 |
| Abraham Lincoln |
Emancipation Proclamation:
Almost from the beginning of his administration, Lincoln was pressured by abolitionists and radical Repulicans to issue an Emancipation Proclamation. In Principle, Lincoln approved, but he postponed actions against slavery until he believed he had wider support from the American public. The passage of the Second Confiscation Act by the Congress July 17, 1862, which freed the slaves of everyone in rebellion against the government, provided the desired signal. Not only had limited initiative on emancipation, in demonstrated an increasing public abhorrence toward slavery. Lincoln had already drafted what he termed his "Preliminary Proclamation." HE read his initial draft of the Emancipation Proclamation to Secretaries William H. Seward and Gideon Welles on July 13, 1862. For a moment, both secretaries were speechless. Quickly collecting his thoughts, Seward said something about anarchy in the south and possible foreign intervention, but with Welles apparently too confused to respond, Lincoln let the matter drop.
Nine Days later, on July 22, Lincoln raised the issue a regularly scheduled Cabinet meeting. The reaction was mixed. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton, correctly interpreting the Proclamation as a military measure designed both to deprive the Confederacy of slave labour and bring additional men into the Union Army, advocated its immediate release. Treasury Secretary Salmon P. Chase was equally supportive, but Montgomery Blair, the Postmaster General, foresaw defeat in the fall elections. Attorney General Edward Bates, conservative, opposed civil and political equality for blacks but gave his qualified support. Fortunately, President Lincoln only wanted the advice of his Cabinet on the style of the Proclamation, not its substance. The course was set. The cabinet meeting of September 22, 1862, resulted in the political and literary refinement of the July draft, and on January 1, 1863, Lincoln composed the final Emanxipation Proclamation. It was the crowning achievement of his administration.
This passage is about the Supreme Court’s power of judicial review, a practive first invoked in the historical 1803 Supreme Court case Marbury v. Madison:
“It is emphatically the province and duty of the judicial department to say what the law is,” stated Chief Justice Marshall in a unanimous opinion in the 1803 Supreme Court case of Marbury v. Madison. This landmark case established the doctrine of judicial review, which fives the court the authority to declare executive actions and laws invalid if they conflict with the U.S. Constitution. The court’s ruling on the constitutionality of a law is nearly final – it can only be overcome by the power of judicial review, the court shapes the development of law, assures individual rights, and maintains the Constitution as a “living” document by applying its broad provisions to complex new situations.
Despite the court’s role in interpreting the Constitution, the document itself does not grant this authority to the court. However, it is clear that several of the founding fathers expected the Court to act in this way. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison argued for the importance of judicial review in the Federalist Papers, a series of 85 political essays that urged the adoption of the Constitution. Hamilton argued that judicial review protected the will of the people by making the Constitution supreme over the legislature, which might only reflect the temporary will of the people. Madison wrote that if a public political process determined the constitutionality of laws, the Constitution would become fodder for political interests and partisanship. However, the practice of judicial review was, and continues to be, a controversial power because it gives justices–who are appointed rather than elected by the people–the authority to void legislation made by Congress and state lawmakers.
Reflection questions:
1)
a. What main topic does the artifact relates to? In what way?
Ans: This passage relates to Universe through a telescope, because in the real situation during that time, people were viewing things subjectively; oppositely, in the essay, I am viewing things in an Objective way, looking at the big picture, just like looking at Earth from the Large Universe through a telescope, seeing everything clearly.
b. Which other main topic does it also relate to?
Ans: I think it can also relate to Class Consciousness, because in the first passage of this artifact, it clearly shows the idea of “slave” and “owners”. As the process Lincoln took to try and fix this problem.
2) Why did you choose this artifact, and how much time did you spend creating and /or processing it?
Ans: I choose this artifact because a friend of mine suggested me to look up “Development of the Emancipation Proclamation” because while we were talking on the phone, we talked about liberty from parents and so she relates it to the things she thought of. For the Supreme Court one, I was looking at novel that mentioned the name of “case Marbury v. Madison”, so I was interested because I didn’t know what it was, and looked it up, wrote this essay. It took me around an hour to produce both of the essays.
