Seems Legit

      Saying that something has verisimilitude is basically saying that it seems legit. Verisimilitude is a piece's resemblance to reality, the extent to which it appears plausible. Now, trying to find Verisimilitude in a smaller piece, like a poem, is quite hard. There isn't anything that really happens to say seems like the truth. Often, the subject matter of poems are quite abstract and this also takes away from any sense of reality.

 In "The Negro Speaks of Rivers," Hughes claims to have been an active participant in the history, saying things like "I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it." Through the allusion to the pyramid, the piece fosters a sense of truthfulness and a similarity to reality but I still don't feel that it has verisimilitude. However, in The Things They Carried, O'Brien is able to achieve Verisimilitude. The detail with which he tells the story makes it seem true, especially when he describes the man that O'Brien killed. The details are so horrifying and anatomically correct that it must be true. But with poetry, you don't get a chance to see the detail that really sells a piece.

 So, this week I was watching The Big Bang Theory with my parents and my Dad paused the TV and it landed onto a picture of Sheldon standing next to a board with chemical equations and I noticed something pretty awesome. Written on the board were chemicals that displayed what I believe is Alpha Decay and to my surprise, the equation was correctly written with a superscript to the left of the chemical symbol displaying the atomic mass and a subscript with the atomic number. That small detail added so much to the experience of watching the show and made the show seem like the truth.

 Another great example of Verisimilitude is found in the Lord of the Rings saga and The Hobbit. This weekend, I saw the second hobbit movie and thought that it displayed verisimilitude as well. The Universe is so flushed out and so developed that it seems like another world. In the movie, we can see the effects of actions that happened long ago and how it changed cultures. Thorin, for example, still holds a grudge against the elves for abandoning his people long ago and the people of Lake-Town are still fearful that Smaug may come and destroy their town. Even though The Hobbit is about dwarves and elves and all that junk, it still feels like another reality as the characters act like people. They are just as irrational and helpless as regular people and interact realistically with one another(Except for Legolas who is so good at fighting in the movie that it seems like he is cheating. In one scene he is standing on two barrels in a fast-moving river and firing arrows at the orcs and he doesn't miss a single shot in the entire movie. It's absolutely disgusting but in a good way. ) Verisimilitude is not found in the big ideas that poems consist of but in the little details that make the piece seem real. 

What is the American Dream?

       In The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald denies the existence of the American Dream, and in a way he is right. The American Dream is not the ideal that we make it out to be but rather, as Fitzgerald points out, an illusion of happiness. Both Gatsby and Dexter focus their American Dream on women, and both come very close to attaining their goal but ultimately fail. In the mean time, they turn their hopes into an unattainable obsession. Fitzgerald describes Gatsby's obsession as  "..But because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself in it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart." Gatsby's American Dream has manifested itself in the form of an elaborate and seductive illusion of grandeur. He is so set on his illusion that he is unable to accept that Daisy ever loved another man. Even when it is clear Daisy loves him, thus achieving his goal, his thirst for the American Dream prevents him from being happy. The American Dream has become his representation of a perfect life, and Gatsby needs to acquire it even if it is impossible and this haunts him, blinding him to his own successes.  Dexter is also unable to see his successes as Dexter states that he is bored as he is playing golf with Mr. T.A. Hedrick. However, when Dexter was a child, he used to fantasize about beating him. Dexter's dream has absorbed him so thoroughly that Dexter is unable to truly enjoy life just as Gatsby's obsession with Daisy prevents him from actually enjoying himself as preoccupies himself with this obsession. Dexter also makes his American Dream into an obsession and he actually deludes himself into thinking that he wants Judy Jones as Fitzgerald states  "It did not take him many hours to decide that he had wanted Judy Jones ever since he was a proud desirous little boy." Even though Judy Jones tortures them, Dexter and her other suitors still hang around with the ludicrous hope that Jones will reciprocate and the extent of this is so extreme that Dexter actually thinks that he has wanted her most of his life. For both Gatsby and Dexter, the American Dream is not just an ideal to strive to, but also an impossible dream that haunts their existence.  

Some people just don't care.

 Sometimes people forget that they are not the center of the universe and don't look at the whole scheme of things and this can have terrible side effects. That is why we have the Hippocratic Oath, " First, Do no harm." But some people don't really care about the rest of the world. In the twenties, people weren't really concerned about the future. They speculated and bought everything on credit to fulfill their need for instant gratification but didn't care about the economy as a whole. They played with the economy like it was a jenga tower but didn't care that the blocks were falling down. Similarly, Daisy and Tom threw Gatsby under the bus when they blamed him for Myrtle's Death. Tom already knew that Wilson had lost it but didn't care who Wilson hurt as long as it wasn't him. Daisy and Tom represent the careless attitude of the twenties. Fitzgerald states that they "smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back. "

In Econ. , a few weeks ago, we discussed the Tragedy of the Commons where the public sheep grazing area was overgrazed as people didn't care about the land. However, when the govt sold individual plots of land, people took care of it. The whole concept of externalities is based on the fact that people can have an impact on things that they don't have anything to do with. In the more global world this has to be taken into account and people should try to help have a positive impact instead of ignoring the world.
in the dark knight, Alfred has a really awesome line when he tells Batman "Some people just want to watch the world burn." I believe he is commenting on how some people just don't care what happens to the world as long as their needs are met and may actually take pleasure in the destruction. That is definitely the case with Tom and Daisy as in their mind, the world is their oyster and theirs alone to use up in any way they would like.