very well which leads the reader to have mixed feelings as to why this bridge is great and therefore they do not believe the author and the bridge is less than casual.  

        “Miss Baker’s a great sportswoman, you know, and she’d never do anything that wasn’t all right.”

       In this quotation the author is writing about how Miss Baker is great woman, but in reality, she very well could not be. Perhaps she is just using the character of a great person as a disguise to everybody until she can get what she wants. For instance, she could play off the role of a poor, innocent, and hapless young lady until she finds the right man that has excess amounts of money to give to her, she would marry him, convince him to not get a prenuptial agreement and bam, she divorces him several months later, taking half of his money and repeating that same character over and over again until she fulfills her need of having all the money she desires.

                      “The colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever”

       Here the author is trying to make the reader believe that after all this time of Gatsby not getting to see Daisy, they finally reunite. Simple enough, this is not true, Gatsby has being exploring the world for years after the death of his family and has had ample enough time to meet with daisy once again but he has been otherwise occupied with other things such as hunting game in Europe and saving the lives of men in his military occupancy.

                                           “That voice was a deathless song.”

     By using the word deathless to describe Gatsby’s voice, the author tries to persuade the reader that Gatsby’s singing is nothing less than amazing and it should overpower everyone else in the room because of how amazing it is. 

    Let Teenagers Try Adulthood

          I agree with Mr. Botstein, high school is way too far off from the real world. In no other business such as banking, education (teaching), or office job is there segregation amongst the rate of age like there is in high school. The closest someone could get to feeling like an outcast in the real world is if they were poor and living on the curb because they've thrown their life away. Although there is flaws in his argument that he thinks should apply to everyone such as graduating at 16 instead of 18 and starting the real world then. Yes, this seems very well thought out but in reality, no kid is going to want to start life at 16 and get a job unless they're just extremely motivated to move on in life without college. 
         What really goes on is this: the majority of high schoolers, even up to senior year is way too immature and relies too much on their parents and they are not able to start at 16 which is roughly junior year for most kids. If his plan was applied and we "rethought" the secondary school situation, completely, there would be flaws in the system because of the left off last two years in high school that most kids use to get credits to so they can graduate on time or they can further their education with AP classes so their application for college will stick out amongst other regular admissions. And if other high school districts are like the Birdville Independent School District and pay for students to take AP tests which could potentially give them college credit and help them to get thousands of dollars worth of college course credits, then those two years make all the more use to students such a myself who would otherwise not be able to pay for those courses other than student loans which is a bad idea in itself. 
         But I digress, what Mr. Botstein has said about all the "cliques...insiders, and outsiders" is true. This is what high school and previous schools are all made up of, but it's not the student's fault, everyone finds who they want to be around and do what they want to do. The problem is, most American high schoolers do not have the motivation and ambition it takes to get out and become a success in life, it is a rare occurrence to find somebody from beginning of elementary, all the way through college that is completely determined to make a success and do what he or she wants to do. It just does not happen as much as authors like Leon Botstein would like to see. In most cases, Mommy and Daddy are too hooked up and deny their kid nothing in life. One example of this would be "Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift", setting: high school. There is a kid with a beat up muscle car and another kid with an expensive Viper that mommy and daddy bought him, oddly enough, they get into an argument and race their two supped up cars and later on they get in trouble. It turns out like this: the rich kid gets a slap on the hand and the poor kid is forced to move to Tokyo with his father or else he'll be tried as an adult in jail. This represents most high school students to have stereotypical groups but that does not completely prove it obsolete. If work is put in to the high environment to put more kids on task, then students would not prove to be as obsolete as they are. Therefore, high school should not entirely be abolished, there should just be more educational effort put to use.