3) What insights and understanding have you gained from the creation and/or processing of this artifact?
Ans: For the Supreme Court case, I suggested that the practice of judicial review allows the court to wield enormous powers, and it taught me how sometimes things can just be that way, unfair, and that there’s nothings you can do about it. For the Emancipation Proclamation essay, I learned that the Congressional actions influenced Lincoln and encouraged him to issue it.
4) Does this artifact reflect your best work and/or ideas? Why, or why not?
Ans: I think these artifacts reflect my best work, because I’ve discussed it with my friend who is taking advanced U.S. History program in grade 9, and she told me about a lot of these knowledge’s even after I read through a lot of websites. Her way of telling me is like a story, so I am writing it out as a story, so it wouldn’t be so hard to understand and so boring to read. Personally, I think those topics relating to American Politics is very appealing.
5) Rate this artifact on a scale of -5 to 5 (0 is neutral) for the following four criterion.
a. Impact on the quality of your portfolio. 2
b. Impact on your level of enjoyment and happiness. 5
c. Impact on your learning. 5
d. Level of creativity and Originality. 2
6) Any additional comments.
Ans: No comment.
Artifact 12: Idea Page
The Decline of the American Dream in the 1920s
On the surface, The Great Gatsby is a story of the thwarted love between a man and a woman. The main theme of the novel, however, encompasses a much larger, less romantic scope. Though all of its action takes place over a mere few months during the summer of 1922 and is set in a circumscribed geographical area in the vicinity of Long Island, New York, The Great Gatsby is a highly symbolic meditation on 1920s America as a whole, in particular the disintegration of the American dream in an era of unprecedented prosperity and material excess.
Fitzgerald portrays the 1920s as an era of decayed social and moral values, evidenced in its overarching cynicism, greed, and empty pursuit of pleasure. The reckless jubilance that led to decadent parties and wild jazz music—epitomized in The Great Gatsby by the opulent parties that Gatsby throws every Saturday night—resulted ultimately in the corruption of the American dream, as the unrestrained desire for money and pleasure surpassed more noble goals. When World War I ended in 1918, the generation of young Americans who had fought the war became intensely disillusioned, as the brutal carnage that they had just faced made the Victorian social morality of early-twentieth-century America seem like stuffy, empty hypocrisy. The dizzying rise of the stock market in the aftermath of the war led to a sudden, sustained increase in the national wealth and a newfound materialism, as people began to spend and consume at unprecedented levels. A person from any social background could, potentially, make a fortune, but the American aristocracy—families with old wealth—scorned the newly rich industrialists and speculators. Additionally, the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919, which banned the sale of alcohol, created a thriving underworld designed to satisfy the massive demand for bootleg liquor among rich and poor alike.
Fitzgerald positions the characters of The Great Gatsby as emblems of these social trends. Nick and Gatsby, both of whom fought in World War I, exhibit the newfound cosmopolitanism and cynicism that resulted from the war. The various social climbers and ambitious speculators who attend Gatsby's parties evidence the greedy scramble for wealth. The clash between “old money” and “new money” manifests itself in the novel's symbolic geography: East Egg represents the established aristocracy, West Egg the self-made rich. Meyer Wolfshiem and Gatsby's fortune symbolize the rise of organized crime and bootlegging.
As Fitzgerald saw it (and as Nick explains in Chapter IX), the American dream was originally about discovery, individualism, and the pursuit of happiness. In the 1920s depicted in the novel, however, easy money and relaxed social values have corrupted this dream, especially on the East Coast. The main plotline of the novel reflects this assessment, as Gatsby's dream of loving Daisy is ruined by the difference in their respective social statuses, his resorting to crime to make enough money to impress her, and the rampant materialism that characterizes her lifestyle. Additionally, places and objects in The Great Gatsby have meaning only because characters instill them with meaning: the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg best exemplify this idea. In Nick's mind, the ability to create meaningful symbols constitutes a central component of the American dream, as early Americans invested their new nation with their own ideals and values.
