Fable

[|Fable: The Great Golden Eagle]

Reflection: After reading The Great Gatsby, I realized it taught a strong moral lesson. The idea that excessive indulgence is far more damaging than anyone imagines echoes throughout the text. That idea inspired me to write a fable with that as the moral aspect. As I was brainstorming the various fables I heard in my childhood, I could not recall many on this topic of living in excess, so I thought it would at least be a challenge to create one with that focus. To take Fitzgerald’s story and make it a fable was not as easy, because it contains so many aspects. So for me, I choose to only focus on the indulgent lifestyle portion. I realized that almost every fable personifies animals, so I decided to assign native species of New York to the label of old money, which includes those that live in East Egg. For the residents of West Egg, those with new money, I decided to make them non-native species of New York. Therefore, Daisy, Tom, and Jordan are represented by native species of New York. Daisy is a whitetail deer, Jordan a river otter, and Tom a black bear. I attempted to pair each with an animal that I could identify the character with. For example, Tom is a very stout, powerful man, so I could see him as a bear, while Daisy is more of a simple, somewhat quiet creature, so she is a deer. Meanwhile, Jordan is an otter because she has a very slippery personality, bending the truth and cheating in golf to look good. For the inhabitants of West Egg, the non-natives, I choose a golden eagle for Gatsby, because they are very rare and powerful. There is a majesty about them that draws people in, just like the partygoers at Gatsby’s house. As for Nick, I found out a literature enthusiast introduced a type of European starling in New York. Such a small bird, set free in the big city had to be Nick. Then in the story I tried to create the underlying factor that Nick and Gatsby were outsiders, different from the others. And when one clicks the link to the fable, the first part seen is the map of the fable. The story is shaped like a diamond for three reasons. The first being diamonds represent the rich, excessive lifestyle. They are not necessities yet people yearn for them. The second connection is to another short story by Fitzgerald, //The Diamond as Big as the Ritz//. The story is about a poor boy that has to fit in with his rich classmates, much like Gatsby attempting to fit in with the old money of East Egg. The third reason is regarding the somewhat circular shape of a diamond. Like the story identifies, an excessive lifestyle is an endless cycle, with it's members blind to their mistaken choices. After making it, I feel I better understand that specific aspect of the novel; the idea of feeling so out of place in a society in which everyone tries so hard to fit in. That really inspired the fable. For me, the fable became a way to really bring together my science background and my love for literature. Finally I was able to use some of the information I have learned in my multiple science classes over the years in an English project. The two often do not cross paths, so it was great to combine the two subjects in one medium.

Notes Reference: The following website was pivotal in choosing animals as characters for my fable. http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/263.html It provided the information necessary in determining which species were native and which were not for the state of New York. It contains write-ups for each species mentioned in addition to general information about the environment, New York’s conservation efforts, and more. General information about the characters was obtained from the novel.