Buddhism Lecture Notes Siddhartha - 1701 Words

Buddhism Lecture Notes Siddhartha Gautama was born around 500 BC, roughly the same time that Hinduism was shifting into the more meditative and spiritual form found in the Upanishads and breaking away from the old Vedic tradition. Siddhartha himself was raised within a Hindu community, and thus Buddhism, it can be said, began as an outgrowth of Hinduism very much like Christianity began as an outgrowth of Judaism. In fact, you’ll likely notice some amazing similarities between the life of Christ and the life of Siddhartha. Before he was born, Siddhartha’s mother, Maya (yes, like the Hindu term for â€Å"illusion†), had a vision of a white elephant entering her side. Nine months later, Siddhartha was born in what many claim was an immaculate conception. Siddhartha’s father was a prince of the region with vast wealth and power. When he was born, Siddhartha had very odd markings on his skin and his father, concerned about the well-being of his heir to the great fortune and kingdom, sought the counsel of two wise men, Brahmins of a sort, who were called in to decipher the markings on the baby’s body. The wise men said that the child was destined for a truly amazing life: he was destined for greatness. However, the way in which that destiny was to be fulfilled depending upon one thing: if Siddhartha ever experienced or witnessed firsthand the reality of human suffering. In fact, the wise men said there were two possibilities as to how his greatness would unfold: (1) If SiddharthaShow MoreRelatedHindu and Buddhist Gender Roles and Ideals: the Household and Abstract Concepts1820 Words   |  8 PagesIntroduction Gender roles and ideals in Hinduism and Buddhism are diverse. A number of texts regarding household gender roles exist in Hindu traditions, and little to none are appear to exist in Buddhist traditions. The gendering of abstract concepts in both Hinduism and Buddhism may also occur. The cases sited indicate that male dominance is significantly more common than female dominance in ancient and Classical Hindu texts while regional variations may continue to exist. Buddhists appear to internalize

Research Paper Marjane Satrapi - 756 Words

Beset with the unthinkable, the Islamic Revolution defines turbulent times for many Iranians (Tehran). Numerous females including Satrapi were robbed of their social rights due to westernizing and secular efforts (Tehran). In turn, the Islamic Revolution undermined the younger Satrapi’s ability to come to terms with her own identity; nevertheless, she now writes to share her experience with oppression and her later journey towards cultural integration. It is a historical dispute that woman did not have their share of say in the revolutionaries’ political agenda (Mouri). In the months following the Revolution, obligatory hijabs were decreed (Mouri). Girls of every age rank were forced to wear a veil. Several active Iranian female†¦show more content†¦Marjane’s life eventually plummeted leading her to homelessness, bronchitis, and drug abuse (Hattenstone). Defeated, she escaped the havoc by returning home, ultimately surrendering herself to the lifestyle s he once rejected (Hattenstone). Unfortunately, the hijab and restricted style options weren’t Satrapi’s mere concern. Upon her arrival home, Satrapi dealt with more prejudice than she had originally anticipated. She was known as the Western Iranian, which made her cultural transition in Iran especially difficult. Her later diagnosis with depression fostered even more mayhem within her life resulting in suicidal attempts. Her early 20’s were indeed tempestuous times as she struggled to establish and integrate herself into foreign customs. The end of the Islamic Revolution didn’t necessarily mean that the essence of corruption and repression were eradicated. In fact, the bitterness lingered for another 30 years shaping a void for many Iranian women. The marriage age for females was lowered to nine, and they lacked the rights to obtain divorce. Meanwhile, their male counterparts were able to assume full custody of their children, obtain unilateral divorce, and have as many wives as they desired. In all, females received a lot of harsh treatment if they failed abide by the restrictive nature of Islamic rule. For a female foreigner like Satrapi, simply bearing a different style of clothing orShow MoreRelatedAnalysis Of The Book The Complete Persepolis 2283 Words   |  10 Pagesthe book, the author, Marjane Satrapi, recounts her life in Iran after the Islamic Revolution of 1979, and the difficulties she encountered. She struggled with restricted freedoms, strict religious rule, and a sense of statelessness. In the opening illustrations, she describes her childhood and her transition from a secular school to one that was religious and separated by gender. At this time it had become law for a woman to wear the veil, or head scarf when in public. Satrapi talks of how she â€Å"didn’tRead MoreMemories And The Formation Of Reality1666 Words   |  7 PagesBut where does the use of imagination and memories stop? By examining memor y represented in animation and film, through Bartlett’s theory of schema, we can see how the film develops an active organized method to distinguish reality from memory. This paper examines five films based on memory, thus arguing that imagination does not distort memory in animation, but create a role as a form of embellishment for the film to help memory. Fredrick Bartlett is a British psychologist from Cambridge UniversityRead MoreMemories And The Formation Of Reality1688 Words   |  7 Pageswhere does the use of imagination and memories stop? By examining memory represented in animation and film, through Bartlett’s theory of schema, we can see how the film develops an active organized method to recognize reality through memory. This paper is examining five films based on the theme of memory, thus arguing that imagination does not distorted memory in animation, but create a role as a form of embellishment for the film to help memory. Fredrick Bartlett is a British psychologist fromRead MoreLiterary Criticism : The Free Encyclopedia 7351 Words   |  30 PagesWorld, by Jostein Gaarder (1991) English Music, by Peter Ackroyd (1992)[39] The Gods Laugh on Mondays, by Reza Khoshnazar (1995) About a Boy, by Nick Hornby (1998) The Perks of Being a Wallflower, by Stephen Chbosky (1999)[40] Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi (2000)[41] 21st century[edit] The Secret Life of Bees, by Sue Monk Kidd (2002)[42] The Kite Runner, by Khaled Hosseini (2003)[43] The Fortress of Solitude, by Jonathan Lethem (2003) [44] Never Let Me Go, by Kazuo Ishiguro (2005)[30] Looking for

Abraham Lincoln Essay In English Example For Students

Abraham Lincoln Essay In English Abraham Lincoln, from the backwoods of Hodgenville Kentucky, rose to become one of the greatest presidents of the United States. During his attempt to keep the Union in the Civil War, he gained more power and authority than any president before him. A excellent politician, Lincoln was always looked upon for leadership for he put reason and thoughtful decisions behind his word. Abraham Lincoln, born to Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hawks on February 12, 1809, was conceived in a log cabin built by his father. Abe had one older sister, and a younger brother that died as an infant. The Lincoln family moved a lot, from Kentucky to Indiana, and back to Kentucky. Abe read a book titled Mason Locke Weemss Life and Memorable Actions of George Washington, this book mad a lasting impression on him that persuaded him throughout his life. By the time he was nineteen Abe reached his full grown height of six feet four inches. He held small jobs such as a clerk, postmaster and a few others through his early twenties. Then in 1832 he ran for county candidate against 13 others. Only four were to be elected and Lincoln finished eighth. In 834 he ran for a representative to the Illinois legislature, by this time Lincoln was well known and he got the election. Abe began to study law, and in 1836 became a licensed attorney. In 1837 he made his first public stand against slavery, Lincoln avoided extreme abolitionist groups though he was greatly against slavery. On November 4, 1842 Lincoln married Mary Todd, whom he spent the rest of his life with. He became a United States Congressman, although he was an amateur, his goal was to make his mark. What might of made him fulfill this goal was the fact that he never lost confidence in himself. Years went by, and Abraham could not stand slavery any more, he was elected by the republican party to do something about it. On March 4, 1861, Lincoln was sworn in as president of the United States of America at his first inaugural address. Soon after the Civil War began, and Abe had to take on a problem that is more severe than any preceding president. During his second year in office, on April 16, 1862, Lincoln finally signed a bill that abolished slavery throughout the land. On November 19, 1863, Lincoln was called to deliver a speech at the battle sight in Gettysburg. Although Lincolns speech was short, it was definitely a masterpiece. On April 14, 1865, a man by the name of John Wilkes Booth planned to assassinate Lincoln. Abe was at Fords theater in Washington watching Our American Cousin. Booth made his way to the box where Abe was seated, around ten thirty p.m. He put a pistol to Lincolns head a fired once, Abes body fell in his seat, and screams rang out Lincoln is Dead.That night as his wife stood by him, the doctors struggled to save Lincolns life. The very next morning, April 15,1865 Abraham Lincoln died, and a few hours later Vice President Andrew Jackson was sworn in. Of all of the presidents the most seems to be written about Abe. Although many sever evaluations were done on his life, it did not in any way lessen his prestige, and he still is looked upon as a great speaker, and a person that made a lasting impression on the United States of America.