Nick compares the green bulk of America rising from the ocean to the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. Just as Americans have given America meaning through their dreams for their own lives, Gatsby instills Daisy with a kind of idealized perfection that she neither deserves nor possesses. Gatsby's dream is ruined by the unworthiness of its object, just as the American dream in the 1920s is ruined by the unworthiness of its object—money and pleasure. Like 1920s Americans in general, fruitlessly seeking a bygone era in which their dreams had value, Gatsby longs to re-create a vanished past—his time in Louisville with Daisy—but is incapable of doing so. When his dream crumbles, all that is left for Gatsby to do is die; all Nick can do is move back to Minnesota, where American values have not decayed.
The Hollowness of the Upper Class
One of the major topics explored in The Great Gatsby is the sociology of wealth, specifically, how the newly minted millionaires of the 1920s differ from and relate to the old aristocracy of the country's richest families. In the novel, West Egg and its denizens represent the newly rich, while East Egg and its denizens, especially Daisy and Tom, represent the old aristocracy. Fitzgerald portrays the newly rich as being vulgar, gaudy, ostentatious, and lacking in social graces and taste. Gatsby, for example, lives in a monstrously ornate mansion, wears a pink suit, drives a Rolls-Royce, and does not pick up on subtle social signals, such as the insincerity of the Sloanes' invitation to lunch. In contrast, the old aristocracy possesses grace, taste, subtlety, and elegance, epitomized by the Buchanans' tasteful home and the flowing white dresses of Daisy and Jordan Baker.
What the old aristocracy possesses in taste, however, it seems to lack in heart, as the East Eggers prove themselves careless, inconsiderate bullies who are so used to money's ability to ease their minds that they never worry about hurting others. The Buchanans exemplify this stereotype when, at the end of the novel, they simply move to a new house far away rather than condescend to attend Gatsby's funeral. Gatsby, on the other hand, whose recent wealth derives from criminal activity, has a sincere and loyal heart, remaining outside Daisy's window until four in the morning in Chapter VII simply to make sure that Tom does not hurt her. Ironically, Gatsby's good qualities (loyalty and love) lead to his death, as he takes the blame for killing Myrtle rather than letting Daisy be punished, and the Buchanans' bad qualities (fickleness and selfishness) allow them to remove themselves from the tragedy not only physically but psychologically.
Motifs
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text's major themes.
Geography
Throughout the novel, places and settings epitomize the various aspects of the 1920s American society that Fitzgerald depicts. East Egg represents the old aristocracy, West Egg the newly rich, the valley of ashes the moral and social decay of America, and New York City the uninhibited, amoral quest for money and pleasure. Additionally, the East is connected to the moral decay and social cynicism of New York, while the West (including Midwestern and northern areas such as Minnesota) is connected to more traditional social values and ideals. Nick's analysis in Chapter IX of the story he has related reveals his sensitivity to this dichotomy: though it is set in the East, the story is really one of the West, as it tells how people originally from west of the Appalachians (as all of the main characters are) react to the pace and style of life on the East Coast.
Weather
As in much of Shakespeare's work, the weather in The Great Gatsby unfailingly matches the emotional and narrative tone of the story. Gatsby and Daisy's reunion begins amid a pouring rain, proving awkward and melancholy; their love reawakens just as the sun begins to come out. Gatsby's climactic confrontation with Tom occurs on the hottest day of the summer, under the scorching sun (like the fatal encounter between Mercutio and Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet). Wilson kills Gatsby on the first day of autumn, as Gatsby floats in his pool despite a palpable chill in the air—a symbolic attempt to stop time and restore his relationship with Daisy to the way it was five years before, in 1917.
Symbols
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
The Green Light
Situated at the end of Daisy's East Egg dock and barely visible from Gatsby's West Egg lawn, the green light represents Gatsby's hopes and dreams for the future. Gatsby associates it with Daisy, and in Chapter I he reaches toward it in the darkness as a guiding light to lead him to his goal. Because Gatsby's quest for Daisy is broadly associated with the American dream, the green light also symbolizes that more generalized ideal. In Chapter IX, Nick compares the green light to how America, rising out of the ocean, must have looked to early settlers of the new nation.
