The Great Gatsby And The Things They Carried

The writings that I have created throughout the year have carried a tone of underlying societal errors and malpractices that manifest themselves within each and every character and work. In creating my portfolio I looked to use works that carried this underlying tone of social errors and the necessity to correct them. I found that although most if not all works carried this undertone, I struggled with separating one from another in terms of key themes and details until I started analyzing them more thoroughly through literary lenses. After going through this process, I was able to more accurately depict the specific social error the author was targeting such as the patriarchal practices in society and the over glorification of certain things

Examples: Great Gatsby Essay, The Things They Carried Essay Portfolio Description:
My works have been interpreted from the works of lauded authors that looked to deliver a deeper message than what was perceived at first. This influenced the way in which I interpreted these works incredibly in that I found that in most if not all works, there was an underlying theme of faults within society and how we need to improve upon our mistakes. This was most evident in the books, The Great Gatsby and The Things They Carried. Although each work looked to attack separate portions of societal practices, they ultimately could be grouped under the idea that we have developed a society that is flourishing with faults and that we must first recognize these errors and then correct them. Finding these ideas throughout these works was most easily done by looking at them through different interpretive lenses such as the marxist and gendered lenses. In the Great Gatsby, the author was looking to

This left Gatsby constantly desiring more and more until he simply couldn’t achieve any more but still tried to and ultimately lost everything because of it. This interpretation serves to act as a part to the whole in that this book like every other book I read, looked to attack a certain aspect of society that was found to be flawed and in this case, it looked to attack the constant taunting by society to the individual to constantly push for a better life rather than being satisfied with one’s own life. Another example of this theme of attacking the faults in society through literature was through The Things They Carried. The Things They Carried followed the lives of a squadron of U.S soldiers fighting in Vietnam and took note of both the physical and more importantly the mental weight they had to carry throughout the conflict. The soldiers were forced to fight for their lives and in order to support their country, as well as the hope of seeing their families again.