Manage Personal Work Priorities and Professional Development

Question: How Manage Personal Work Priorities and Professional Development. Answer: In this age of growing economy and digital technology, everyone works hard to be able to achieve success corresponding to their careers and businesses. They spent most of their time working, doing meetings, writing proposals, negotiation to accomplish all the goals that they have to set for themselves and for their businesses. In the world, where most of the people find themselves in roles that could be considered always on jobs; it is indeed a challenge them to maintain a healthy work life balance (Wiese 2015). It is simultaneously challenging for companies and leaders to promote balanced work life. However, there are many methods that could be used for achieving a healthy work-life balance. Be open about needs: First of all people needs to identify what actually significant to them and communicate it (Hill et al. 2012). People need to complete work within a scheduled time so that they can spend their time to their families. However, different works require different approaches, but people can benefit if they have honest and open conversation about what balance means. To give respect boundaries: It would be difficult for people to achieve work life balance, if he/she dont respect the boundaries that have put in place. To stick with the boundaries while developing a routine and drive lifestyle and culture predictability is essential to maintain. Here work boundaries and life priorities must be balanced by respecting boundaries. To understand what actually matters: Sometimes people tend to engage themselves which is not significant for the business or things that dont really matter. Time is the most valuable aspects in life. Focusing on what really matters which drive the overall goals of the business needs to b maintained. Therefore self scrutinizing the day of work and utilize maximum time to do something to get the outputs will definitely help to maintain a balanced lifestyles. Embrace the off button: Work should be detached from the social life. However, it would be hardest thing to do. People should use technology because every piece of technology has an off button (White et al. 2013). To get started, people do not bring the cell phone to the dinner table or not to bring tablets to the spot of vacation. Give pace to yourself: People need to understand the value of pace. Here self-awareness should be maintained. Doing so will help people to enjoy as much as the destination. By all these ways, people could use to maintain the healthy work life balance. There is always a pressure to improve the personal performance of employees at the workplace. To enhance the personal performances, the following methods could be used: i) Develop a positive mental attitude: Employee needs to make an effort to cultivate positive, friendly attitudes towards people. Everybody quickly notices a persistent, consistent attitude of cheerfulness and optimism which helps to unfold new opportunities. ii) Manage to handle priorities: It is important to learn set of work priorities and quickly respond to get the job done. People need to develop dependability and speed in job completion in the workplace. iii) Enhance skill and knowledge: Upgrading the work related skills and knowledge will make sure superior personal performance at the workplace. Seek additional course will be a good idea to enhance individual work capabilities. iv) Develop personality at work: Developing a personality to maintain honesty and sincerity and give values the others opinion will definitely helps to perform better. v) Improve communication: To handle work-related urgency and complexities, people needs to communicate with others or taking advice from their subordinates which resolve individual confusions. This will definitely improve self esteem and enhance quality of performance. References: Balance, W.L., 2013. Work Life Balance.Work,1(1.5), pp.2-0. Cassidy, S., 2016. Learning style and student self-assessment skill.Education+ Training,48(2/3), pp.170-177. Hill, E.J., Miller, B.C., Weiner, S.P. and Colihan, J., 2012. Influences of the virtual office on aspects of work and work/life balance.Personnel psychology,51(3), pp.667-683. Melby-Lervg, M., Lyster, S.A.H. and Hulme, C., 2012. Phonological skills and their role in learning to read: a meta-analytic review.Psychological bulletin,138(2), p.322. Richmond, G.L. and Rohlfing, C.M., 2013. Work-Life Balance. White, M., Hill, S., McGovern, P., Mills, C. and Smeaton, D., 2013. High performanceManagement Practices, Working Hours and WorkLife Balance.British Journal of Industrial Relations,41(2), pp.175-195. Work-life-balance. InWirtschaftspsychologie(pp. 227-244). Springer Berlin Heidelberg. Manage Personal Work Priorities And Professional Development Question: Discuss about the Manage Personal Work Priorities And Professional Development. Answer: Introduction A proper management in an organization helps in maintaining and developing the company in the market. An efficient manager in a business organization help in providing and setting proper goals for the team and the management. This report deals with the work of a manager of ABC Company for developing the company in the market. This assignment contains two parts. In the first part, the basic duties of a manager have been provided including business plans and goals of the organization. The organization policies and procedures are mentioned in the assignment. Various KPIs o the organization have been discussed in the report. In the second part, maintenance and developing of the professional competence have been described. Personal assessment and professional development plan have been developed in this part. Different personal competencies including family members, friends, clients and supervisors have been described in the report. Project Work As a manager of ABC Company, I have various responsibilities and duties for the development of the company in the market. My job is to maintain and manage my employees and management of the company in order to complete goals and objectives of the company in the market. The allocation of the job and tasks to the employees according to their skills and knowledge is important (Vashchekina 2015). The business plan of the company surrounds the components of the business. The business plan includes the description of products and services of the company. The history of the business and the name of the stakeholders of the company. Therefore, the business plan viruses the outline of the company in the market. The organization policies are as follows: The role of each employee and level of their responsibility has been defined in the policy. The personnel policy including the business hours, payment amount, method, and terms of employment have been mentioned. The organizational structure with names at different positions has been acknowledged to the employees. There have been equal opportunities provided to each employee of the company beyond their dignity and posts (McGivern et al. 2015). The goals of the team and on the personal basis are as follows: To enhance the quality of the team members in order to make it more efficient and profitable in the market. To introduce leadership funnel in the company for the development of the leadership quality among the team members. The requirement of the new employee in the company is important for enriching the employee base of the company to provide maxi um productivity. The marketing team have to target their market for selling and advertising products and services of the company. The personal goal focuses on maintaining a good relationship with the employees of the company that might help in understanding the needs and problems of the workforce (Groysberg and Abrahams 2014). These goals are set depending on the objectives, business plans and policies of the company in the market these objectives help in maintaining the focus towards the development of the company in the market. It helps in increasing the motivation of the manager and employees in the work environment (Biggs, Brough and Barbour 2014). The use of the goals and objectives of the company help in measuring SMART principle including specific, measurable, attainable, relevant and timely. The goal-setting approach in a team helps in maintaining a proper bond in the team for improving the efficiency and production of the company. Key Performance Indicator or KPI is a metric that helps in indicating the current level of performance by the company in the market. The use of the KOI helps in maintaining the performance of the company in the market (Reynolds, Shoss and Jundt 2015). These indicators help in acknowledging the fulfilment of goals and objectives of the company in the market, In this case, as manager of the company, I have set some of the KPIs in the company that have been described below: Increasing the Customers Acquisition Improvement in the Customer relation Increasing the sales Decreasing the acquisition cost These KPIs help in maintaining sales of the company in the market. The use of the KPI helps in maintaining the performance level of the company. As the value of the KPI increases, the development and sales of the company (Phiri, Draper, Lambert and Kolbe-Alexander 2014). The maintenance of performance under various contingencies is an important factor need to be followed by the manager of the company. Setting up goal priority for personal development helps in enhancing personal skills and knowledge regarding maintaining the whole team. The goals of the team member need to be effective on a daily basis that might help in increasing the sales of the products and services of the company in the market (Galea, Houkes and De Rijk 2014). For example, I might set a goal of providing 50 sales of product by the need of the week and provide the path to achieve this goal. Therefore, the team member might get motivated and try to achieve the goal for the week. A reward might be provided to the team achieving the goal. Therefore, the motivation of other teams can be enhanced by this way. Leadership skill in the manager might be increased by following u the targeted goals of the company. The manager might be taking steps to complete the goal of the company within the deadline. This help in the progress of the company in the market. Initiatives are taken by the manager in order to maintain own goal and priorities to facilitate competing demands in the market. The use of technology for maintaining the record of the employee and other staffs helps in keeping track of the work progress (Cottrell 2015). The feedbacks of the employees related to the working environment of a company helps in understanding the gaps in the management of the company. The overload of work might increase the stress of the manager in the company. Therefore, the manager might distribute the tasks to several employees capable of it. This might help in reducing the work pressure from the manager. The manager might assign the suitable task to the employees with the proper deadline and manage a holiday for few days for refreshment (Campbell, Jardine and McGlynn 2016). Report Writing Personal and professional development are the two aspects of the management in order to maintain the development of the competency in the company the personal development criteria include proper training from seniors, motivation and occupational standards. The use of the personal competency helps in maintaining and developing the skills and quality of manager in the company (Koerner 2014). The use of various conceptions related to the development of the skills revolves around the stakeholder management. The personal training depends upon the thoughts and views of the senior manager for getting proper guidance. The relationship between the personal and professional growth can be differentiate by a single string of value (Wellin 2016). The professional growth depends upon the development of the professional career and the company in the market the professional career depends on the growth of professionalism in the individual for maintaining other employees and staffs in the company. Th e use of the professional network helps in providing proper maintenance to the development of the company (Le Boutillier et al. 2015). Various training packages are provided that helps in enhancing the skills and knowledge of an individual. Each training packages contains definition of various skills and knowledge for operating effectively n the workplace and maintain a proper guidance to the employee of the company. Various quality frameworks are available in the training packages that might create an opportunity for the employees in the company (Rowlinson and Jia 2015). Several assessment guidelines have been included in the training packages that helps manager properly guide their employees in the team. Management of resources in an organization helps in maintaining a proper use of the resources of the company. The adoption of employee competency in the company has provided an extra approach to the training packages in the company (Grant and Kinman 2014). I have consulted to my two senior managers of my company for analyzing the performance of my work and duties in the company. The feedback of my two senior managers is important for managing the work and management of the employees in the workforce (Bergheim et al. 2015). The feedbacks of the senior managers help in identifying the goal and loopholes in my behavior towards my work. I used to provide weekly report to my seniors for the analyzing my performance overall the week. The use of these factors helps in increasing my work performance in the company. The professional competency in have been maintained for clarifying the several KPIs of the manager (Kossek et al. 2016). Various techniques can be implemented for improving self-skills and knowledge. Various reflection strategies are made that helps in maintaining a form for maintaining scores at different level of motivation. Listening technique helps in listening to the ideas and thoughts of the senior managers and understanding t he views and thoughts if them. The listening techniques helps in gathering a huge amount of knowledge and skills for my seniors. They can provide me quality guidelines to improve myself based on quality analysis. The journal based on the performance improvement include several KPIs that create an opportunity for personal development. I can participate in the training airframes organized for the manager by our seniors to get motivated. The training packages contains a huge opportunity for me to maintain and learn from the views of my seniors (Koerner 2014). Various learning styles including Kolbes model of learning and Honey and Mumfords style of learning might help in providing various opportunities for getting enhanced level of training and knowledge from them. The use of these learning style help in maintaining several dilemmas in the company (Wellin 2016). The effect of various factors that have been involving in the development of the personal and professional growth have helped in maintaining the development of the company in the market. Setting up goal priority for personal development helps in enhancing personal skills and knowledge regarding maintaining the whole team. The goals of th e team member needs to be effective on a daily basis that might help in increasing the sales of the products and services of the company in the market. These plans are aligned with the organizational goals and policies (Groysberg and Abrahams 2014). The organizational policies include motivating the employed for increasing the sales of the company in the market. Therefore, providing motivation helps in maintaining and increasing the confidence in them. Several new opportunities and skills needs to be acquired by me for future development in me. Development in the communication skill is an important part in the training package. Communication skills helps in communicating with other people in the company (Biggs, Brough and Barbour 2014). A proper communication between the manager and the employee helps in maintain and reducing the gap between them. These plans helps in maintaining the organizational structure in the market. The role of each employee has been fixed by the manager that helps in providing a concrete approach to the development of the company in the market (Reynolds, Shoss and Jundt 2015). As a manager of the ABC Company, I have learned about the maintenance of the employee in the team. References Bergheim, K., Nielsen, M.B., Mearns, K. and Eid, J., 2015. The relationship between psychological capital, job satisfaction, and safety perceptions in the maritime industry.Safety science,74, pp.27-36. Biggs, A., Brough, P. and Barbour, J.P., 2014. Strategic alignment with organizational priorities and work engagement: A multi?wave analysis.Journal of Organizational Behavior,35(3), pp.301-317. Campbell, J.D., Jardine, A.K. and McGlynn, J. eds., 2016.Asset management excellence: optimizing equipment life-cycle decisions. CRC Press. Cottrell, S., 2015.Skills for success: Personal development and employability. Palgrave Macmillan. Galea, C., Houkes, I. and De Rijk, A., 2014. An insider's point of view: how a system of flexible working hours helps employees to strike a proper balance between work and personal life.The International Journal of Human Resource Management,25(8), pp.1090-1111. Grant, L. and Kinman, G. eds., 2014.Developing resilience for social work practice. Palgrave Macmillan. Groysberg, B. and Abrahams, R., 2014. Manage your work, manage your life.Harvard Business Review,92(3), pp.58-66. Koerner, M.M., 2014. Courage as identity work: Accounts of workplace courage.Academy of Management Journal,57(1), pp.63-93. Kossek, E.E., Ollier?Malaterre, A., Lee, M.D., Pichler, S. and Hall, D.T., 2016. Line Managers Rationales for Professionals Reduced?Load Work in Embracing and Ambivalent Organizations.Human Resource Management,55(1), pp.143-171. Le Boutillier, C., Slade, M., Lawrence, V., Bird, V.J., Chandler, R., Farkas, M., Harding, C., Larsen, J., Oades, L.G., Roberts, G. and Shepherd, G., 2015. Competing priorities: staff perspectives on supporting recovery.Administration and Policy in Mental Health and Mental Health Services Research,42(4), pp.429-438. McGivern, G., Currie, G., Ferlie, E., Fitzgerald, L. and Waring, J., 2015. Hybrid managerprofessionals'identity work: the maintenance and hybridization of medical professionalism in managerial contexts.Public Administration,93(2), pp.412-432. Phiri, L.P., Draper, C.E., Lambert, E.V. and Kolbe-Alexander, T.L., 2014. Nurses lifestyle behaviours, health priorities and barriers to living a healthy lifestyle: a qualitative descriptive study.BMC nursing,13(1), p.38. Reynolds, C.A., Shoss, M.K. and Jundt, D.K., 2015. In the eye of the beholder: A multi-stakeholder perspective of organizational citizenship and counterproductive work behaviors.Human Resource Management Review,25(1), pp.80-93. Rowlinson, S. and Jia, Y.A., 2015. Construction accident causality: An institutional analysis of heat illness incidents on site.Safety science,78, pp.179-189. Vashchekina, I.V., 2015. Social priorities in the work of Russian commercial banks with public organizations.Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences,6(6 S4), p.430. Wellin, M., 2016.Managing the psychological contract: Using the personal deal to increase business performance. CRC Press.