The Valley of Ashes
First introduced in Chapter II, the valley of ashes between West Egg and New York City consists of a long stretch of desolate land created by the dumping of industrial ashes. It represents the moral and social decay that results from the uninhibited pursuit of wealth, as the rich indulge themselves with regard for nothing but their own pleasure. The valley of ashes also symbolizes the plight of the poor, like George Wilson, who live among the dirty ashes and lose their vitality as a result.
The Eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg
The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are a pair of fading, bespectacled eyes painted on an old advertising billboard over the valley of ashes. They may represent God staring down upon and judging American society as a moral wasteland, though the novel never makes this point explicitly. Instead, throughout the novel, Fitzgerald suggests that symbols only have meaning because characters instill them with meaning. The connection between the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg and God exists only in George Wilson's grief-stricken mind. This lack of concrete significance contributes to the unsettling nature of the image. Thus, the eyes also come to represent the essential meaninglessness of the world and the arbitrariness of the mental process by which people invest objects with meaning. Nick explores these ideas in Chapter VIII, when he imagines Gatsby's final thoughts as a depressed consideration of the emptiness of symbols and dreams.
Artifact 12: Idea Page
The Decline of the American Dream in the 1920s
On the surface, The Great Gatsby is a story of the thwarted love between a man and a woman. The main theme of the novel, however, encompasses a much larger, less romantic scope. Though all of its action takes place over a mere few months during the summer of 1922 and is set in a circumscribed geographical area in the vicinity of Long Island, New York, The Great Gatsby is a highly symbolic meditation on 1920s America as a whole, in particular the disintegration of the American dream in an era of unprecedented prosperity and material excess.
Fitzgerald portrays the 1920s as an era of decayed social and moral values, evidenced in its overarching cynicism, greed, and empty pursuit of pleasure. The reckless jubilance that led to decadent parties and wild jazz music—epitomized in The Great Gatsby by the opulent parties that Gatsby throws every Saturday night—resulted ultimately in the corruption of the American dream, as the unrestrained desire for money and pleasure surpassed more noble goals. When World War I ended in 1918, the generation of young Americans who had fought the war became intensely disillusioned, as the brutal carnage that they had just faced made the Victorian social morality of early-twentieth-century America seem like stuffy, empty hypocrisy. The dizzying rise of the stock market in the aftermath of the war led to a sudden, sustained increase in the national wealth and a newfound materialism, as people began to spend and consume at unprecedented levels. A person from any social background could, potentially, make a fortune, but the American aristocracy—families with old wealth—scorned the newly rich industrialists and speculators. Additionally, the passage of the Eighteenth Amendment in 1919, which banned the sale of alcohol, created a thriving underworld designed to satisfy the massive demand for bootleg liquor among rich and poor alike.
Fitzgerald positions the characters of The Great Gatsby as emblems of these social trends. Nick and Gatsby, both of whom fought in World War I, exhibit the newfound cosmopolitanism and cynicism that resulted from the war. The various social climbers and ambitious speculators who attend Gatsby's parties evidence the greedy scramble for wealth. The clash between “old money” and “new money” manifests itself in the novel's symbolic geography: East Egg represents the established aristocracy, West Egg the self-made rich. Meyer Wolfshiem and Gatsby's fortune symbolize the rise of organized crime and bootlegging.
As Fitzgerald saw it (and as Nick explains in Chapter IX), the American dream was originally about discovery, individualism, and the pursuit of happiness. In the 1920s depicted in the novel, however, easy money and relaxed social values have corrupted this dream, especially on the East Coast. The main plotline of the novel reflects this assessment, as Gatsby's dream of loving Daisy is ruined by the difference in their respective social statuses, his resorting to crime to make enough money to impress her, and the rampant materialism that characterizes her lifestyle. Additionally, places and objects in The Great Gatsby have meaning only because characters instill them with meaning: the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg best exemplify this idea. In Nick's mind, the ability to create meaningful symbols constitutes a central component of the American dream, as early Americans invested their new nation with their own ideals and values.
