Friday, April 24, 2009

Dreamers

Please answer the following questions in a thorough response; please pay attention to fluency and conventions. I would like you to repsond to at least one other person within your reflection.

If you are a dreamer, do you have to be more careful or vigilant? Explain. Do the characters in Gasby have a dream? Is idealism a way for people to escape reality? Nick says to Gatsby, " You can't the repeat the past." What do you think? Are there repercussions? Can we reinvent what has already happened?

23 comments:

Joyce B. said...

I think that dreamers should be more careful because their dreams can get them carried away. Dreaming is great, but you still have to be aware of reality. I think everyone has a dream including the characters in Gatsby. For example Gatsby’s dream is to get Daisy back from Tom, Myrtle’s dream was to be wealthy and Daisy’s dream is to live a safe comfortable life. Idealism is an escape from reality. Reality will never be ideal or perfect, but people just have to learn to make the best of it. I often think of my ideal life before going to bed to have wonderful dreams, but every morning I have to wake up to reality and make the best of what I have. People are incapable of changing the past or reliving it just the way it was, but you can have similar situations or experiences to the past. There are second chances on earth and you can try things again, but it will never completely erase what happened the first time. Some people even try to forget the past and that won’t make it go away either it will always be there in your subconscious. I think dreams are a great motivator and occasional escape as long and you remember that reality is and always will be here in the morning.

LauraM said...

If you are a dreamer, I think you do need to be more careful. As everyone knows, dreams can be much more pleasant and inviting than real life, however since they can be that much more wonderful, it is very easy to get lost them and drift further and further away from your tie to reality. I agree with what Joyce said, “Dreaming is great, but you still have to be aware of reality…not getting too carried away.” Some people do drift through life imagining the world as they dream it, but does that really do anyone, the dreamer or others, any good?
I think every character in Gatsby has a dream. Gatsby of course dreams of having his beloved Daisy for his very own. Myrtle dreams of getting out of the Valley of Ashes, becoming more wealthy, and prominent in society. Daisy dreams of true love and a world free from the need of cynicism. Nick dreams for “the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart.”
I don’t think that idealism is always a way for people to escape reality, I think it can be, but for most I’d like to think that people use idealism as a standard to strive for, rather than a replacement for the real.
What’s done is done. And until they invent the time machine, there is nothing you can do to change the past, so you might as well accept it and move forward. I agree with Joyce, in that there is nothing you can do to completely erase you past. I think that those who dwell in the past forget to live in the now. I think you can learn from your past and your mistakes to be better prepared for the future, if such an occurrence were to ever present itself again, you would know how to better handle the situation; other than that your past should be where it belongs, behind you, and you should focus on the present.

HannaR said...

You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. Being a dreamer has it's ups and downs. Your heart gets hurt easier, but you bounce back to what you believe in faster. Dreamers have it tough when other people put them down. But I would not give it up for anything. It has made my heart grow, and has tought me to love people like I never thought I would be able to. In Gatspy, I agree that Tom is the dreamer, and that Gatspy is a hopeless romantic. Gatpsy is a different kind of dreamer, which allows him to fawn over Daisy constantly without thinking of anything else. He does not put anything else before her. Tom, however, dreams about things himself. In his heart, I feel he longs for something different, something more than what he has. He is not like the people who live in his town. He is down to earth, and sees beyond the cover of things and people. He sees the good in people, and at the end realizes he is more than them, and that he does wear his heart on his sleve unlike anyone else (other than Gatspy). Yes, Idealism helps people escape reality. One can believe in whatever they want to believe and to them, it could be real. This could make their environment less hectic to some. The Hippies for example, completely enclosed themselves in one world throughout a period of time to escape hatered and war. When Tom says, "you can't repeat the past," he is meaning to help Gatspy to move on and forget about Daisy because it will never be the same as it was. However, after he makes that statement, Gatspy says, "well sure you can." I would have to say I believe you can repeat the past. I would say you can do anything you want to do. I go back all the time to my childhood and such to remember how amazing it was and can still feel the same butterflys I had when a feeling comes upon me. Physically, it may not be possible at all times, but emotionally and mentally we can do whatever we want. Our brains are more powerful than people think. Like I said though, I am a dreamer and this is exactly what makes me one. I believe in the impossible. Like Joyce stated, reality will never be ideal or perfect, but people have to learn to make the best of it, however they wish to.