Best Analysis Love and Relationships in The Great Gatsby

Best Analysis Love and Relationships in The Great Gatsby SAT / ACT Prep Online Guides and Tips Love, desire, and sex are a major motivators for nearly every character in The Great Gatsby. However, none of Gatsby’s five major relationships is depicted as healthy or stable. So what can we make of this? Is Fitzgerald arguing that love itself is unstable, or is it just that experiencing love and desire the way the characters do is problematic? Gatsby’s portrayal of love and desire is complex. So we will explore and analyze each of Gatsby’s five major relationships: Daisy/Tom, George/Myrtle, Gatsby/Daisy, Tom/Myrtle, and Jordan/Nick. We will also note how eachrelationship develops through the story, thepower dynamics involved, and what each particular relationship seems to say about Fitzgerald’s depiction of love. We will also include analysis of important quotes for each of the five major couples. Finally, we will go over some common essay questions about love, desire, and relationships to help you with class assignments. Keep reading for the ultimate guide to love in the time of Gatsby! Roadmap Analyzing the characters via the major relationships (including key quotes) Marriages Tom/Daisy George/Myrtle Relationships/Affairs Daisy/Gatsby Tom/Myrtle Nick/Jordan Common Essay Prompts/Discussion Topics Quick Note on Our Citations Our citation format in this guide is (chapter.paragraph). We're using this system since there are many editions of Gatsby, so using page numbers would only work for students with our copy of the book. To find a quotation we cite via chapter and paragraph in your book, you can either eyeball it (Paragraph 1-50: beginning of chapter; 50-100: middle of chapter; 100-on: end of chapter), or use the search function if you're using an online or eReader version of the text. Analyzing The Great GatsbyRelationships We will discuss the romantic pairings in the novel first through the lens of marriage. Then we will turn our attention to relationships that occur outside of marriage. Marriage 1:Daisy and Tom Buchanan Tom and Daisy Buchanan were married in 1919, three years before the start of the novel.They both come from incredibly wealthy families, and live on fashionable East Egg, marking them as members of the â€Å"old money† class. Daisy and Tom MarriageDescription As Jordan relates in a flashback, Daisy almost changed her mind about marrying Tom after receiving a letter from Gatsby (an earlier relationship of hers, discussed below), but eventually went through with the ceremony â€Å"without so much as a shiver† (4.142). Daisy appeared quite in love when they first got married, but the realities of the marriage, including Tom’s multiple affairs, have worn on her. Tom even cheated on her soon after their honeymoon, according to Jordan: â€Å"It was touching to see them together- it made you laugh in a hushed, fascinated way. That was in August. A week after I left Santa Barbara Tom ran into a wagon on the Ventura road one night and ripped a front wheel off his car. The girl who was with him got into the papers too because her arm was broken- she was one of the chambermaids in the Santa Barbara Hotel† (1.143). So what makes the Buchanans tick? Why has their marriage survived multiple affairs and even a hit-and-run? Find out through our analysis of key quotes from the novel. Daisy and Tom Marriage Quotes Why they came east I don't know. They had spent a year in France, for no particular reason, and then drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together. (1.17) Nick introduces Tom and Daisy as restless, rich, and as a singular unit: they. Despite all of the revelations about the affairs and other unhappiness in their marriage, and the events of the novel, it’s important to note our first and last descriptions of Tom and Daisy describe them as a close, if bored, couple. In fact, Nick only doubles down on this observation later in Chapter 1. Well, she was less than an hour old and Tom was God knows where. I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. 'All right,' I said, 'I'm glad it's a girl. And I hope she'll be a fool- that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool." "You see I think everything's terrible anyhow," she went on in a convinced way. "Everybody thinks so- the most advanced people. And I know. I've been everywhere and seen everything and done everything." Her eyes flashed around her in a defiant way, rather like Tom's, and she laughed with thrilling scorn. "Sophisticated- God, I'm sophisticated!" "The instant her voice broke off, ceasing to compel my attention, my belief, I felt the basic insincerity of what she had said. It made me uneasy, as though the whole evening had been a trick of some sort to exact a contributory emotion from me. I waited, and sure enough, in a moment she looked at me with an absolute smirk on her lovely face as if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged." (1.8-120) In this passage, Daisy pulls Nick aside in Chapter 1 and claims, despite her outward happiness and luxurious lifestyle, she’s quite depressed by her current situation. At first, it seems Daisy is revealing the cracks in her marriage – Tom was â€Å"God knows where† at the birth of their daughter, Pammy – as well as a general malaise about society in general (â€Å"everything’s terrible anyhow†). However, right after this confession, Nick doubts her sincerity. And indeed, she follows up her apparently serious complaint with â€Å"an absolute smirk.† What’s going on here? Well, Nick goes on to observe that the smirk â€Å"asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged.† In other words, despite Daisy’s performance, she seems content to remain with Tom, part of the â€Å"secret society† of the ultra-rich. So the question is: can anyone – or anything – lift Daisy out of her complacency? "I never loved him," she said, with perceptible reluctance. "Not at Kapiolani?" demanded Tom suddenly. "No." From the ballroom beneath, muffled and suffocating chords were drifting up on hot waves of air. "Not that day I carried you down from the Punch Bowl to keep your shoes dry?" There was a husky tenderness in his tone. ". . . Daisy?" (7.258-62) Over the course of the novel, both Tom and Daisy enter or continue affairs, pulling away from each other instead of confronting the problems in their marriage. However, Gatsby forces them to confront their feelings in the Plaza Hotel when he demands Daisy say she never loved Tom. Although she gets the words out, she immediately rescinds them – â€Å"I did love [Tom] once but I loved you too!† – after Tom questions her. Here, Tom – usually presented as a swaggering, brutish, and unkind – breaks down, speaking with â€Å"husky tenderness† and recalling some of the few happy moments in his and Daisy’s marriage. This is a key moment because it shows despite the dysfunction of their marriage, Tom and Daisy seem to both seek solace in happy early memories. Between those few happy memories and the fact that they both come from the same social class, their marriage ends up weathering multiple affairs. Daisy and Tom were sitting opposite each other at the kitchen table with a plate of cold fried chicken between them and two bottles of ale. He was talking intently across the table at her and in his earnestness his hand had fallen upon and covered her own. Once in a while she looked up at him and nodded in agreement. They weren't happy, and neither of them had touched the chicken or the ale- and yet they weren't unhappy either. There was an unmistakable air of natural intimacy about the picture and anybody would have said that they were conspiring together. (7.409-10) They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made. . . . (9.146) By the end of the novel, after Daisy’s murder of Myrtle as well as Gatsby’s death, she and Tom are firmly back together, â€Å"conspiring† and â€Å"careless† once again, despite the deaths of their lovers. As Nick notes, they â€Å"weren’t happy†¦and yet they weren’t unhappy either.† Their marriage is important to both of them, since it reassures their status as old money aristocracy and brings stability to their lives. So the novel ends with them once again described as a unit, a â€Å"they,† perhaps even more strongly bonded since they’ve survived not only another round of affairs but murder, as well. Daisy and Tom MarriageAnalysis Neither Myrtle’s infatuation with Tom or Gatsby’s deep longing for Daisy can drive a wedge between the couple. Despite the lying, cheating, and murdering that occurs during the summer, Tom and Daisy end the novel just like they began it: careless, restless, and yet, firmly united. The stubborn closeness of Tom and Daisy’s marriage, despite Daisy’s exaggerated unhappiness and Tom’s philandering, reinforces the dominance of the old money class over the world of Gatsby. Despite so many troubles, for Tom and Daisy, their marriage guarantees their continued membership in the exclusive world of the old money rich. In other words, class is a much stronger bond than love in the novel. Tom and Daisy somehow end the novel with a stronger marriage! Want to get better grades and test scores? We can help. PrepScholar Tutors is the world's best tutoring service. We combine world-class expert tutors with our proprietary teaching techniques. Our students have gotten A's on thousands of classes, perfect 5's on AP tests, and ludicrously high SAT Subject Test scores. Whether you need help with science, math, English, social science, or more, we've got you covered. Get better grades today with PrepScholar Tutors. Marriage 2: Myrtle and George Wilson In contrast to Tom and Daisy, Myrtle and George were married 12 years before the start of the novel. You might think that since they’ve been married for four times as long, their marriage is more stable. In fact, in contrast from Tom and Daisy’s unified front, Myrtle and George’s marriage appears fractured from the beginning. Myrtle and George Marriage Description Although Myrtle was taken with George at first, she overestimated his money and â€Å"breeding† and found herself married to a mechanic and living over a garage in Queens, a situation she’s apparently unhappy with (2.2). However, divorce was uncommon in the 1920s, and furthermore, the working-class Myrtle doesn’t have access to wealthy family members or any other real options, so she stays married – perhaps because George is quite devoted and even in some ways subservient to her. A few months before the beginning of the novel in 1922, she begins an affair with Tom Buchanan, her first affair (2.7). She sees the affair as a way out of her marriage, but Tom sees her as just another disposable mistress, leaving her desperate and vulnerable once George finds out about the affair. Myrtle and George MarriageQuotes I heard footsteps on a stairs and in a moment the thickish figure of a woman blocked out the light from the office door. She was in the middle thirties, and faintly stout, but she carried her surplus flesh sensuously as some women can. Her face, above a spotted dress of dark blue crepe-de-chine, contained no facet or gleam of beauty but there was an immediately perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering. She smiled slowly and walking through her husband as if he were a ghost shook hands with Tom, looking him flush in the eye. Then she wet her lips and without turning around spoke to her husband in a soft, coarse voice: "Get some chairs, why don't you, so somebody can sit down." "Oh, sure," agreed Wilson hurriedly and went toward the little office, mingling immediately with the cement color of the walls. A white ashen dust veiled his dark suit and his pale hair as it veiled everything in the vicinity- except his wife, who moved close to Tom. (2.15-17) As we discuss in our article on the symbolic valley of ashes, George is coated by the dust of despairand thus seems mired in the hopelessness and depression of that bleak place, while Myrtle is alluring and full of vitality. Her first action is to order her husband to get chairs, and the second is to move away from him, closer to Tom. In contrast to Tom and Daisy, who are initially presented as a unit, our first introduction to George and Myrtle shows them fractured, with vastly different personalities and motivations. We get the sense right away that their marriage is in trouble, and conflict between the two is imminent. "I married him because I thought he was a gentleman," she said finally. "I thought he knew something about breeding, but he wasn't fit to lick my shoe." "You were crazy about him for a while," said Catherine. "Crazy about him!" cried Myrtle incredulously. "Who said I was crazy about him? I never was any more crazy about him than I was about that man there." (2.2-4) Here we get a bit of back-story about George and Myrtle’s marriage: like Daisy, Myrtle was crazy about her husband at first but the marriage has since soured. But while Daisy doesn’t have any real desire to leave Tom, here we see Myrtle eager to leave, and very dismissive of her husband. Myrtle seems to suggest that even having her husband wait on her is unacceptable – it’s clear she thinks she is finally headed for bigger and better things. Generally he was one of these worn-out men: when he wasn't working he sat on a chair in the doorway and stared at the people and the cars that passed along the road. When any one spoke to him he invariably laughed in an agreeable, colorless way. He was his wife's man and not his own. (7.312) Again, in contrast to the strangely unshakeable partnership of Tom and Daisy, the co-conspirators, Michaelis (briefly taking over narrator duties) observes that George â€Å"was his wife’s man,† â€Å"worn out.