Nick compares the green bulk of America rising from the ocean to the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. Just as Americans have given America meaning through their dreams for their own lives, Gatsby instills Daisy with a kind of idealized perfection that she neither deserves nor possesses. Gatsby's dream is ruined by the unworthiness of its object, just as the American dream in the 1920s is ruined by the unworthiness of its object—money and pleasure. Like 1920s Americans in general, fruitlessly seeking a bygone era in which their dreams had value, Gatsby longs to re-create a vanished past—his time in Louisville with Daisy—but is incapable of doing so. When his dream crumbles, all that is left for Gatsby to do is die; all Nick can do is move back to Minnesota, where American values have not decayed.
The Hollowness of the Upper Class
One of the major topics explored in The Great Gatsby is the sociology of wealth, specifically, how the newly minted millionaires of the 1920s differ from and relate to the old aristocracy of the country's richest families. In the novel, West Egg and its denizens represent the newly rich, while East Egg and its denizens, especially Daisy and Tom, represent the old aristocracy. Fitzgerald portrays the newly rich as being vulgar, gaudy, ostentatious, and lacking in social graces and taste. Gatsby, for example, lives in a monstrously ornate mansion, wears a pink suit, drives a Rolls-Royce, and does not pick up on subtle social signals, such as the insincerity of the Sloanes' invitation to lunch. In contrast, the old aristocracy possesses grace, taste, subtlety, and elegance, epitomized by the Buchanans' tasteful home and the flowing white dresses of Daisy and Jordan Baker.
What the old aristocracy possesses in taste, however, it seems to lack in heart, as the East Eggers prove themselves careless, inconsiderate bullies who are so used to money's ability to ease their minds that they never worry about hurting others. The Buchanans exemplify this stereotype when, at the end of the novel, they simply move to a new house far away rather than condescend to attend Gatsby's funeral. Gatsby, on the other hand, whose recent wealth derives from criminal activity, has a sincere and loyal heart, remaining outside Daisy's window until four in the morning in Chapter VII simply to make sure that Tom does not hurt her. Ironically, Gatsby's good qualities (loyalty and love) lead to his death, as he takes the blame for killing Myrtle rather than letting Daisy be punished, and the Buchanans' bad qualities (fickleness and selfishness) allow them to remove themselves from the tragedy not only physically but psychologically.
Motifs
Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text's major themes.
Geography
Throughout the novel, places and settings epitomize the various aspects of the 1920s American society that Fitzgerald depicts. East Egg represents the old aristocracy, West Egg the newly rich, the valley of ashes the moral and social decay of America, and New York City the uninhibited, amoral quest for money and pleasure. Additionally, the East is connected to the moral decay and social cynicism of New York, while the West (including Midwestern and northern areas such as Minnesota) is connected to more traditional social values and ideals. Nick's analysis in Chapter IX of the story he has related reveals his sensitivity to this dichotomy: though it is set in the East, the story is really one of the West, as it tells how people originally from west of the Appalachians (as all of the main characters are) react to the pace and style of life on the East Coast.
Weather
As in much of Shakespeare's work, the weather in The Great Gatsby unfailingly matches the emotional and narrative tone of the story. Gatsby and Daisy's reunion begins amid a pouring rain, proving awkward and melancholy; their love reawakens just as the sun begins to come out. Gatsby's climactic confrontation with Tom occurs on the hottest day of the summer, under the scorching sun (like the fatal encounter between Mercutio and Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet). Wilson kills Gatsby on the first day of autumn, as Gatsby floats in his pool despite a palpable chill in the air—a symbolic attempt to stop time and restore his relationship with Daisy to the way it was five years before, in 1917.
Symbols
Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.
The Green Light
Situated at the end of Daisy's East Egg dock and barely visible from Gatsby's West Egg lawn, the green light represents Gatsby's hopes and dreams for the future. Gatsby associates it with Daisy, and in Chapter I he reaches toward it in the darkness as a guiding light to lead him to his goal. Because Gatsby's quest for Daisy is broadly associated with the American dream, the green light also symbolizes that more generalized ideal. In Chapter IX, Nick compares the green light to how America, rising out of the ocean, must have looked to early settlers of the new nation.
