Carrie Synthesis Page- Archetypes

Quick Summary- The book Carrie by Stephen King is about 18-year-old Carrie that discovers her telekinesis power throughout the book. It starts off with her getting her first menstrual cycle and being bullied by Christine "Chris", her clique, and surprisingly Sue Snell, a good girl. She is allowed to go homeland comes home to her abusive mom, Margaret. Margaret is very aggressive and restricts Carrie from doing many things. The next day, Sue feels guilty and tries to make it up to her. An act of kindness of Sue and her boyfriend, Tommy allows Carrie to fit in for once, but also leads to Chris and her boyfriend, Billy's act of terror. These acts collide with Carrie as she uses her powers as a weapon that will go down as one of the most unstoppable and tragic destruction ever. These are some of the archetypes found throughout the book.
Carrie

Victim	Rebel	Temptress
Carrie plays the role of victim of bullying and abuse. In the beginning scene Carrie comes out of the gym shower and sees blood running down her leg. King writes, “Then the laughter, disgusted, contemptuous, horrified, seemed to rise and bloom into something jagged and ugly, and the girls were bombarding her with tampons and sanitary napkins.” This shows Carrie is a victim because all the girls are making fun of her simply because she doesn’t know what a period is. She should not be bullied because Margaret is not a good mother, which brings us to the second point. she is a victim of Margaret’s abuse. Magaret once looked her in a closet to pray for forgiveness for a day. Carrie fainted from the smell of her own waste. First, she is verbally taunted by her schoolmates, and right after she goes home to a physically abusive mother. Overall, Carrie is seen as the victim in the beginning of the book.	Carrie is seen as a rebel because throughout the book, she talks back to her mom and goes against her mom. For example, when Margaret finds Carrie in her prom dress, after returning to work, she tells Carrie to take it off repeatedly. However, Carrie continuously says no and goes to the prom anyways. As you can see, Carrie is quite rebellious towards her mom and does the opposite of what she says. Another part that shows this is when her mom disapproves of Carrie going to prom, let alone with Tommy, but Carrie still sneaks out and goes. These moments when Carrie decides to go against what her mom says proves that she is a rebel. Margaret is her only parent and usually kids have to follow their parents rules or they’ll get grounded or charged with another punishment. In this case, Carrie doesn’t care what the punishment is and still does whatever she wants. For that reason, Carrie is seen like a rebel when she is with her mom.	Carrie is a temptress because she uses her telekinetic powers to her advantage. Instead of using them to help others, she uses it as a weapon. For example, in the end, King writes, “State officials say that the death toll in Chamberlain stands at 409, with 49 still listed as missing.” This was caused by Carrie. She uses her powers to trap all the kids that went to the Spring Ball in a burning school building for revenge, blows up the whole town, and kills her mom by stopping her heart. She takes advantage of her powers to make everyone else weaker. She kills 458 people and dies herself from blood loss. No one would have died if she didn’t do any of this. None of it was necessary if she would’ve dealt with bullying and abuse a different way and ask someone to help her with her problems. Sue would’ve easily agreed to help her. Therefore, Carrie seems like a temptress because of the fact she didn’t ask for help and she tried to solve her problems by punishing others using her powers.

Sue (and Tommy)

The Good Girl	The Scapegoat	Star- Crossed Lovers
Although at the start of the story Sue seems like just another mean girl she recognizes that her action were wrong and tries to make up for it. Sue joins Chris when she starts throwing things at Carrie, but she tries to help Carrie after feeling empathy for her. She proves she is a good girl when King writes, “‘Wait. Just wait. Let me talk. You want me to ask Carrie White to the Spring Ball… [Tommy says]’” Sue askes Tommy to take Carrie as a way to make up for bullying and to help Carrie break out of her shell. She wants Carrie to not be so timid around kids because she’s scared she's going to be made fun of. Sue seems like a good girl because she recognizes her mistakes and tries to fix them. She feels guilty about bullying Carrie and to make up for it she tries to do the complete opposite and help her. Thus, Sue tries to maintain her good girl attitude not for a public image, but for her self benefit.	Toward the end of the book, Sue is treated like a scapegoat. King supports this statement when he writes, “Q. [interviewer] You deny you had prior knowledge of Carrie White’s whereabouts? A.[Sue] Of course I do. It’s an absurd idea.” This quote shows the society people not trusting Sue and keeps hammering her to try to get her to say what they want to hear. Sue seems like a scapegoat because she is blamed by the society for knowing where Carrie was and having knowledge that she was going to blow up the whole town . For this reason, Sue can be considered a scapegoat during her interview after Carrie’s horrific effect on Chamberlain.	Sue and Tommy are star- crossed lovers because Sue lives and Tommy dies due to Sue‘s good girl personality. Sue askes Tommy to go with Carrie to the prom and when he does they win prom king and queen. Pig blood gets poured on them causing Carrie to lose her mind and start killing everyone including Tommy. Sue is left alone and one of the only survivors of Carrie’s reign of terror. When Tommy dies, it shows they are star crossed lovers because their love is ill-faded. Sue’s act of kindness to help Carrie come out of her shell is her downfall and as a result Tommy and Sue become star- crossed lovers.