Nick Z said...

You definitely need to be careful about dreams. Whether it's just something you want to think about or a goal in your life. If it is a goal in life you have to be careful not to screw it up. Say you wanted to be a doctor when you grow up but you never took the right classes or you got in too much trouble. Then you could completely ruin your chances of ever achieving that goal. You have to be careful about the dream itself too. If it is a dream on reclaiming something in the past, like Gatsby and Daisy, you may want to let it go before it becomes unhealthy. A dream has definitely become unhealthy when you will do absolutely anything to make it come true. In Gatsby's case he was doing whatever it took to get the love of his life back. I do agree that love can make you do some pretty stupid things and these are okay. But when your involved in organized crime then it has become unhealthy. Gatsby would not let anyone tell him that it was too late and he should leave and find another girl; and because of this it ultimately led to his death.

casey o said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
casey o said...

Dreamers need to be more vigilant. Dreaming is all about living in the moment, taking risks, and taking the consequences. It’s about not letting anyone tell you what to do. I am a dreamer, someone who turns the worst into the best and takes life as it comes. Life is to short to not dream, to not live to fullest extent. I think the characters in Gatsby dream to be rich, and elegant like Gatsby. They all seem to be fake in order to reach their dreams. If people are idealists then they are living in their fantasy world, where only they exist and no problem occur. I think many rich people are idealists, living in a perfect world, oblivious to what is happening around them. They don’t realize the problems that are world has and how it is not fair. Of course you can’t repeat the past exactly; however I do believe that “similar” events do reoccur. Genocides keep reoccurring all the time, in different places with different people, but somehow they reoccur.

kaylab said...

I think that if you are a dreamer you definatly need to be more careful than if you were not one. I think that if you are a dreamer you are going to be too focused on what you wish your life was like, instead of actually living your life. You could miss out on big opportunities if you get caught up in your dreams and that could make it so you aren't able to obtain your dreams. I think that characters do have a dream and their dream is to become extremely rich and be able to buy whatever they want to. I think that they also want to be able to be with their true loves and be happy for the rest of their lives. I think that the characters in Gatsby think that happiness is based on how much money they have and that is why they dream about being rich. I do think that idealism is a way for people to escape reality because I think people believe that they wont have to deal with their problems or the stress of everyday living if they could live an idealistic life. I do think that there can be repercussions in life but nothing is ever going to be exactly the same as it was the first time. I think that in the book, Gatsby was trying too hard to return to the relationship he had with Daisy, but they had both grown up and had different paths. I think that it would be hard to reinvent the past, but I do think it is possible if everyone in the situation is willing to get the present back to what it used to be.

Tyler M said...

I think that dreamers should be more careful because. Dreams are great you can be whoever you want and also be wherever you want to be, but you still have to be aware, though they may seem wonderful and you never want to leave them, you can get lost and lose some sense of reality. I agree with what Joyce said..." Dreaming is great, but you still have to be aware of reality."Some people do get carried away when they dream about an imaginary world entirely our own, but does that do anything good for the dreamer? I think that all the characters in Gatsby have dreams. Some examples are: Gatsby's dream is to get Daisy back from Tom, Daisy's dream is to live a safe comfortable life and Myrtle's dream is to become more wealthier. Idealism is an escape from reality. Realitywill never be perfect or ideal, people have to learn to make the best of it. I agree with what the passage say's, you can't repeat the past, if you stay in the past you will miss out on the future ahead of you.

Strahan K said...

