Verisimilitude via Artception

One of the themes which is created by Langston Hughes in his poem "The Weary Blues" is the theme of suffering of the African Americans which cannot be truly felt unless experienced firsthand. "The Weary Blues" provides a realistic description of the pain of the marginalized. This sense of verisimilitude is fostered especially through the song of the piano man, creating an image of an actual man singing with a "melancholy tone" (Hughes). In this sense, Hughes creates an artception, in which within his art, his poem, there is another artist expressing his art, his pain. This ironically fosters verisimilitude in that the art expressed by the singer is actually written by a real life artist, Hughes, while being expressed by another artist, the singer. The "weary blues" he sings remark how he "ain't got nobody in this world" (Hughes) and the fact that no one can truly experience the pain he feels in his song besides himself. This axiom is traced to the fact in which an artist performing often has the feeling which he cannot explain to a regular bystander. This is similar to the pain felt by the marginalized, as only those who suffered through the pains truly understand it. The men who understand the true pain of the "blues" are the ones who have actually experienced the blues themselves. 

Rhetorical Precis and Personal Thoughts

F. Scott Fitzgerald in the great American novel The Great Gatsby suggests that the affluence and wealth that the American man aspired to were not true sources of happiness. Fitzgerald supports his suggestion by illustrating an affluent man, Gatsby, disillusioned by his own wealth and unable to find real happiness despite his enormous riches. The author's purpose is to portray and ridicule the disillusionment of those chasing riches in order to truly highlight the foolishness of the Modernist American mindset during the Roaring 20's. The author writes in a colloquial tone for the American public. 

In addition to the rhetorical précis I would also like to post about my personal thoughts (which is the point of a blog, but I feel as though my blog posts have become increasingly more about grades and acceptance from a teacher's viewpoint). I will not lie or sugar-coat it; there have been times in the recent past where I am just completely miserable, for reasons which will not be disclosed. When reading The Great Gatsby, it came to a shocking similarity in which the men in the novel were portrayed and with what I was dealing it. Like Gatsby, I have extreme wealth, although not in the same sense. He has the wealth to throw lavish parties; I have the wealth of a loving family, a steady income, an amazing academic institution that is Troy High, and accomplishments which I would have never though possible before my high school career. And yet I am still miserable, and I cannot fully explain nor justify why. Perhaps I am not much different Gatsby, perhaps there is a green light in which I see and so desperately want to grab, but cannot obtain. And so the green light will continue to haunt me, because I let it haunt me, just as how Gatsby allowed his desire for Daisy to haunt his life. I am selfish, I am stubborn, and thus I will never truly be able to give up my desire for the green light. We'll see where it takes me.