Lessons for Life in Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures In a world of constant evolution, a new generation of students deserves a contemporary education that will prepare them both academically and emotionally for the rest of their life. Vincent Lam’s novel, Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures, exhibits many traits that are beneficial to a 4U English class. Firstly, one of the main characters has a tragic flaw that negatively changes his way of life, similar to Hamlet and Amir studied earlier in the course. The author also explores the duality of human nature through different characters, tying the novel to one of the central themes in the course. This collection of short stories also illustrates many events and emotions that can be applicable to a 4U student and their journey into post-secondary life. In conclusion, Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures is an ideal new addition to the 4U English curriculum. Fitzgerald, a primary character throughout several short stories, lives with a tragic flaw that has unfavourable effects on his life, similar to other characters in the 4U English curriculum. Fitzgerald develops an unhealthy obsession with his love for Ming. He begins calling her “three times a night… He fell behind in lecture tapes, until she reminded him that he had to study if he wanted to get into medical school” (62). This overwhelming infatuation becomes a main factor in their breakup, as he is a distraction from her studies, which she values above all else. Furthermore, the severing of his ties to Ming causes laziness in his own studying and puts his chances of getting into medical school in jeopardy. This rejection is the beginning of the downward spiral of Fitzgerald’s young adulthood. From their breakup stems his depression and co... ... middle of paper ... ...ence. Bloodletting & Miraculous Cures is an ideal addition to the 4U English course. It relates course texts in an effort to give students the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of all media covered in the curriculum. Furthermore, the author explores the duality of human nature through many of his characters and their actions throughout the novel, giving students the opportunity to gain a deeper understanding of one of the core course themes. There are also many situations and emotions present in the novel that grade twelve students may experience as they leave their secondary school. In conclusion, not only would this text provide teachers with plenty of opportunities for academic assessment, but it also gives students an insight into reacting and coping with whatever their future may bring, which is essential for teenagers who will grow to lead the world.
In the chapter, How to Get into Medical School Part 1, Vincent Lam uses comparison and inner thoughts of the two characters to highlight their difference in expression of feeling. While Ming keeps her feelings underneath and is scared to show the way she feels, Fitzgerald has no problem showing that he wants a relationship to work. In the passage, by entering Ming’s thoughts, the reader is able to see she wants him to know how she truly feels but she is scared of what could possibly come.
Fitzgerald was brought up in an upper class family and was highly educated throughout his life. He pursued writing at Princeton University, but was put into academic probation shortly after. Afterwards, he decided to drop out and continue his passion for writing novels and short stories. Fitzgerald then joined the army when his first story was unapproved. Upon his return, he met a southern Alabama belle named Zelda . Since she was a spoiled young lady, she declined Fitzgerald’s proposals, after seeing he had no fortune and had encouraged to firstly seek his fortune of his own. Throughout their life together the rich and adventurous couple maintained a crazy lifestyle filled with extravagant parties all over Europe. That soon ended when Zelda
For countless years there has always been an urgent need for doctors. Different methods would be used to cure people from their sicknesses. However, life is given by God and it is he who can take it away. Doctors play the role of saving lives, but in the end, they are powerless because nature has to take its course leaving humanity at its limits. In Vincent Lams novel “Bloodletting and Miraculous Cures”, Lam challenges the myth that doctors are omnipotent by contending that “medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability”. Using Fitzgerald as a focal point, Lam debunks the myth that doctors are omnipotent through situations of medical failure, having a loss of power and control and by inhabiting deadly diseases. By showings his mistakes, Lam proves that Fitz is not perfect and God like.
Mizener, Arthur, ed. F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963.
Mizener, Arthur, ed. F. Scott Fitzgerald: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1963.