I think that as a dreamer a person has to be more vigilant because you have to aspire to make your dreams come true. As a dreamer you can't be careful because then you wont want to take risks to acomplish your dreams. You'll be to affraid of what other people will think of you or you might be afraid of what will happen if you fail trying to acomplish one of your dreams. I think that some of the characters in Gatsby are dreamers but others are not. To me Gatsby seems like he is a dreamer because of how he acts. In chapter seven when he got in a fight wil Tom it was over Daisey, Tom's wife whom Gatsby used to date, it is because Gatsby says "She just married you because she got tired of waiting for me". This gives me the impression that he is thinkin about what could have been. He throws all these elaborate parties in order to impress Daisey which also says to me that he is dreaming. I think idealism is part of reality. If people didn't imagine what could be then we wouldn't have some of the amazing luxeries in life that we have today. For example the cell phone, or the car. Those invetions came from dreamers. I think that there is some truth to not being able to repeat the past but at the same time it can also be untrue. The truth comes in where you can not go back in time and literally redo the past. But the part that isn't true is that sometimes life gives you second chances. Sometimes you get put in a very similar situation as you may have been in previously and this time can do something different that you didn't do the first time. This kind of answers the final question about reinventing what has already happened. Sometimes life will reinvet it for you, but you can not do it on purpose. If you try and create a situation usually you wont be able to. But if you just happen to fall into a situation that you have been in before then yes it can be reinvented.

Unknown said...

I think that dreamers do have to be more careful in many situations. Often they aim high with their aspirations and if they don’t take care when they try to achieve them, they could fall. I also think that dreamers can sometimes be so focused on what they want the most that they fail to recognize things around them that could be harmful. Like Laura said, dreamers who get too involved in their dream can drift further and further away from reality. When dreamers do this, they don’t recognize all of the things reality brings including failure.
In The Great Gatsby Jay Gatsby has a dream. His dream is to have Daisy to himself again like he did in his youth. However, Gatsby thinks that this dream is achievable, even though nick tells him that he can’t repeat the past. I agree with Nick in that I don’t think the past can be copied on purpose. Daisy and Gatsby’s relationship was natural but now Gatsby is trying to make it happen again. Because of this, he was not successful.

Kelsey W said...

I believe that dreamers need to be more careful than the non-dreamers. If they are not careful then they might end up in an opposite place that they want to be. If you dream too much then, like Kayla said, "if you are a dreamer you are going to be too focused on what you wish your life was like". I think this is true because if you are just aiming for what you want then you most likely will fall because you’re not living in reality.
Yes, the characters in Gatsby do have a dream. Their dream, just like most Americans today, want to be rich. Idealism is most definitely a way to escape reality. Reality can be a struggle and hard to face for some, so they use idealism to recover. I do not think that you can literally repeat the past, but you can make up for it. You can do this by moving on and learn from your experience. If you do that then if another situation or opportunity comes around then you know how to deal with it.

Lauren L said...

I believe that dreamers need to be more careful. I think it is good to dream but I think people sometimes need to come back down to reality and realize not everything in their dreams is going to happen. The characters in The Great Gatsby definitely have dreams. Gatsby is one good example. Ever since he had met Cody, Gatsby wanted to be rich. Gatsby worked toward that dream and reached it. When Nick said "you can’t repeat the past” I don’t know if you can repeat the past but I know the past can always repeat itself. Whether it is a good thing or a bad thing in the past either could happen again. I agree with Kayla when she said that nothing is ever going to be exactly the same as it was the first time it happened. I believe that is very true because as hard as you try and replicate something there will always be some sort of difference.

Roy C said...

Yes because dreams are false hope, and if people lose sight of what is happening in the now they can get hurt later in life. Yes the characters in Gatsby had dreams, but it seemed none of were accompllished. Yes idealism is a way for peple to escape reality. It allows them to think what is a possiblity but most likely won't happen in certain cases. This can allow them to lose track of what would actually happen. A person can try to repeat the past, but it will not likely work. Because the past already happened and from that point on things change. How can someone move on if they are stuck looking back. It could work and it can fail it depends on the circumstances of the situation though.

Anonymous said...