† Obviously, this situation gets turned on its head when George locks Myrtle up when he discovers the affair, but Michaelis’s observation speaks to instability in the Wilson’s marriage, in which each fights for control over the other. Rather than face the world as a unified front, the Wilsons each struggle for dominance within the marriage. "Beat me!" he heard her cry. "Throw me down and beat me, you dirty little coward!" A moment later she rushed out into the dusk, waving her hands and shouting; before he could move from his door the business was over. (7.314-5) We don’t know what happened in the fight before this crucial moment, but we do know George locked Myrtle in a room once he figured out she was having an affair. So despite the outward appearance of being ruled by his wife, he does, in fact, have the ability to physically control her. However, he apparently doesn’t hit her, the way Tom does, and Myrtle taunts him for it – perhaps insinuating he’s less a man than Tom. This outbreak of both physical violence (George locking up Myrtle) and emotional abuse (probably on both sides) fulfills the earlier sense of the marriage being headed for conflict. Still, it’s disturbing to witness the last few minutes of this fractured, unstable partnership. Myrtle and George MarriageAnalysis While Tom and Daisy’s marriage ends up being oddly stable thanks to their money, despite multiple affairs, Myrtle and George’s marriage goes from strained to violent after just one. In other words, Tom and Daisy can patch things up over and over by retreating into their status and money, while Myrtle and George don’t have that luxury. While George wants to retreat out west, he doesn’t have the money, leaving him and Myrtle in Queens and vulnerable to the dangerous antics of the other characters. The instability of their marriage thus seems to come from the instability of their financial situation, as well as the fact that Myrtle is more ambitious than George. Fitzgerald seems to be arguing that anyone who is not wealthy is much more vulnerable to tragedy and strife. As a song sung in Chapter 5 goes, â€Å"The rich get richer and the poor get- children† – the rich get richer and the poor can’t escape their poverty, or tragedy (5.150). The contrasting marriages of the Buchanans and the Wilsons help illustrate the novel’s critique of the wealthy, old-money class. Myrtle and George are a very slow burn that eventually explodes. Relationship 1: Daisy Buchanan and Jay Gatsby The relationship at the very heart of The Great Gatsby is, of course, Gatsby and Daisy, or more specifically, Gatsby’s tragic love of (or obsession with) Daisy, a love that drives the novel’s plot. So how did this ill-fated love story begin? Daisy and Gatsby Relationship Description Five years before the start of the novel, Jay Gatsby (who had learned from Dan Cody how to act like one of thewealthy) was stationed in Louisville before goingto fight in WWI. In Louisville, he met Daisy Fay, a beautiful young heiress (10 years his junior), who tookhim for someone of her social class. Gatsby maintained the lie, which allowed their relationship to progress. Gatsby fell in love with Daisy and the wealth she represents, and she with him (though apparently not to the same excessive extent), but he had to leave for the war and by the time he returned to the US in 1919, Daisy has married Tom Buchanan. Determined to get her back, Gatsby falls in with Meyer Wolfshiem, a gangster, and gets into bootlegging and other criminal enterprises to make enough money to finally be able to provide for her. By the beginning of the novel, he is ready to try and win her back over, ignoring the fact she has been married to Tom for three years and has a child. So does this genius plan turn out the way Gatsby hopes? Can he repeat the past? Not exactly. Daisy and Gatsby RelationshipQuotes "You must know Gatsby." "Gatsby?" demanded Daisy. "What Gatsby?" (1.60-1) In the first chapter, we get a few mentions and glimpses of Gatsby, but one of the most interesting is Daisy immediately perking up at his name. She obviously still remembers him and perhaps even thinks about him, but her surprise suggests that she thinks he’s long gone, buried deep in her past. This is in sharp contrast to the image we get of Gatsby himself at the end of the Chapter, reaching actively across the bay to Daisy’s house (1.152). While Daisy views Gatsby as a memory, Daisy is Gatsby’s past, present, and future. It’s clear even in Chapter 1 that Gatsby’s love for Daisy is much more intense than her love for him. "Gatsby bought that house so that Daisy would be just across the bay." Then it had not been merely the stars to which he had aspired on that June night. He came alive to me, delivered suddenly from the womb of his purposeless splendor. (4.151-2) In Chapter 4, we learn Daisy and Gatsby’s story from Jordan: specifically, how they dated in Louisville but it ended when Gatsby went to the front. She also explains how Daisy threatened to call off her marriage to Tom after receiving a letter from Gatsby, but of course ended up marrying him anyway (4.140). Here we also learn that Gatsby’s primary motivation is to get Daisy back, while Daisy is of course in the dark about all of this. This sets the stage for their affair being on unequal footing: while each has love and affection for the other, Gatsby has thought of little else but Daisy for five years while Daisy has created a whole other life for herself. "We haven't met for many years," said Daisy, her voice as matter-of-fact as it could ever be. "Five years next November." (5.69-70) Daisy and Gatsby finally reunite in Chapter 5, the book’s mid-point. The entire chapter is obviously important for understanding the Daisy/Gatsby relationship, since we actually see them interact for the first time.But this initial dialogue is fascinating, because we see that Daisy's memories of Gatsby are more abstract and clouded, while Gatsby has been so obsessed with her he knows the exact month they parted and has clearly been counting down the days until their reunion. They were sitting at either end of the couch looking at each other as if some question had been asked or was in the air, and every vestige of embarrassment was gone. Daisy's face was smeared with tears and when I came in she jumped up and began wiping at it with her handkerchief before a mirror. But there was a change in Gatsby that was simply confounding. He literally glowed; without a word or a gesture of exultation a new well-being radiated from him and filled the little room. (5.87) After the initially awkward re-introduction, Nick leaves Daisy and Gatsby alone and comes back to find them talking candidly and emotionally. Gatsby has transformed – he is radiant and glowing. In contrast, we don’t see Daisy as radically transformed except for her tears. Although our narrator, Nick, pays much closer attention to Gatsby than Daisy, these different reactions suggest Gatsby is much more intensely invested in the relationship. "They're such beautiful shirts," she sobbed, her voice muffled in the thick folds. "It makes me sad because I've never seen such- such beautiful shirts before." (5.8). Gatsby gets the chance to show off his mansion and enormous wealthy to Daisy, and she breaks down after a very conspicuous display of Gatsby’s wealth, through his many-colored shirts. In Daisy’s tears, you might sense a bit of guilt – that Gatsby attained so much just for her – or perhaps regret, that she might have been able to be with him had she had the strength to walk away from her marriage with Tom. Still, unlike Gatsby, whose motivations are laid bare, it’s hard to know what Daisy is thinking and how invested she is in their relationship, despite how openly emotional she is during this reunion. Perhaps she’s just overcome with emotion due to reliving the emotions of their first encounters. His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy's white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips' touch she blossomed for him like a flower and the incarnation was complete. (6.134) In flashback, we hear about Daisy and Gatsby’s first kiss, through Gatsby’s point of view. We see explicitly in this scene that, for Gatsby, Daisy has come to represent all of his larger hopes and dreams about wealth and a better life – she is literally the incarnation of his dreams. There is no analogous passage on Daisy’s behalf, because we actually don’t know that much of Daisy’s inner life, or certainly not much compared to Gatsby. So we see, again, the relationship is very uneven – Gatsby has literally poured his heart and soul into it, while Daisy, though she obviously has love and affection for Gatsby, hasn’t idolized him in the same way. It becomes clear here that Daisy – who is human and fallible – can never live up to Gatsby’s huge projection of her. "Oh, you want too much!" she cried to Gatsby. "I love you now- isn't that enough? I can't help what's past." She began to sob helplessly. "I did love him once- but I loved you too." Gatsby's eyes opened and closed. "You loved me too?" he repeated. (7.264-66) Here we finally get a glimpse at Daisy’s real feelings – she loved Gatsby, but also Tom, and to her those were equal loves. She hasn’t put that initial love with Gatsby on a pedestal the way Gatsby has. Gatsby’s obsession with her appears shockingly one-sided at this point, and it’s clear to the reader she will not leave Tom for him. You can also see why this confession is such a blow to Gatsby: he’s been dreaming about Daisy for years and sees her as his one true love, while she can’t even rank her love for Gatsby above her love for Tom. "Was Daisy driving?" "Yes," he said after a moment, "but of course I'll say I was." (7.397-8) Despite Daisy’s rejection of Gatsby back at the Plaza Hotel, he refuses to believe that it was real and is sure that he can still get her back. His devotion is so intense he doesn’t think twice about covering for her and taking the blame for Myrtle’s death. In fact, his obsession is so strong he barely seems to register that there’s been a death, or to feel any guilt at all. This moment further underscores how much Daisy means to Gatsby, and how comparatively little he means to her. She was the first "nice" girl he had ever known. In various unrevealed capacities he had come in contact with such people but always with indiscernible barbed wire between. He found her excitingly desirable. He went to her house, at first with other officers from Camp Taylor, then alone. It amazed him- he had never been in such a beautiful house before. But what gave it an air of breathless intensity was that Daisy lived there- it was as casual a thing to her as his tent out at camp was to him. There was a ripe mystery about it, a hint of bedrooms upstairs more beautiful and cool than other bedrooms, of gay and radiant activities taking place through its corridors and of romances that were not musty and laid away already in lavender but fresh and breathing and redolent of this year's shining motor cars and of dances whose flowers were scarcely withered. It excited him too that many men had already loved Daisy- it increased her value in his eyes. He felt their presence all about the h ouse, pervading the air with the shades and echoes of still vibrant emotions. (8.10, emphasis added) In Chapter 8, when we get the rest of Gatsby’s backstory, we learn more about what drew him to Daisy – her wealth, and specifically the world that opened up to Gatsby as he got to know her. Interestingly, we also learn that her â€Å"value increased† in Gatsby’s eyes when it became clear that many other men had also loved her. We see then how Daisy got all tied up in Gatsby’s ambitions for a better, wealthier life. You also know, as a reader, that Daisy obviously is human and fallible and can never realistically live up to Gatsby’s inflated images of her and what she represents to him. So in these last pages, before Gatsby’s death as we learn the rest of Gatsby’s story, we sense that his obsessive longing for Daisy was as much about his longing for another, better life, than it was about a single woman. Gatsby and Daisy RelationshipAnalysis Daisy and Gatsby’s relationship is definitely lopsided. There is an uneven degree oflove on both sides (Gatsby seems much more obsessively in love with Daisy than Daisy is with him). We also have difficulty decipheringboth sides of the relationship, since we know far more about Gatsby, his past, and his internal life than about Daisy. Because of this, it’s hard to criticize Daisy for not choosing Gatsby over Tom – as an actual, flesh-and-blood person, she never could have fulfilled Gatsby’s rose-tinted memory of her and all she represents. Furthermore, during her brief introduction into Gatsby’s world in Chapter 6, she seemed pretty unhappy. â€Å"She was appalled by West Egg, this unprecedented "place" that Broadway had begotten upon a Long Island fishing village- appalled by its raw vigor that chafed under the old euphemisms and by the too obtrusive fate that herded its inhabitants along a short cut from nothing to nothing. She saw something awful in the very simplicity she failed to understand† (6.96). So could Daisy have really been happy if she ran off with Gatsby? Unlikely. Many people tie Gatsby’s obsessive pursuit of Daisy to the American Dreamitself – the dream is as alluring as Daisy but as ultimately elusive and even deadly. Their relationship is also a meditation on change – as much as Gatsby wants to repeat the past, he can’t. Daisy has moved on and he can never return to that beautiful, perfect moment when