The Valley of Ashes
First introduced in Chapter II, the valley of ashes between West Egg and New York City consists of a long stretch of desolate land created by the dumping of industrial ashes. It represents the moral and social decay that results from the uninhibited pursuit of wealth, as the rich indulge themselves with regard for nothing but their own pleasure. The valley of ashes also symbolizes the plight of the poor, like George Wilson, who live among the dirty ashes and lose their vitality as a result.
The Eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg
The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are a pair of fading, bespectacled eyes painted on an old advertising billboard over the valley of ashes. They may represent God staring down upon and judging American society as a moral wasteland, though the novel never makes this point explicitly. Instead, throughout the novel, Fitzgerald suggests that symbols only have meaning because characters instill them with meaning. The connection between the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg and God exists only in George Wilson's grief-stricken mind. This lack of concrete significance contributes to the unsettling nature of the image. Thus, the eyes also come to represent the essential meaninglessness of the world and the arbitrariness of the mental process by which people invest objects with meaning. Nick explores these ideas in Chapter VIII, when he imagines Gatsby's final thoughts as a depressed consideration of the emptiness of symbols and dreams.
Reflection questions:
1)
a. What main topic does the artifact relates to? In what way?
Ans: This artifact relates to the main topic Globalisation through imperialism in an indirect way. America's globalisation is part of its American dream. A lot of people from different country immigrate to America because of the Dream - opportunity and possibility that is not being guaranteed. This made America a pot that accepts people from different places. Until today, there still exists an Ameircan dream that encourages people to go to America.
Ans: This artifact relates to the main topic Globalisation through imperialism in an indirect way. America's globalisation is part of its American dream. A lot of people from different country immigrate to America because of the Dream - opportunity and possibility that is not being guaranteed. This made America a pot that accepts people from different places. Until today, there still exists an Ameircan dream that encourages people to go to America.
b. Which other main topic does it also relate to?
Ans: I think it also relates to Race relations: abolition, segregation, and anti semitism in an indirect way. As I say, by having the ameircan Dream, it made Ameirca a pot that has to accept people from different races, social classes having different economic and educational level. Race relation became a problem for America, African American became slaves, and that's also part of the Civil war.
2) Why did you choose this artifact, and how much time did you spend creating and /or processing it?
Ans: I did not choose this artifact, but the content within this artifact is part of my free choice. I am told to make an idea page about an aspect of the American Dream. I chose to talk about what is the American Dream, and how people have this dream? instead, since I talked about the Death of the American Dream this time. There's also an article that talks about the Declination of the Ameircan Dream by facts; previously, the Death of the American Dream is talked about in "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It took me around an hour or an hour and a half to create this artifact.
3) What insights and understanding have you gained from the creation and/or processing of this artifact?
Ans: I learned that how great it is to have a dream, even though the dream might not be what you think. " Ignorance is better than knowledge" is a aphorism that represents this idea. I learned that whereas the American Dream was once equated with certain principles of freedom, it is now equated with things. The American Dream has undergone a metamorphosis from principles to materialism. When people are concerned more with the attainment of things than with the maintenance of principles, it is a sign of moral decay. And it is through such decay that loss of freedom occurs.
4) Does this artifact reflect your best work and/or ideas? Why, or why not?
Ans: I think this artifact does not necessarily reflecte my best work, because I only need to create one page, which makes it a limitation. Also, I am not very used to the Mr. K idea page system; I am more used to my way of taking notes.
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5) Rate this artifact on a scale of -5 to 5 (0 is neutral) for the following four criterion.
a. Impact on the quality of your portfolio. 4
b. Impact on your level of enjoyment and happiness. 5
c. Impact on your learning. 5
d. Level of creativity and Originality. 3
6) Any additional comments.
Ans: I think the Idea page is a little brief in its content, I wish I can make another one to extend its incorporated key terms more.
