Single Stories

1. Do you have single story? Discuss why or why not. 

I believe that it may appear that I have a single story, just like anyone else. On a first impression, people will learn that I'm Lexi. I'm fifteen years old, a sophomore at Lake Forest Academy. I have a big family of six brothers, two parents, and a dog named Moose. I have lots of freckles. I love to play field hockey. I have blondish hair and greenish eyes. I have lots of scars and I like sarcasm and laughing a lot too. This may be the single story someone takes of me the first time they meet me. That's fair enough, because how are you supposed to know someone in depth, know all their stories, after being with them for less than an hour. Hearing that I live in Lake Bluff, and that I attend LFA, may allow people to believe that I'm a snobby, rich kid. Learning that I'm fifteen may allow people to think that I'm an immature teenager who only cares about herself. But those things are not true, because I do have more than one story. I have many, many stories. People will always judge you the first time they meet you, that's human nature. They will find out something about you, and store it in their brain as a memory of you. They will look at you, find stereotypes and ways to remember you, to decide whether or not they like you. They will look at you and see one story. But I don't believe that anyone has one single story. People come from all different places, have all different families and all different names. My name is Alexandra; Lexi is just a nickname. I'm not just a snobby, rich kid because I actually have an appreciation of the things I've been blessed with, and snobby is not in my nature. I can be immature at times, but I know when it's time to be serious and when it's okay not to be. I am more than stereotypes, and I have more than one, single story.

2. Does America have a single story? Discuss why or why not.
 Just like I am judged as a teenage girl, America is judged as a country. American stereotypes can include materialism, obesity, arrogance, racialism, oblivion, and many more. But not all of America is like that. Some may be, but America is built out of many stories. It can sometimes be easier to claim one thing about an entire country, rather than look at all the individual pieces. America has many, many, many, many stories, but other countries may see America as one story, due to stereotypes. 

Civil Peace

The title of the story, Civil Peace was chosen by the author in order to make a statement about what life is like after a Civil War, which reflects the story in itself. According to merriamwebster.com, civil means "of relating to citizens." Peace is what technically should come after a war. The fight is over, now there can be peace again. But, that has proven to never be the case. There is often a very slow climb until peace is reached once again. So civil peace should really mean, peace of the citizens. This statement is fairly ironic because there is not really peace among all the citizens in the story (note the thieves at the end who take Jonathan's money.) Although Jonathan's friends who greet him by saying, "happy survival," seem to be at peace with one another, there is still not total civil peace in the whole country. I believe this title was selected to make a point about peace after war.

The Great Gatspy & And Then There Were None

I truly enjoyed these two stories, The Great Gatsby and And Then There Were None because I do not pick my favorite novels based on genres like "horror," or "comedy," or "romance." But books become my favorite because of the material that they contain that sticks with me. Basically, if a story has a message that I will remember for the rest of my life, it goes to the top of my list. Or, if it simply contains a quote that I love and think about from time to time, it's probably because that line was so special to me, I couldn't possibly forget it. That is what these books have given me. In The Great Gatsby, "I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool," will forever be attached to me. That quote, said by Daisy (pg. 17) left a big impact on me, and affects all girls very strongly. To be a girl in the 20s, Daisy is saying it was better to live a socially, uncomplicated life, to be simplistic and almost superficial. It was easier that way, than to be an intelligent girl. Daisy almost uses simplicity to avoid the truth in that she loved Gatsby, not her husband. In And Then There Were None, the poem is the part that I will probably remember for a very long time, as its creepy, yet lyrical elegance is one that cannot be forgotten. I think the whole idea of being surrounded by people who have never met before, all there in a game, with one person who stands a part from the others in that he/she is not a victim, is seriously disturbing and that alone will never leave my mind.

The Great Gatsby #1

This book is so magical. That description sounds very unoriginal and played out, but magic is all I can think of when I think of The Great Gatsby. Not that magic is literally used, but love plays a huge role in this story, and I find love to be very magical. So "magical" it is. The language Mr. Fitzgerald uses to describe every detail is just incredible. I love how he introduces characters, like Daisy and her friend Miss Baker in the beginning of the book, compared to how he describes characters such as Tom Buchanan. Daisy and Miss Baker are given images of laughter, simpleness and lovely female charms, while Tom is seen as much more serious, darker and stronger. It truly gives readers a sense of the time period, of human behavior in the twenties. My favorite part of this book was the descriptions. The descriptions of people, like Mr. Gatsby, of places, such as the valley of ashes and of the thoughts like those of Nick Carraway, the narrator. I love Mr. Gatsby's smile, described as "...one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced, or seemed to face, the whole external world for an instant and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself,"(p. 48) That explanation of a smile is absolutely gold. It makes Mr. Gatsby seems like a person I would kill to just have a simple conversation with. Perhaps, one who I would invite to dinner, if the infamous "If you could invite ten people to dinner, living or dead, who would you invite?" question was ever actually posed upon me. The Great Gatspy has descriptions that I could paint in pictures, if I wanted to. They are all so perfectly constructed, and I loved that about this story.