Miss Desjardin- The Mother Figure

Miss Desjardin seems like the mother figure to Carrie due to Margaret not acting like a mom. One reason one can call Miss Desjardin a mom to Carrie because when Carrie goes through her first period . She tries to help her and defend her from the taunts of the other girls. Many teachers will send her to the nurse or just punish the bullies. However, she acts like a mom and tries to help and educate on her. In addition, Miss Desjardin tries to punish the bullies harder than just two detention periods. She cares for Carrie and wants to help her with her problems . Maybe this is because she had a mom that didn't care about her or she was bullied as a kid as well. Margaret treats Carrie like a dog while Miss Desjardin treats her like an actual daughter. All in all, Miss Desjardin takes the place of Margaret’s absent mom attitude making her kind of like her second mom.

Tommy- The Puppet

Tommy can be seen as a puppet with Sue being the puppet master. This is shown through his decision of asking Carrie to the Spring Ball. When Sue askes. Tommy to ask Carrie to go with him, he quickly agrees it besides his small doubts . Tommy follows Sue and what she does because he is basically blinded by her love, since Tommy agreed to ask Carrie despite dating Sue. It could've been a test to see if Tommy would actually do it to prove his love for her, but he wouldn’t know because he is too focused on making her happy. This is his downfall because he is so dependent on her resembling a puppet and the puppet master controlling it. Tommy acts like Sue's little puppet that she is controlling and Tommy is happy to fit that position in exchange for Sue's love.

Chris (and Billy)

Popular Mean Girl	Spoiled Brat	Shadow-Bully
Chris acts like the stereotypical popular mean girl with a clique that everyone is nice to out of fear. All the teachers are scared to stick it to her with the exception of Miss Desjardin. King writes, “‘Chris and her Mortimer Sherds’ Morton murmured.” Even Mr. Morton, the assistant principal, knows Chris and her little minions are a problem. The way King writes murmured to describe the way Mr. Morton talked shows he didn’t want to say it too loud and have anyone overhearing. Also, Chris fits the popular stereotype because she is so concerned about winning prom queen until she is suspended from the prom. The prom queen desire and campaigning seems like the popular mean girl in all school life movies and book that everyone hates. That being the case, she fits the role of popular mean girl.	In addition to being that popular mean girl that everyone despises, Chris is the spoiled brat in the school. This is supported when Miss Desjardin pushes Chris against the locker for verbally and physically harassing Carrie, but Chris refuses to take her two detention punishment. After the incident she goes straight to her lawyer also, known as her dad. King writes, “‘I am here because my daughter was manhandled by your gym teacher Miss Rita Desjardin. and verbally abused..’ [Chris’ dad said]” As you can see, Chris is only telling her dad her side of the story and not Miss Desjardin’s reasoning. This resembles a spoiled brat because she complains to her parents to get others in trouble. Because of her dependence on her dad, she seems like a spoiled brat.	Chris and Billy are a perfect example of a shadow in a school environment, also called a bully. They run the halls like a perfect couple. Everyone fears them, and does their best to satisfy them because they don’t want to be made fun of. A part in the book that shows this clearly is when Chris and Billy take pig blood and places it above the prom stage to put on the winners of prom queen and king, since they couldn't run. Because Chris was banned from the prom her malicious attitude creates a lot of drama. She makes sure Carrie wins prom queen to embarrass her. She wants to punish her more form getting her banned from the prom. On that account, Chris and Billy act like the school bullies to punish others and take out their aggression on them.