he kissed her for the first time and wedded all her hopes and dreams to her. Gatsby's problem is seeing time as circular rather than linear. Relationship 2: Tom Buchananand Myrtle Wilson In contrast to Gatsby and Daisy’s long history, the novel’s other affair began much more recently: Tom and Myrtle start their relationship a few months before the novel opens. Tom and Myrtle Relationship Description Myrtle sees the affair as romantic and a ticket out of her marriage, while Tom sees it as just another affair, and Myrtle as one of a string of mistresses. The pair has undeniable physical chemistry and attraction to each other, perhaps more than any other pairing in the book. Perhaps due to Myrtle’s tragic and unexpected death, Tom does display some emotional attachment to her, which complicates a reading of him as a purely antagonistic figure – or of their relationship as purely physical. So what drives this affair? What does it reveal about Tom and Myrtle? Let’s find out. Tom and Myrtle RelationshipQuotes "I think it's cute," said Mrs. Wilson enthusiastically. "How much is it?" "That dog?" He looked at it admiringly. "That dog will cost you ten dollars." The airedale- undoubtedly there was an airedale concerned in it somewhere though its feet were startlingly white- changed hands and settled down into Mrs. Wilson's lap, where she fondled the weather-proof coat with rapture. "Is it a boy or a girl?" she asked delicately. "That dog? That dog's a boy." "It's a bitch," said Tom decisively. "Here's your money. Go and buy ten more dogs with it." (2.38-43) This passage is great because it neatly displays Tom and Myrtle’s different attitudes toward the affair. Myrtle thinks that Tom is spoiling her specifically, and that he cares about her more than he really does – after all, he stops to buy her a dog just because she says it’s cute and insists she wants one on a whim. But to Tom, the money isn’t a big deal. He casually throws away the 10 dollars, aware he’s being scammed but notcaring, since he has so much money at his disposal. He also insists that he knows more than the dog seller and Myrtle, showing how he looks down at people below his own class – but Myrtle misses this because she’s infatuated with both the new puppy and Tom himself. Myrtle pulled her chair close to mine, and suddenly her warm breath poured over me the story of her first meeting with Tom. "It was on the two little seats facing each other that are always the last ones left on the train. I was going up to New York to see my sister and spend the night. He had on a dress suit and patent leather shoes and I couldn't keep my eyes off him but every time he looked at me I had to pretend to be looking at the advertisement over his head. When we came into the station he was next to me and his white shirt-front pressed against my arm- and so I told him I'd have to call a policeman, but he knew I lied. I was so excited that when I got into a taxi with him I didn't hardly know I wasn't getting into a subway train. All I kept thinking about, over and over, was 'You can't live forever, you can't live forever.' " (2.9-20) Myrtle, twelve years into a marriage she’s unhappy in, sees her affair with Tom as a romantic escape. She tells the story of how she and Tom met like it’s the beginning of a love story. In reality, it’s pretty creepy – Tom sees a woman he finds attractive on a train and immediately goes and presses up to her like and convinces her to go sleep with him immediately. Not exactly the stuff of classic romance! Combined with the fact Myrtle believes Daisy’s Catholicism (a lie) is what keeps her and Tom apart, you see that despite Myrtle’s pretensions of worldliness, she actually knows very little about Tom or the upper classes, and is a poor judge of character. She is an easy person for Tom to take advantage of. Some time toward midnight Tom Buchanan and Mrs. Wilson stood face to face discussing in impassioned voices whether Mrs. Wilson had any right to mention Daisy's name. "Daisy! Daisy! Daisy!" shouted Mrs. Wilson. "I'll say it whenever I want to! Daisy! Dai- - " Making a short deft movement Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand. (2.124-6) In case the reader was still wondering that perhaps Myrtle’s take on the relationship had some basis in truth, this is a cold hard dose of reality. Tom’s vicioustreatment of Myrtle reminds the reader of his brutality and the fact that, to him, Myrtle is just another affair, and he would never in a million years leave Daisy for her. Despite the violence of this scene, the affair continues. Myrtle is either so desperate to escape her marriage or so self-deluded about what Tom thinks of her (or both) that she stays with Tom after this ugly scene. There is no confusion like the confusion of a simple mind, and as we drove away Tom was feeling the hot whips of panic. His wife and his mistress, until an hour ago secure and inviolate, were slipping precipitately from his control. (7.164) Chapter 2 gives us lots of insight into Myrtle’s character and how she sees her affair with Tom. But other than Tom’s physical attraction to Myrtle, we don’t get as clear of a view of his motivations until later on. In Chapter 7, Tom panics once he finds out George knows about his wife’s affair. We learn here that control is incredibly important to Tom – control of his wife, control of his mistress, and control of society more generally (see his rant in Chapter 1 about the â€Å"Rise of the Colored Empires†). So just as he passionately rants and raves against the â€Å"colored races,† he also gets panicked and angry when he sees that he is losing control both over Myrtle and Daisy. This speaks to Tom’s entitlement – both as a wealthy person, as a man, and as a white person – and shows how his relationship with Myrtle is just another display of power. It has very little to do with his feelings for Myrtle herself. So as the relationship begins to slip from his fingers, he panics – not because he’s scared of losing Myrtle, but because he’s scared of losing a possession. "And if you think I didn't have my share of suffering- look here, when I went to give up that flat and saw that damn box of dog biscuits sitting there on the sideboard I sat down and cried like a baby. By God it was awful- - " (9.145) Despite Tom’s abhorrent behavior throughout the novel, at the very end, Nick leaves us with an image of Tom confessing to crying over Myrtle. This complicates the reader’s desire to see Tom as a straightforward villain. This confession of emotion certainly doesn’t redeem Tom, but it does prevent you from seeing him as a complete monster. Tom and Myrtle RelationshipAnalysis Just as George and Myrtle’s marriage serves as a foil to Tom and Daisy’s, Tom and Myrtle’s affair is a foil for Daisy and Gatsby’s. While Daisy and Gatsby have history, Tom and Myrtle got together recently. And while their relationship seems to be driven by physical attraction, Gatsby is attracted to Daisy’s wealth and status. The tragic end to this affair, as well as Daisy and Gatsby’s, reinforces the idea that class is an enormous, insurmountable barrier, and that when people try to circumvent the barrier by dating across classes, they end up endangering themselves. Tom and Myrtle’s affair also speaks to the unfair advantages that Tom has as a wealthy, white man. Even though for a moment he felt himself losing control over his life, he quickly got it back and was able to hide in his money while Gatsby, Myrtle, and George all ended up dead thanks to their connection to the Buchanans. In short, Tom and Myrtle’s relationship allows Fitzgerald to sharply critique the world of the wealthy, old-money class in 1920s New York. By showing Tom’s affair with a working-class woman, Nick reveals Tom’s ugliest behavior as well as the cruelty of class divisions during the roaring twenties. Tom's subtlety in dealing with Myrtle. Want to get better grades and test scores? We can help. PrepScholar Tutors is the world's best tutoring service. We combine world-class expert tutors with our proprietary teaching techniques. Our students have gotten A's on thousands of classes, perfect 5's on AP tests, and ludicrously high SAT Subject Test scores. Whether you need help with science, math, English, social science, or more, we've got you covered. Get better grades today with PrepScholar Tutors. Relationship 3: Nick Carraway and Jordan Baker We’ve covered the novel’s two married couples – the Buchanans and the Wilsons – as well as the affairs of three out of four of those married parties. But there is one more relationship in the novel, one that is a bit disconnected to the others. I’m talking, of course, about Nick and Jordan. Nick and Jordan Relationship Description Nick and Jordan are the only couple without any prior contact before the novel begins (aside from Nick apparently seeing her photo once in a magazine and hearing about her attempt to cheat). Jordan is a friend of Daisy’s who is staying with her, and Nick meets Jordan when he goes to have dinner with the Buchanans. We can observe their relationship most closely in Chapters 3 and 4, as Nick gets closer to Jordandespite needing to break off his relationship back home first. However, their relationship takes a back seat in the middle and end of the novel as the drama of Daisy’s affair with Gatsby, and Tom’s with Myrtle, plays out. So by the end of the novel, Nick sees Jordan is just as self-centered and immoral as Tom and Daisy, and his earlier infatuation fades to disgust. She, in turn, calls him out for not being as honest and careful as he presents himself as. So what’s the story with Nick and Jordan? Why include their relationship at all? Let’s dig into what sparks the relationship and the insights they give us into the other characters. Nick and Jordan RelationshipQuotes I enjoyed looking at her. She was a slender, small-breasted girl, with an erect carriage which she accentuated by throwing her body backward at the shoulders like a young cadet. Her grey sun-strained eyes looked back at me with polite reciprocal curiosity out of a wan, charming discontented face. It occurred to me now that I had seen her, or a picture of her, somewhere before. (1.57) As Nick eyes Jordan in Chapter 1, we see his immediate physical attraction to her, though it’s not as potent as Tom’s to Myrtle. And similarly to Gatsby’s attraction to Daisy being to her money and voice, Nick is pulled in by Jordan’s posture, her â€Å"wan, charming discontented face† – her attitude and status are more alluring than her looks alone. So Nick’s attraction to Jordan gives us a bit of insight both in how Tom sees Myrtle and how Gatsby sees Daisy. "Good night, Mr. Carraway. See you anon." "Of course you will," confirmed Daisy. "In fact I think I'll arrange a marriage. Come over often, Nick, and I'll sort of- oh- fling you together. You know- lock you up accidentally in linen closets and push you out to sea in a boat, and all that sort of thing- - " (1.131-2) Throughout the novel, we see Nick avoiding getting caught up in relationships – the woman he mentions back home, the woman he dates briefly in his office, Myrtle’s sister – though he doesn’t protest to being â€Å"flung together† with Jordan. Perhaps this is because Jordan would be a step up for Nick in terms of money and class, which speaks to Nick’s ambition and class-consciousness, despite the way he paints himself as an everyman. Furthermore, unlike these other women, Jordan isn’t clingy – she lets Nick come to her. Nick sees attracted to how detached and cool she is. "You're a rotten driver," I protested. "Either you ought to be more careful or you oughtn't to drive at all." "I am careful." "No, you're not." "Well, other people are," she said lightly. "What's that got to do with it?" "They'll keep out of my way," she insisted. "It takes two to make an accident." "Suppose you met somebody just as careless as yourself." "I hope I never will," she answered. "I hate careless people. That's why I like you." Her grey, sun-strained eyes stared straight ahead, but she had deliberately shifted our relations, and for a moment I thought I loved her. (3.162-70) Here, Nick is attracted to Jordan’s blasà © attitude and her confidence that others will avoid her careless behavior – an attitude she can afford because of her money. In other words, Nick seems fascinated by the world of the super-wealthy and the privilege it grants its members. So just as Gatsby falls in love with Daisy and her wealthy status, Nick also seems attracted to Jordan for similar reasons. However, this conversation not only foreshadows the tragic car accident later in the novel, but it also hints at what Nick will come to find repulsive about Jordan: her callous disregard for everyone but herself. It was dark now, and as we dipped under a little bridge I put my arm around Jordan's golden shoulder and drew her toward me and asked her to dinner. Suddenly I wasn't thinking of Daisy and Gatsby any more but of this clean, hard, limited person who dealt in universal skepticism and who leaned back jauntily just within the circle of my arm. A phrase began to beat in my ears with a sort of heady excitement: "There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy and the tired." (4.164) Nick, again with Jordan, seems exhilarated to be with someone who is a step above him in terms of social class, exhilarated to be a â€Å"pursuing† person, rather than just busy or tired. Seeing the usually level-headed Nick this enthralled gives us some insight into Gatsby’s infatuation with Daisy, and also allows us to glimpse Nick-the-person, rather than Nick-the-narrator. And again, we get a sense of what attracts him to Jordan – her