I think dreamers need to be aware that not everything is like how it is in their heads. It’s nice to have dreams and goals, but life won’t always turn out the way you want it, and you shouldn’t expect it to. Careful not to let their dreams get in the way of really living life. You shouldn’t be consumed by your dreams, like Gatsby. For some people I believe idealism is a way to escape reality. I know I like to read books for an escape, but the most important thing is that I come back to earth; you can’t spend your whole life dreaming. But we need to dream, to hope that there is something better. If we don’t dream, we wont find the need (the motivation) to strive, if Gatsby didn’t want Daisy, then he would have never became super rich. He would have never have met Nick. I think that there are repercussions; you have to learn from the past and not to make the same mistakes. I think things happen for a reason, and you shouldn’t force fate. We have some ability to make things what we want, but in the end our destinies are planned. Daisy and Gatsby weren’t meant to work, it wasn’t their fate to be together, and that’s why things didn’t work out. I think bad things happen when we don’t listen and take notice to the signs around us, and we try to make our own fate. Gatsby had plenty of warning signs, Daisy is married, has a kid, and he even knows that her voice has the wanting of money. If he would have listened to the signs around him, then he wouldn’t of been killed.

Maria A. said...

I think relating to what Nick says to Gatsby, that you really can repeat your pasts if you can not control it, or you are not aware. Sometimes it just happens to repeat what has happened in the past.

Dreamers, like myself, yes I will admit it, can over think things many times. We always want what can be the impossible, or the things that will most likely not going to happen, but sometimes it's better to dream than live all reality and be in a slump. You really should be very vigilant to what you think of your dreams because it can get out of hand easily. Yes there are dreams that some people want to achieve to have something be accomplished, but there are also the type of dreams that are more fantasy than real life. I think Gatsby has a big dream of winning Daisy, being with her the rest of his life, and have Daisy really love him back. I agree with Hannah that dreams can break or heal you. Yes, you can get very hurt with dreams, but that should help you move on and find another one.

Tiffany F. said...

I have to be more careful if I am a dreamer because I would not want my dreams to disappoint my reality. I live life knowing what I am doing and getting into. Sometimes things you think should be kept to your self and not shared with anyone; before I speak I make sure I am saying something that will not harm someone or hurt someone. The characters in Gatsby have a dream they wish to reach. Gatsby especially has the dream to be with Daisy again like they were before the war. However Daisy doesn’t leave Tom for Gatsby, thus Gatsby’s dream is forever crushed. Idealism can let you escape from reality but just by having ideas it doesn’t change anything, if anything it makes you stressed out by wishing you had you dream about. Every once in awhile it is nice to dream and aspire to what life will be like in college, after college and to greater events in my life to occur. I agree with Nick (from Gatsby) because no matter how hard you try things happen once and once only and are not meant to take place again, but in a modified version. There can only be a similar past, not the exact same due to life’s ever-changing ways. For example the 1920s will never be the back the same just similar modified ways. This is why one must live in the present and not in the past! Yes, there are repercussions over and over but they are not the same, just similar. Such as: events, music, clothes, news all will repeat in a new way that has it is similar to once before. Yes, we can reinvent what has already happened it just will be a little different due to the year.
I cannot agree more with Joyce when she says, “I think that dreamers should be more careful because their dreams can get them carried away. Dreaming is great, but you still have to be aware of reality.” How very true, just except the life you have and make it great we are blessed to live and have all that we have in our life. Dreams are great but instead of dreaming take action and make your dream a reality!

Victoria Z said...

I don't think you can or should repeat the past. Whether the result was a positive or negative one, why would you want to waste what the future has in store for you? Sometimes you just need to move on. The characters in Gatsby do have a dream, take Gatsby himself for example. He is stuck in this dream of getting Daisy. He created this new life to impress her and try to get her back. I just don't think you should go back, I think you should go forward with your life. It may hurt at that point and time but in the long run I think people are better off. I think if you are a dreamer you are a person who wears your heart on your sleeve, you are more fragile than most. I completely agree with Joyce when she said "Idealism is an escape from reality. Reality will never be ideal or perfect, but people just have to learn to make the best of it." I think people take reality for granted. If you stop worrying about all the little things, life really isn't that bad. Sometimes you don't even need to dream to enjoy it.

Tabitha M said...

I definitely agree with Joyce when she say's dreamers must be careful or they might get carried away. I think that every character in Gatsby is dreaming for something more. I agree with Nick that you can not repeat the past. Referring to Daisy and Gatsby's love. They are not the same people they used to be and clearly Daisy is a different person. The repercussion of this was Gatsby losing his life to a woman who may or may not have loved him. Anything can be reinvent, but it doesn't end up the same in the end.