The Great Gatsby Reading Response

The 1920s or the Roaring Twenties were known for its jazz music, but the book, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald focuses on the rich people of America at the time. It starts with Nick Carraway and his life after he comes back from war. He moves to West Egg, a neighborhood in New York filled with the rich which Nick loathes, but he does become close with wealthy  Jay “Gatsby” Gatz. Here he also meets Jordan, Tom, Daisy, who is Nick’s cousin, Wilson, and Myrtle, which soon develops into multiple love triangles. Tom and Gatsby fight over Daisy, while Wilson and Tom both like Myrtle. Throughout the book, F. Scott Fitzgerald utilizes symbolism to express feelings, a theme, and inner thinking.

First of all, Fitzgerald uses a green light to symbolize Gatsby's love for Daisy. The green light is set on Daisy's dock which is across the water from Gatsby. He moved there  to be across from Daisy to try to win her back from Tom. Fitzgerald shows it represents Gatsby's love for Daisy when he writes, “...He stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way… Involuntarily I glanced seaward- and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock.” Gatsby is trying to reach the light which also shows he's trying to reach Daisy. Since, the light is on her dock, Gatsby's us trying to reach her and earn her love back. As Gatsby got closer to Daisy and starts to win her love back little by little, he gets closer to the light. The light got less bright. The light represented his goal. Also, Fitzgerald writes, “...there were hardly any lights except the shadowy, moving glow of a ferryboat across the sound.” after Gatsby dies in the end. Nick notices there are no more lights after he dies. Gatsby kid of achieves his goal because Daisy says she loves him to Tom and said she's going to leave Tom. However, he didn't live long enough to stay with her. Once he died, she left with Tom and the light disappeared. The green light was not there anymore because there was not a goal to achieve. Therefore, Fitzgerald uses symbolism in the form of a green light to represents Gatsby's love for Daisy.

Second of all, Fitzgerald uses a valley of ashes to represent ugliness under the “beauty” of the wealth. The book is centered around the wealthy such as Gatsby and Tom, but Nick, the main character, is the poor guy. Early in the book, Fitzgerald writes, “About half way between West Egg and New York the motor road hastily joins the railroad and runs beside it for a quarter of a mile, so as to shrink away from a certain desolate area of land. This is a valley of ashes…” West Egg and East Egg, which is right across from it, represents the wealthy and as they drove closer to the city, it got uglier. The city can represent the poor. The valley of ashes show there is a place where the poor and the rich meet halfway. Either one are not superior or inferior. The wealthy seem on top but the new rich as shown through Tom and Daisy are very revolting because they think they’re better than everyone else. However, the valley of ashes show they are not perfect and although they seem that way, under their money and the beauty of the skin, they are not joyful and ecstatic. Since they are rich they feel like they can do anything, but they are not as gorgeous as their outer layer may seem and this is shown in the valley of ashes. This doesn’t mean the rich is horrible because Gatsby, who inherited money, is in fact very loving. The wealthy may not seem great, so it is better to not be superficial and think they are. Overall, Fitzgerald uses the valley of ashes to show under their wealth, the rich may be very hateful.

Third of all, Fitzgerald uses the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg to show Wilson’s conscience through God. Wilson makes very big decisions and inferences and when he does the eyes always seem to be watching over. He says it is God looking over him, but it may be his conscience. For instance, before Wilson for finds out Myrtle died, Fitzgerald writes, “Standing behind him, Michaelis saw a shock that he was looking at the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg, which had  just emerged, pale and enormous, from the dissolving night. ‘God sees everything,’ repeated Wilson.” This occurs before he is told Gatsby killed Myrtle when it was really Daisy and he goes ahead and kills Gatsby for thinking he killed his wife. The eyes are telling Wilson something has happened to Myrtle. The eyes seem like Wilson’s conscience because it is telling him that there is something wrong. He doesn’t even know about the accident before Michaelis told him there was one. However, he knew himself the victim was probably Myrtle. The eyes appear when Wilson has an epiphany and knows it was Gatsby and Daisy in the car that hit Myrtle and the eyes emerge large. Fitzgerald uses these pair of eyes to represent Wilson’s conscience through God because he thinks the eyes are God watching him as said in the quote. He makes decision and says it’s because it is telling him to do that. For that reason, Fitzgerald uses the eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg to show WIlson’s inner thoughts although Nick is the narrator.

Books are very hard to write and even harder to become a top seller in addition to be written about 90 years ago. Adding symbols make the book even better but it is hard to include with trying to include all the other parts of writing a book. That being the case, the book, The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a great book that expresses feelings, a theme, and a conscience through three symbols- a green light at the end of Daisy’s dock, a valley of ashes between West Egg and New York, and a pair of eyes that belong to Doctor T.J. Eckleburg. The book is said to be timeless and the valley of ashes’ theme about not being superficial is a lesson that can be useful now even though the book is written in 1925.