clean, hard, limited self, her skepticism, and jaunty attitude. It’s interesting to see these qualities become repulsive to Nick just a few chapters later. Just before noon the phone woke me and I started up with sweat breaking out on my forehead. It was Jordan Baker; she often called me up at this hour because the uncertainty of her own movements between hotels and clubs and private houses made her hard to find in any other way. Usually her voice came over the wire as something fresh and cool as if a divot from a green golf links had come sailing in at the office window but this morning it seemed harsh and dry. "I've left Daisy's house," she said. "I'm at Hempstead and I'm going down to Southampton this afternoon." Probably it had been tactful to leave Daisy's house, but the act annoyed me and her next remark made me rigid. "You weren't so nice to me last night." "How could it have mattered then?" (8.49-53) Later in the novel, after Myrtle’s tragic death, Jordan’s casual, devil-may-care attitude is no longer cute – in fact, Nick finds it disgusting. How can Jordan care so little about the fact that someone died, and instead be most concerned with Nick acting cold and distant right after the accident? In this brief phone conversation, we thus see Nick’s infatuation with Jordan ending, replaced with the realization that Jordan’s casual attitude is indicative of everything Nick hates about the rich, old money group. So by extension, Nick’s relationship with Jordan represents how his feelings about the wealthy have evolved – at first he was drawn in by their cool, detached attitudes, but eventually found himself repulsed by their carelessness and cruelty. She was dressed to play golf and I remember thinking she looked like a good illustration, her chin raised a little, jauntily, her hair the color of an autumn leaf, her face the same brown tint as the fingerless glove on her knee. When I had finished she told me without comment that she was engaged to another man. I doubted that though there were several she could have married at a nod of her head but I pretended to be surprised. For just a minute I wondered if I wasn't making a mistake, then I thought it all over again quickly and got up to say goodbye. "Nevertheless you did throw me over," said Jordan suddenly. "You threw me over on the telephone. I don't give a damn about you now but it was a new experience for me and I felt a little dizzy for a while." We shook hands. "Oh, and do you remember- " she added, "- - a conversation we had once about driving a car?" "Why- not exactly." "You said a bad driver was only safe until she met another bad driver? Well, I met another bad driver, didn't I? I mean it was careless of me to make such a wrong guess. I thought you were rather an honest, straightforward person. I thought it was your secret pride." "I'm thirty," I said. "I'm five years too old to lie to myself and call it honor." (9.129-135) In their official break-up, Jordan calls out Nick for claiming to be honest and straightforward but in fact being prone to lying himself. So even as Nick is disappointed in Jordan’s behavior, Jordan is disappointed to find just another â€Å"bad driver† in Nick, and both seem to mutually agree they would never work as a couple. It’s interesting to see Nick called out for dishonest behavior for once. For all of his judging of others, he’s clearly not a paragon of virtue, and Jordan clearly recognizes that. This break-up is also interesting because it’s the only time we see a relationship end because the two members choose to walk away from each other – all the other failed relationships (Daisy/Gatsby, Tom/Myrtle, Myrtle/George) ended because one or both members died. So perhaps there is a safe way out of a bad relationship in Gatsby – to walk away early, even if it’s difficult and you’re still â€Å"half in love† with the other person (9.136). If only Gatsby could have realized the same thing. Nick and Jordan RelationshipAnalysis Nick and Jordan’s relationship is interesting, because it’s the only straightforward dating we see in the novel (it’s neithera marriage nor an illicit affair), and it doesn’t serve as an obvious foil to the other relationships. But it does echo Daisy and Gatsby’s relationship, in that a poorer man desires a richer girl, and for that reason gives us additional insight into Gatsby’s love for Daisy. But it also quietly echoes Tom’s relationship with Myrtle, since we Nick seems physically drawn to Jordan as well. The relationship also is one of the ways we get insight into Nick. For instance, he only really admits to his situation with the woman back at home when he’s talking about being attracted to Jordan. â€Å"I'd been writing letters once a week and signing them: "Love, Nick," and all I could think of was how, when that certain girl played tennis, a faint mustache of perspiration appeared on her upper lip. Nevertheless there was a vague understanding that had to be tactfully broken off before I was free† (3.170). Through Jordan, we actually see Nick experience exhilaration and love and attraction. Finally, through his relationship with Jordan, we can easily see Nick’s evolving attitude toward the wealthy elite. While he allows himself to be charmed at first by this fast-moving, wealthy, and careless world, he eventually becomes disgusted by the utter lack of morality or compassion for others. It's shocking that calmly saying goodbye is a rarity in this world. More often? Breakup by violent death. Discussion and Essay Topics on Love inThe Great Gatsby These are a few typical essay topics surrounding issues of love, desire, and relationships you should be prepared to write about. Some of them give you the opportunity to zoom in on just one couple, while others have you analyze the relationships in the book more generally. As always, it will be important to close-read, find key lines to use as evidence, and argue your point with a clearly-organized essay. (You can read more of our essay writing tips in our Character Analysis article.) So let’s take a look at a few common love and relationships prompts to see this analysis in action! Is there any couple in The Great Gatsby that has true love? For any essay topic that asks if characters in a book represent some kind of virtue (whether that’s true love, honesty, morality, or anything else), you should start by coming up with a definition of the value. For example, in this case, you should give a definition of â€Å"true love,† since how you define true love will affect who you choose and how you make your argument. For example, if you argue that true love comes down to stability, you could potentially argue Tom and Daisy have true love, since they actually remain together, unlike any of the other couples. But if you argue true love is based on strong emotion, you might say Gatsby’s love for Daisy is the truest. So however you define true love, make sure to clearly state that definition, since it will shape your argument! Remember it’s also possible in a prompt like this to argue that no one in the book has true love. You would still start by defining true love, but then you would explain why each of the major couples does not have real love, and perhaps briefly explain what element each couple is missing. Is The Great Gatsby a love story or a satire? Some essays have you zoom way out and consider what The Great Gatsby’s overall genre (or type) is. The most common argument is that, while Gatsby is a tragic love story on the surface (the love of Gatsby and Daisy), it’s really more of a satire of wealthy New York society, or a broader critique of the American Dream. This is because the themes of money, society and class, and the American Dreamare pretty constant, while the relationships are more of a vehicle to examine those themes. To argue which genre Gatsby is (whether you say â€Å"it’s more of a love story† or â€Å"it’s more of a satire†), define your chosen genre and explain why Gatsby fits the definition. Make sure to include some evidence from the novel’s final chapter, no matter what you argue. Endings are important, so make sure you link Gatsby’s ending to the genre you believe it is. For example, if you’re arguing â€Å"Gatsby is a love story,† you could emphasize the more hopeful, optimistic parts of Nick’s final lines. But if you argue â€Å"Gatsby is satire,† you would look at the sad, harsh details of the final chapter – Gatsby’s sparsely-attended funeral, the crude word scrawled against his back steps, etc. Also, be sure to check out our post on the novel's ending for more analysis. Is what Gatsby feels for Daisy love, obsession, affection, or accumulation/objectification? What is Fitzgerald’s message here? A really common essay topic/topic of discussion is the question of Gatsby’s love for Daisy (and sometimes, Daisy’s love for Gatsby): is it real, is it a symbol for something else, and what does it reveal about both Daisy and Gatsby’s characters? As we discussed above, Gatsby’s love for Daisy is definitely more intense than Daisy’s love for Gatsby, and furthermore, Gatsby’s love for Daisy seems tied up in an obsession with her wealth and the status she represents. From there, it’s up to you how you argue how you see Gatsby’s love for Daisy – whether it’s primarily an obsession with wealth, whether Daisy is just an object to be collected, or whether you think Gatsby actually loves Daisy the person, not just Daisy the golden girl. Analyze the nature of male-female relationships in the novel. This is a zoomed-out prompt that wants you to talk about the nature of relationships in general in the novel. Still, even though we have clearly identified the five major relationships, it might be complicated for you to try and talk about every single one in depth in just one essay. Instead, it will be more manageable for you to use evidence from two to three of the couples to make your point. You could explore how the relationships expose that America is in fact a classist society. After all,the only relationship that lasts (Tom and Daisy’s) lasts because of the security of being in the same class, while the others fail either due to cross-class dating or one member (Myrtle) desperately trying to break out of her given class. You could also talk about how the power dynamics within the relationships vary wildly, but only the couple that seems to have a stable relationship is also described as â€Å"conspiratorial† and often as a â€Å"they† – that is, Tom and Daisy Buchanan. So perhaps Fitzgerald does envision a sort of lasting partnership being possible, if certain conditions (like both members being happy with the amount of money in the marriage) are met. This prompt and ones like it give you a lot of freedom, but make sure not to bite off more than you chew! What’s Next? Wondering how else you can pair these characters in an essay? Check out our article on comparing and contrasting the most common character pairings in The Great Gatsby. Why is money so crucial in the world of the novel? Read more about money and materialism in Gatsbyto find out. Need to get the events of the book straight? Check out our chapter summaries to get a handle on the various parties, liaisons, flashbacks, and deaths. Get started with our book summary here! Want to improve your SAT score by 160 points or your ACT score by 4 points?We've written a guide for each test about the top 5 strategies you must be using to have a shot at improving your score. Download it for free now:

Content Calendar Template Backed By Data - CoSchedule

Content Calendar Template Backed By Data More consistency. Better frequency. Clearer organization. Those are the exact things an overwhelming majority of you told us youd like help with for your blog posting schedule. I can see how those things are at the top of your list  because problems in those areas prevent you from building  the audience you need to convert into customers. And it sounds like a content calendar template is the perfect solution to help you get out of your funk and focus on launching  your blog and business forward. Well. Here ya go. The Real Problem This Content Calendar Template Will Help You Solve To answer your question of how often to blog,  it'd be all too easy for me to just say, "Hey there, just do a blog schedule of one post per week," and call this post complete. But. I'm a nerd. And I don't believe that every blog is created equal, nor does it have the same audience. So there is no one clear way to answer that question other than to use your own data to help you find the perfect frequency and consistency  that will help you grow. And to do that, we're going to use maths. Yes. Maths. Now, I know you're a creative person and if you're anything like me, you probably loathed any class that had anything to do with numbers when you were back in school. So I'm going to walk you through how often to blog by helping you fill out your content calendar template that will translate your raw data into some super cool insights. When you're done reading this post, you'll know: How often you should blog to reach your goals. How to change your blog schedule to publish super consistently and regularly. How to improve the content you're already creating to reach your goals. How to save time by reworking your older content into your upcoming blog schedule. How to be a data-driven marketer who can  prove that your content calendar is driving real business growth. This is the exact process we've used at to grow traffic to new blog posts by 299%. The idea is simple: Replicate the success from your  best-performing content to improve every new post you  publish. And you can do it, too. Get out your calculators because it's about to rain numbers up in here. (See, I can't even make a good math joke.) Are you having trouble #blogging frequently and consistently? Get your #ContentCalendar template...The Data-Driven Method To Find The Best Blog Schedule Frequency For Your Content Calendar You're about to go through a  few steps with your data. To keep you from becoming overwhelmed, just know that the final outcome of this process will be the exact number of blog posts you need to publish to reach your goals. When you follow these steps, you'll  solve the frequency problem which leads directly into solving the consistency problem. 