Death

"Life and death appeared to me ideal bounds, which I should first break through, and pour a torrent of light into our dark world" (pg 32). One of the eminent themes so far in this book is death. Elizabeth's parents die which eventually leads her to live with the Frankensteins. Victor's mother dies after catching the fever Elizabeth had while taking care of her. Justine's, the servant, mother dies. William, the youngest Frankenstein brother, is murdered (pg. 47). An intelligent observation would be to assume that this theme will continue throughout the rest of the novel. I would guess that the monster will play a large role in this theme. Although when he is first created he is established to be a "gentle giant," I believe that his lack of companionship and giant structure signifying his differences from other people will compell him to the point of actually being a monster.

High Life

"The rumor is," whispered Jordan, "that that's Tom's girl on the telephone." One of the themes of the book was trying to live the highlife and the shallowness of the people up there. For Gatsby to even be considered by Daisy, he had to change his name, come into a lot of money, buy a huge house and expensive things, and through lavish parties for so-called friends. (They also aid the theme by pretending to be Gatsby's "friends" but don't even show up to his funeral.) Just as James Gatz, Jay Gatsby had no social standing in the world. Daisy portrays her shallowness by her actions with her daughter and how she carries an affair with Gatsby. Although Daisy and Tom have a child, she is only mentioned a few times and is only physically in a scene once before being quickly lead away. It is almost as if she doesn't even have a daughter. Tom also shows the same trait. He takes a mistress, is obsessed with his social standings, and thinks people are inferior to him. Jordan could also be grouped in this highlife category. She doesn't really spend her time on anything but golf and maintaining her image. Because Nick is dating Jordan, is neighbors with Gatsby, and is cousins with Daisy, he sort of gets swept up in the highlife when he has no business being there. This is probably the reason why him and Jordan didn't work out.

Dream Deferred

The central theme of the poem is having a dream that one puts off, but keeps bugging them. The goal is unreached and put aside. If the dreamer does not go after this dream, it will sit there and fester like a sore (4). They could eventually get mad and have the situation get out of hand. Instead of doing the work to reach the goal, the person kept it on the back of their mind and did nothing. The whole theme and lesson that Hughes was trying to convey was to go after one's dream and don't let it fester. He was encouraging people to go out and fight for what they wanted, especially since the time period he wrote this in was during the Harlem Renaissance. Hughes wanted people to act.