Curveball: The Year I Lost My Grip Reading Response

In the book, Curveball: The Year I Lost My Grip, by Jordan Sonnenblick, the author starts off by introducing Peter and AJ, his best friend, as star pitchers. However after an accident, Peter ruins his arm and his doctors said he will never ever throw again. Now, Peter focuses on photography, which is a special talent he shares with his grandfather, Grampa, and it is here he meets Angelika his soon to be girlfriend. Throughout the book, Peter keeps secrets from his friends and family. The purpose of the book is to learn keeping and hiding secrets will only make things worse.

To start off, the first secret Peter keeps is about Grampa and him possibly Alzheimer’s disease. When Angelika comes over to Peter’s house for the first time, she notices Peter’s bond with Grampa. She tells him that Grampa may have Alzheimer’s disease, since it has happened with her grandmother. Although Peter knows it may be true he denies it. The author states, “‘Yeah, but my mom said he's fine. And he's her dad- she knows him better than I do.’” Peter is saying this to Angelika because he knows it may be true, but he’s trying to deny it by using his mom as an excuse. It is his maternal grandfather, so it may seem very likely that his mom knows what's best for him, but it is also seems like Peter trying to avoid the problem and blame it on his mom. There are many times when Peter was able to tell his mom the truth and get help, such as the slip. While Peter was walking home, Grampa called him from the house and calls for help. Luckily, Peter got there quick and found Grampa on the floor of the bathroom. Grampa slipped and that was all he said. This shows, Grampa was trying to hide something because when Peter was trying to ask him what had happened, Grampa just said, “‘Peter, sometimes people fall. I’m fine.’” Peter had a chance to tell his mom about the slip accident, but he never does. This could’ve been something very serious and Grampa was hiding his pain, but Peter and his mom will never known because Peter didn’t speak up. He was hiding a secret making things even worse. Therefore, Peter should've told his mom about Grampa possibly having Alzheimer's disease rather than keep it a secret and hide accidents that can be effects of the disease.

In addition, Peter kept secrets from AJ. It would seem that Peter would not hide anything from his life long friend, but he finds a way to somehow do it. Baseball were Peter and AJ's life but when Peter hurts his arm that all changes. They have a discussion about Angelika possibly having a love interest in Peter because he's an athlete. Knowing he's injured, Peter says he's not an athlete anymore, but AJ says he's just an injured athlete and they joke about Angelika nursing him back to health. Peter thinks, "Actually, I was being dishonest. The doctor had flat-out said that I WOULD never pitch again." However, he doesn't tell AJ that he can't play. By keeping this secret, he is proving that he is a dishonest friend and this will hurt AJ even more when AJ finds out. Peter thinks hiding may be his best bet, but lying to his best friend is probably way worse than telling him he can't play baseball with him because of an injury. Also, Peter did not saying anything when AJ talks to him about baseball hinting that he is agreeing. For instance, the author writes, "'But what I really can't wait for is baseball. You and me, together again, showing everyone what we could do- its gonna be sick.' [AJ says] ... It was one of those times I'm really glad AJ never notices whether I reply or not." As you can see, Peter is trying to hide from the truth and kind of leading AJ on by not responding. AJ may take the silence as a yes, but in reality Peter is just trying to not tell him not his arm is going to make him unable to play baseball. Keeping this arm secret, is making things worse because AJ will keep thinking he can play and it will probably just break his heart when he finds out his lifelong best friend and pitching partner can't play with him this season or the next. It will be really hard to let go of this secret once it is created, so Peter should've just never lied to him and say he can't play anymore. Overall, Peter should not be keeping his secret towards AJ because it can just ruin his friendship really quickly.

All in all, in the book, Curveball: The Year I Lost My Grip, by Jordan Sonnenblick, Peter faces a phase where he has to learn whether to hide a secret or tell his family and friends about it. Peter keeps it for a pretty long time until in the end he is forced to tell when Grampa ends up in the hospital and is checked into an assisted living place. Also, he tells AJ finds out when tryouts occur, and Peter can’t play. Although Peter hid it, he eventually spilled them at the end making his life a whole lot easier. From the book, the reader should learn if they have to keep their own secret about the truth, it probably won’t end well if the person they’re avoiding finds out on their own. The best way to handle the truth is to share it with someone else, so help can be there whenever needed. Therefore, avoiding the truth is the worst way to handle, especially if it can affect another’s life.