Gereon H. said...

You definitely have to be more careful because you can't think in another world and live in the other. You make different decisions in a dream world and you can't make the same ones in reality.
Gatsby is the only one who really has a dream. The other characters dream but they don't have a dream. They don't have a goal to aim for or to work for. They have everything they want. Gatsby is different. He didn't want to be rich, he wanted to have Daisy and he just needed to become rich to get closer to his dream. But mostly every character, including Gatsby, dream; dream in reality. They build a wall between the outside and them, the real them.
We are definitely not able to let the past happen again. But there are dreams which let us think that we can reinvent something. But the physics say that the past is past and the future is what is still coming. We always can try to get to our dreams, but those are new dreams and not the same ones we had in the past.

AmyW said...

Dreamers are extravigant, impulsive, hopeful and sometimes ignorant. I guess you could call me on of these dreamers i often focus on the way i want thing to go or the way they should, its often hard for me to get a grsp on reality. I think dreamer should be more vigilant because as a dreamer theres a lot of disapointment and they have to be aware that they cant always get what they want, whether it be a new car of world peace. I like what lia said about having to be careful not to let their dreams get in the way of really living life its important not to avoid life cus its not always the way we want. All the characters in the great gatsby are dreamers in some way they're all looking for something to fullfil them for daisy she wants love and security while Gatsby just wants his golden girl things like that give them an excuse to live the way they do i guess. I think everyon uses idealism at some point to escape, people constantly focus on what they want and are constant wanting things to be "perfect" and i guess if you have that thought of idealism in you, its easy to get caught up in what you think is ideal not in reality. I think Nick saying you cant repeat the past in completely false. We see it history all the time with great wars and awful things like genocides ( during WW2 and now in africa) Also normal lives repeat past mistakes all the time. To say you cant repeat the past is a lie, the past is always there with us in some way or another. But it takes small circumstance o be able to reinvent it, for example with daisy and gatsbys love it would be hard to go back to that after all thats happend.

Gracie G said...

I think as a dreamer you have to be more vigilant. I think you need to take risks, being careful you could miss out on a great opportunity. Like Gatsby takes the fall for Daisy yet again because he wants her that badly. Gatsby’s dream is to get Daisy back from Tom, Myrtle’s dream was to be wealthy and Daisy’s dream is to live a comfortable lifestyle. I absolutely think so, for example, a girl who is pretty but has a horrible personality, has her head in the clouds because she thinks that all these boys "like" her when really they just want to use her. She just dreams up these thoughts to make herself feel better. And when Nick says you can't repeat the past, I think that is true to an extent. I don't think you can repeat the past to a "T" but it sure can be close. People are always going to act differently to something then from what was done in the past.

rachel b said...

Dreamers need to be very careful when they are achieving their dreams. We saw in the book when Gatsby was striving for his dream that being reckless can get you killed. I don't think its very smart to do whatever it takes to achieve your goals, because that can lead to a dangerous lifestyle.
Almost all of the characters in this book have a dream and an agenda. Each one of them does the things they do for a purpose. The main dream in the book is to be the most prosperous and to have the most money, which is also what Kelsey thought.
When Nick says to Gatsby, "You can't repeat the past," I think that he is correct. You can't force anybody to remake something that already happened. Every single element has to be the exact same in order for the circumstances to be the same. This is why it is vital that we are careful in what we do today. I know that I don't want to go through life having regrets.

AndrewA said...

If you are a dreamer, you have to be very vigilant because some large opportunities may arise that may seem miniscule at the time and if we are too careful they might slip through our fingers. I believe the characters in the Great Gatsby all have their own individual dreams. Whether it be getting a long lost lover back or just seeking for the truth, each character seems to be after something. Idealism is more of a way to create a reality for yourself than escaping reality. They believe objects of external perception consist of ideas, therefore their perception of reality can be created by their own thoughts and feelings. I agree in some aspects with Nick that the past can't be repeated because we usually learn from the past to make the present more enjoyable. Some opportunities may be once in a life time so there are some things that can't be repeated. We can't reinvent what has already happened but if similar situations arrise then we'll know how to act to get the desired outcome.