Some of the most upstanding members of society possess unseen characteristics that define them, for who they truly are, secrets that they masquerade behind a façade of decorum and extravagance. The casual observer may never know the man behind the mask, but a learned historian can reveal to the world the secrets that some would rather sweep under the rug. One of America’s most celebrated novelists of all time, Francis Scott Fitzgerald has always been viewed as a talented, brilliant author. Although outside accounts sometimes skim over the less tasteful aspects of his life, Fitzgerald cannot help but betray his true nature to the reader, if only unwittingly. Perhaps his most acclaimed opus, The Great Gatsby, is actually more autobiographical
Fitzgerald shows the readers many forms of cheating, infidelity, and alcoholism, in order to gain
“Riding in a taxi one afternoon between very tall buildings under a mauve and rosy sky; I began to bawl because I had everything I wanted and knew I would never be so happy again.”(Fitzgerald). F. Scott Fitzgerald was born on September 24, 1896 in St. Paul, Minnesota, into a very prestigious, catholic family. Edward, his father, was from Maryland, and had a strong allegiance to the Old South and its values. Fitzgerald’s mother, Mary, was the daughter of an Irish immigrant who became wealthy as a wholesale grocer in St. Paul. His upbringing, affected much of his writing career. Half the time F. Scott Fitzgerald thought of himself as the “heir of his father's tradition, which included the author of The Star-Spangled Banner, Francis Scott Key, after whom he was named” (F. Scott Fitzgerald Biography). The other half the time he acted as “straight 1850 potato-famine Irish” (F. Scott Fitzgerald Biography). Consequently, he had typically indecisive feelings about American life, which seemed to him at once “vulgar and dazzlingly promising” (F. Scott Fitzgerald Biography). This idea is expressed in much of Fitzgerald’s writing. From an early age he had an “intensely romantic imagination” (F. Scott Fitzgerald Biography); he longed for a life of passion, fame and luxury.
Certain authors, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, wanted to reflect the horrors that the world had experienced not a decade ago. In 1914, one of the most destructive and pointless wars in history plagued the world: World War I. This war destroyed a whole generation of young men, something one would refer to as the “Lost Generation”. Modernism was a time that allowed the barbarity of the war to simmer down and eventually, disappear altogether. One such author that thrived in this period was F. Scott Fitzgerald, a young poet and author who considered himself the best of his time. One could say that this self-absorption was what fueled his drive to be the most famous modernist the world had seen. As The New Yorker staff writer Susan Orlean mentions in her literary summary of Fitzgerald’s works, “I didn’t know till fifteen that there was anyone in the world except me, and it cost me plenty” (Orlean xi). One of the key factors that influenced and shaped Fitzgerald’s writing was World War I, with one of his most famous novels, This Side Of Paradise, being published directly after the war in 1920. Yet his most famous writing was the book, The Great Gatsby, a novel about striving to achieve the American dream, except finding out when succeeding that this dream was not a desire at all. Fitzgerald himself lived a life full of partying and traveling the world. According to the Norton Anthology of American Literature, “In the 1920’s and 1930’s F. Scott Fitzgerald was equally equally famous as a writer and as a celebrity author whose lifestyle seemed to symbolize the two decades; in the 1920’s he stood for all-night partying, drinking, and the pursuit of pleasure while in the 1930’s he stood for the gloomy aftermath of excess” (Baym 2124). A fur...
Conflict is an important part of any short story. The short story, “On the Sidewalk Bleeding,” contains three major conflicts: man vs. man, man vs. nature, and man vs. himself. In this essay, I intend to explain, prove, and analyze these three struggles.
Thesis: In this passage, Fitzgerald's stylistic choices illustrate his concern with America's path of loneliness and isolation if they continue to pursue a corrupted American dream.
Fitzgerald's book at first overwhelms the reader with poetic descriptions of human feelings, of landscapes, buildings and colors. Everything seems to have a symbolic meaning, but it seems to be so strong that no one really tries to look what's happening behind those beautiful words. If you dig deeper you will discover that hidden beneath those near-lyrics are blatancies, at best.
Magill, Frank N. "F. Scott Fitzgerald." Critical Survey of Long Fiction. Vol. 3. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Salem, 1983. 953-67. Print.
In many short stories, characters face binding situations in their lives that make them realize more about themselves when they finally overcome such factors. These lively binding factors can result based on the instructions imposed by culture, custom, or society. They are able to over come these situations be realizing a greater potential for themselves outside of the normality of their lives. Characters find such realizations through certain hardships such as tragedy and insanity.
With high hopes for himself, Fitzgerald also seems to be unable to accept failures; for instance, even after more than a decade, he still has regrets for not being able to play football in college or to participate in the war and still fantasizes about them: “…my two juvenile regrets—at not being big or good enough to play football in college, and at not getting overseas during the war—resolved themselves into childish waking dreams of imaginary heroism that were good enough to go to sleep in restless nights” (520). Combined with this inability to move on after failures is his unwavering sense of pessimism. This is first evident at the start of the first essay where he implies how even a decade ago he didn’t have much hope for himself and a collapse was unavoidable: “I must hold in balance the sense of futility of effort and the sense of necessity to struggle; the conviction of the inevitability of failure and still the determination to ‘succeed’—and more than these, the contradiction between the dead hand of the past and high intention of the future” (520). Here, even though Fitzgerald talks about the “high intention” he claims he had for the future, he also seems to have a strong conviction that a slump was looming. Fitzgerald pessimism also