1. Determine the broad  goal behind  your content calendar. Brainstorm the reasons why you're blogging.  It sounds silly because it might feel  obvious, but the practice will help  you hone in on the right ways to measure your success. For example, let's say you use inbound marketing through your blog  to sell a product. That's terrific! While that's your big picture goal,  think about how your blog can actually contribute to that goal through traffic, email subscribers, and trial conversions. For the sake of this post- and to give you an example to follow through this process- let's say you choose to measure your success through increasing traffic. Judging from  the data you gave us in the Better Marketer Survey, that's  why you blog- to introduce your business to lots of people online. So: I am blogging to increase traffic. Answer This: I am blogging to __________ {#1 reason}. 2. Know how you'll specifically measure your goal. Now it's time to understand the exact metric you'll measure and find the tool that will give you that data. A  robust and free tool to start with is Google Analytics.  The tool will help you track  general traffic metrics and also helps you track your conversion steps for goals like email subscriptions and trial signups. In the case for the example you're following, you can use Google Analytics to measure increasing traffic with the metric of page views. So:  For my broad goal to increase traffic, I'm going to measure success with this specific metric: page views. Answer This:  For my broad goal to  __________ {#1 reason}, I'm going to measure success with this specific metric: __________ {metric}. 3.  Figure out the baseline performance of an average month for that metric. Look at the past several months to find the average amount you receive for that metric. You'll use this data to help you understand how  the changes you'll make in frequency and consistency are helping you reach your goal. For example, if you're measuring page views, take a look at  your past three month's individual contribution to that metric. Then average the three numbers to gauge an average month's performance over the past quarter. So: I'm going to look at how many average page views I got per month over the last three months. Answer This:  I'm going to look at how many average __________ {metric}  I got per __________ {time frame} over the last  __________ {# sample size of time frame}. Now all you have to do is gather the data for your metric and find the average. Use this equation to get started:  __________ {sum of all metric  in the sample} / __________ {# of months  in the sample} =  __________ {average month  contribution}. You just did some math. Very nice. 4. Find  an average blog post's contribution toward that metric. You need a baseline  number from an average blog post. That means that you'll need to review the same metric from several blog posts, giving them all the same opportunity to be successful. In other words, you need to find out  the amount each post in a sample contributed to your  metric within a certain period of time. Back to the example you're following- you need to look at a nice sample size of blog posts (10 at least), and review  how many page views each post delivered in the first 30 days after being published. The 30-day period means each post got an equal opportunity (more or less) to contribute to the metric. So: I'm going to look at how many page views 10 blog posts received in the first 30 days after they were published. Answer This:  I'm going to look at  how many __________ {metric} __________ {# sample size} blog posts received in __________ {# days}. Now it's time to gather the data. Grab your content calendar template and enter in all of the URLs of the blog posts you'll include in your sample, then grab the data for your  baseline time period for each of those URLs. Find the average metric number for  all of the blog posts in the sample by using this equation: __________ {sum of metric from all posts in the sample} / __________ {# of posts in the sample} =  __________ {average post contribution}. 5. Set the  aspirational goal for your content calendar through the SMART process. This is where it gets really fun. :) Now you can actually set  real goals based on data so you know they will be realistically achievable while also helping you shoot for growth. If you set goals before this point, you have no data-driven way to understand how each post you publish will contribute to your larger picture. It would be a guess- which will make your content calendar feel a whole lot more stressful. Anyway, SMART goals, as it were, stands for: Specific: Clearly define your goal through the process you've been working through right now. Measurable: Know how you'll measure your goal. This means knowing the tool you'll use, the exact metric, and the number. Aspirational: Know the baseline of how you're performing today, and shoot for 10x growth. You'll learn a lot more about this in a second. Realistic: You need to be able to do this with  the  resources available to you. Time-sensitive: Give yourself a time period in which you'll measure success. How To Set Aspirational Goals For Your #ContentCalendar Based On Your Own DataThe good news is that you've done nearly all of this  already by  walking through this process right now. It's the aspirational side of things that makes a great goal and  pushes you into continued growth. A good goal is at least 10x growth month over month to keep you focused on projects that will help you truly grow. That means, you'll want at least a 10% month-over-month increase with  your metric. Back to your example: Let's say  you get 10,000 page views a month. 10% more than that is 11,000, so that's your aspirational goal for next month. Do this: __________ {average month contribution} Ãâ€"  1.__________ {% aspirational growth} = __________ {new month contribution goal}. 6. Figure out how many blog posts it'll take to  crush your aspirational  goal. By this point, you know your aspirational goal for your content calendar for next month. Luckily for you, you also know how much each blog post contributes to that metric. So now you can simply add up how many blog posts you need to publish next month to reach your goal. Following your example, let's say an average blog post of yours gets 2,500 page views. To exceed  your monthly aspirational goal of 11,000 page views, you'd need to publish five  blog posts next month (and you can realistically predict you'll get 12,500 page views). Just follow this equation: __________ {new month contribution goal} /  __________ {average post contribution} =  __________ {# of posts needed to reach your goal}. Note: This formula completely leaves out long-tail metrics from blog posts you've published in the past. It is, however, a useful  guide  to help you understand how much more frequently you could blog to reach your goals. Use your best judgment to understand how much more you'll need to publish and remember: SMART goals have to be realistically achievable. You'll learn how to plan your calendar for long-term growth in a second, I promise. 7. Build up your tolerance as you blog consistently. Now, this process will always suggest that you need to publish more content- increase your publishing frequency- to reach your aspirational goal. Like doing anything new, there is a learning curve that  suggests adding more new things to your plate takes a bit longer initially than after you master the craft. You know those marathon runners? They don't start out by running 26.2 miles on their first day. They train themselves by running  shorter distances to build up the tolerance to make it all the way through the marathon. They're strict on their running schedules and commit to success. The secret to #blogging success? Commitment.You need to have a similar commitment  with your content calendar if you're going to experience 299% more success than you are today. And that also means you need to schedule time for yourself to build up your publishing endurance. Back to that example: Let's say you normally publish four new blog posts that each earn 2,500 page views a month- one every week that bring in a monthly total of 10,000 page views. To reach your aspirational goal of 11,000 page views, you'd like to publish five  posts next month.  That means you'll publish one extra post next  month  to exceed your aspirational goal of 11,000 monthly page views by actually hitting 12,500. See how that works? Plan  content in your calendar so that you can build up the tolerance to publish much more content: After you  successfully publish your extra content, reflect on the process by asking yourself three simple questions: What went well? What went wrong? What could I improve next time? Constant iteration and improvement will help you build up your publishing endurance to help you increase your blogging frequency while also sharing content regularly and consistently. Replicate The Success From Your Top 10% Content To Reach Your Aspirational Goal But what if you don't want to publish more content, but rather, get more results from every blog post you plan to publish? It's totally possible. You've probably had a post or two hit it out of the park. So wouldn't it be great if every post you wrote from this point forward had the same success? It's a question we asked ourselves at and figured out the process to help us strategically choose content to create that we know you'll dig to help us reach our goals faster and make the effort of writing a blog post pay off that much more. And, it's a process you can do with your content, too. How? You ask. Well,  allow me to show you step by step. 1.  Make a list of every post you published in the last nine months. Whip out your content calendar template and create a list of  every one of your blog posts' URLs from  at least the past nine months. You can go longer if you want- the point is to get a large  sample. 2. Ask yourself four questions to  grade your gut. Critically think about what makes a successful blog post on your site. For this exercise, I scrutinized content and came up with four categories I felt made our content successful.  You can start with these questions for your blog, too; or if you feel there is something else unique about your blog that makes your content successful in a different way, swap  out a question. Keyword: Successful posts target a keyword and are optimized to rank well for that keyword to continue bringing in long-term traffic from an audience who often  doesn't already know you. By optimizing your content from the get-go, you continue getting traffic and building your audience well into the future without additional promotion. Question to ask yourself: Was the keyword well-chosen (for search volume and difficulty) and optimized throughout the post to help me get long-term traffic? Topic:  Next, successful blog posts connect the keyword people use to find your content into the angle or unique value proposition for a problem they'd like to resolve. This shows your audience- even newcomers- that you're deeply in tune with their challenges and you're dedicated to helping them  overcome their hurdles. Question to ask yourself: Was this a topic my readers would be deeply interested in learning more about? Research: Successful content backs up its claims with thorough research that proves why your advice is credible and worth following. Your credibility will  build a following of readers who keep coming back. Question to ask yourself: Was this post deeply researched to share unique and better information than any other source on the Internet? Comprehensiveness: Call it complete, in-depth, or actionable.  Comprehensiveness has nothing to do with word count, but rather, when you decide to tackle a topic that you give it everything you've got to go deep into the detail instead of just publishing catchy blog titles with content that barely scratches the surface of the promise you make in your value proposition. Question to ask yourself: Did the post turn the research into actionable, exhaustive how-to advice  and  end only  when the entire story was complete? Is your content reaching your goals, really? Strategically plan a better #ContentCalendar.At this point, you're basing all of your thoughts on gut instinct: Was this post  successful or not? There's no data involved whatsoever yet. You're just aiming to translate your gut into a grade. Kinda like a teacher grading your homework. For each of the questions, rank every post in your list on  a 1 to 3 scale for each of the four categories  of successful content: keyword, topic, research, comprehensiveness. 1 means the post is  a stinker in that category whereas a 3 means it's totally awesome. Go ahead and use your content calendar template to grade your content in each of the four categories you feel make your content successful. When you're done, add up each blog post's  grade with the highest score a single post can receive being a 12 and the lowest possible being a 4. 3.  Review every post's performance toward your aspirational goal. Now it's time to find the contribution  each blog post delivers to your aspirational goal. In your content calendar template, track the metric for the first 30 days after a blog post publishes. Additionally,  grab the data from the following two months to give you a complete quarter's worth of data. From here,  you can measure the return on investment for every blog post  after its first month's worth of performance to help you predict how your blog posts will contribute to your goals a full two months after they publish. This is where you'll learn more about that part I noted for residual long-term metrics and can add it into play as you improve your content calendar. 4. Compare your posts' actual performance to your gut. Go into your content calendar template and sort  your blog posts according to the grades you ranked them (12 being the highest and should be at the top of your sorted  list). Go ahead and highlight your top five blog posts with red  (#1), orange  (#2), yellow  (#3), green  (#4), and blue  (#5). Now sort  all of your posts again according to the first 30 days they contribute to your metrics with the highest contributing post at the top of your list. You can see from your color coding how your gut actually translates into your most successful content. If your gut translated correctly, your top  five posts should still be  red, orange, yellow, green, and blue. So... Were you right? Were you wrong? Either way, there are lots of lessons you can learn from this process with the two biggest ones being: If your gut translated into real data correctly: You've got it! Stick with your gut and plan more content on your calendar that reflects what you already feel will be successful. If data disproved your gut: Review the top five posts according to their contribution to your metric. What makes those posts really stand out versus what you thought was awesome? Do you see where you're going with this? 5. Plan to create new  content like your top 10% truly knowing what will make a difference and what won't. No more guessing. No more getting close but not quite right. Dissect the top five posts according to their contribution to your  aspirational goal and replicate the success from your top-performing content. Here are a few questions you can ask yourself as you review that content: Where did the referral traffic come from? Was it from the keyword like you thought? What was it that made this topic super popular with my audience? Was it the value proposition or promise? Was this post well researched? Did the post back up the claims it promised in the headline? Was this post complete? Was the bounce rate low? Did it provide actionable content? Who was the author? Did they attract  a following to this post? What type of blog post was it? Was it a list post, step-by-step guide, infographic, etc.? What was the tone of the post? Was it authentic, humorous, or super straightforward? Did the post have additional media in it? Were there images, videos, or bonus content that influenced its success? You get the picture. Figure out all the  reasons why your audience loved those posts and repeat those elements  in the new posts you plan on your content calendar. This process will help you get more out of every blog post you publish so you don't have to publish more content, but rather, improve the quality of the content you publish. Publishing more may not be the answer. Here's a data-driven way to translate your gut into better...Who Said Everything On Your Content Calendar Has To Be Brand New? Well, you've just gone through a lot. You know: How frequently you need to blog every month to hit your aspirational goal. How to build up your endurance to publish consistently and regularly. How to  optimize  each new blog post to contribute even more to your aspirational goal. But here's the thing: You just found  your best-performing blog posts  that you can optimize even further and republish to get even more out of them. This simple republishing process will help you: Fill up your blog schedule while saving a ton of time you would have spent creating new content. Become friends with search engines like Google that  reward content marketers who update their older content. Optimize your best content to contribute even more to your aspirational goal. Yeah, sold you, right? Finally: Something easy to fill up your content calendar. :) 1. Find a top-performing, older blog post. Lucky you! You already found your top-performing blog posts according to your aspirational goal. The only other qualifier for republishing  is to make sure  that the post you choose is at least six month old. The older, the better, since you don't want to accidentally share something that's somewhat new with your audience who may have already seen it. 2. Refresh the old blog post with 5 pieces of new insight. Adding  more relevant content into your older blog post adds tons of value for your readers- even if they saw the original piece in the past. And according to Brian Dean's research on the top 200 ranking factors Google uses in its search algorithm,  Google also likes to see  you refreshing your content. To top it off, when  you add more actionable advice to your content  and  increase  the length of your blog post, you have a higher likelihood of ranking well in search engines. Recommended Reading:  6 Simple Tips For Using Online Research In Your Content Marketing Add new data: There came a point when you had to publish the post originally. There were probably other sources of data that you didn't include in your initial content because you didn't find them  at the time or they didn't even exist because they're so new. That type of research can help keep your advice relevant- or could even help you make a couple new points that you didn't think about before. Replace outdated information: When you continue researching your blog post, you might find new information that disputes your original suggestions. For example, in a post we republished called "25 Growth Hacks That Will Amplify Your Content Marketing", I found out that one of the growth hacks from the original post  wasn't valid anymore because the website we referenced went out of business. I replaced that outdated information with a new growth hack that was similar  but much more timely than the original idea. 5 Ways To Revive And Republish Old Blog Posts  With Your #ContentCalendarAdd more awesome advice: With time comes more experience. Think about how authors re-release their books several years after their original version with new edits and insights they've learned after getting published. Use the same process to add additional advice that builds on your original thought process to add more value. A way we do this at is by analyzing all of the how-to information in an older blog post before we republish. If we give advice on, say, "make an infographic to get more social shares", we'll  back up the claim with new data that proves infographics still get more social shares than any other type of visual content. Then we'll also give the step-by-step guidance on how to create that infographic (or link to a new blog post with lots more detail). See what I did there? You can apply the same process to your blog post before you republish it by analyzing areas you can flesh out with further step-by-step, actionable guidance. Optimize the post for keywords: Yeah, you probably targeted a keyword in your blog post originally. But the keyword game is changing a little bit, and it turns out you can target multiple related keywords in one blog post to get traffic from several different search terms. While I've taken a stab at keyword optimization, I'll let Rand from Moz teach you how to do this because he's wicked smart: Essentially, based on your original keyword, find synonyms or related keywords that will help you rank for a category-type of search. Recommended Reading:  An SEO Driven Approach To Content Marketing: The Complete Guide Optimize for email subscriber conversions: A lot of you are  building your email list to keep your readers coming back for more of your awesome content. That's a terrific idea, so you'll love hearing that adding content upgrades into your blog posts can help you increase the number of email subscribers you receive from any blog post- including the ones you're optimizing and republishing. Let me explain a bit about content upgrades: Since we started including bonus content like infographics, templates, worksheets, guides, and checklists in every blog post we publish here at , we've been able to increase our email subscribers by 552% in one year. Seriously. And you can experience similar  success: Review your top-trafficked blog posts and choose a couple you could easily translate your step-by-step advice into a worksheet, template, checklist, tear sheet, infographic, or tool of some kind. Formats could include Word Templates, Google Sheets Templates, PDFs, images- the sky is the limit. Next, simply open up an Evernote note, pick out the big takeaways from your content, and write the content upgrade. The goal is to help your readers turn your advice into a game plan to experience the success you promise in your blog post. Include areas to write and brainstorm, checkboxes to mark tasks as complete, fill-in-the-blank sections, tables, and other tools to help your readers  literally work through your advice to end with the desired outcome you promised. Either work with your in-house designer to  turn your note into something awesome or  find a freelancer  to design it for you from  a site like Behance  or  Dribbble. Add the content upgrade into your WordPress media library like you would with a normal  blog post image, then grab the URL of the file name. Use a tool like LeadPages' LeadBoxes to embed a signup form right inline in your blog post to trade your content upgrade for  your reader's email address. Here's  how Neil Patel does this exact content upgrade process using LeadPages' LeadBoxes: Neil Patel uses LeadBoxes from LeadPages to add content upgrades into his content to turn traffic into email subscribers. You can do it, too. And it's especially handy for turning your high-trafficked posts into subscriber-generating machines. 3. Republish the blog post as if it were brand new. You can keep the republishing process simple to work through these projects faster than you would when you'd write a brand new post.  This is how to republish a blog post in WordPress: Add a new WordPress  post onto your content calendar on the day you'd like your old blog post to re-launch. Copy your old blog post in its entirety and paste it into your new post. The reason you'd do this is that the old post is still live on your blog and is still generating traffic- you won't want to confuse your readers with edits you're making on the fly, especially if you plan to republish the post later in your editorial schedule. Work through the post adding in all of the advice you just learned: Add new data, replace old  info, add new advice, optimize with more keywords, and add in your content upgrade. When you're done and ready to republish it, change the URL of the new post to match the one that is currently live on your blog. So, if your URL of the live post is http://awesome.com/cool-post, enter your slug for the new post as http://awesome.com/cool-post. WordPress is smart and will auto-magically  change your URL to http://awesome.com/cool-post-2. Don't freak out, because that's exactly what you want to happen. That means WordPress recognizes your original  post and is confirming that it will republish your new content over the old stuff on the specific date and time you have your new post scheduled for. Just leave the new post in draft mode, and when that day and time rolls around, your new content will show up on that old URL. Now, if you'd like to get a little picky about your blog and have that republished  post show up on your home page, you could always go into the original post and change it  to a time in the recent past (like say 30 minutes ago). Just be weary about accidentally  changing the date on your already-published post to republish in the future- it's no good unless you're Michael J. Fox. :) Now You Have A  Data-Driven  Content Calendar Template Listen, I know this sounds like a lot, so hear me out: Why this process is worth every second you spend doing it  even though you're probably  scared of what you read. You're thinking right now: This guy's crazy. I don't have time for this! To which I'm thinking: How will you be able to  improve without knowing  how what you've done- and what you plan to do- has impacted your goal? And my bro Abraham Lincoln is backing me up: Give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe. If you really want to throw efficiency in the mix, consider this: Productivity is only as good as the content you produce and how it  reaches your goal. Using your time to create effective content is far better than being efficient with your time. Using your time to create effective content is far better than being efficient with your time. Heck, Todd Henry sums it up best in his book,  The Accidental Creative: How To Be Brilliant At A Moment's Notice: We must learn to spend our time effectively rather than obsessing about efficiency. Do this, and I guarantee your content calendar will deliver the results you're looking for. #RantOver I wouldn't give you any advice I wouldn't follow myself.  This process is exactly how we plan our content calendar at , and it's  helped us keep our content calendar on track and reach our aspirational goals to grow super fast. Good luck with your content calendar!