Week Three

In this weeks portion of the reading, Amory seems to have been put in his place. It is recommended to him that he should go to Philadelphia by a friend of his that he met through his mother, Monsignor Darcy,A man he respects very much and connects with. Darcy introduces Amory to a woman named Clara, and just as you or I could have predicted, he falls in love with her. However, this time it is different for Amory. She does not respond the same way that every other girl has, she doesn't just fall into his arms. Instead, she rejects Amory when he proclaims his love for her. Since this is not the reaction that Amory is accustomed to, he knocked down a peg, and starts to realize that he is not really this amazing and perfect suitor for any girl who comes his way. This is the path that Amory takes in this weeks reading section:

http://13jgiacalone.glogster.com/amorys-path/

The rejection that Amory encounters is very disappointing for him because it reveals to him, and ensures the reader, that he is not as irresistible as he once thought. This deflation of Amory's perspective of himself helps him overall by sending his self-image down to an average position. I think that there is going to be a journey from here on of Amory becoming less and less arrogant and becoming less concerned with impressing other people. Aside from the affect that Clara had on his self-image, she also caused him to just want to get his mind off of things. It doesn't say it in the text, but i think that the reason he enlists in the army is another one of his ways to go with the grain and continue finding ways to impress people. I think that in his mind, this will act as a redemption for what happened with Clara. His mindset seems to be that if someone tries to tell him he isn't good enough, he will just try as hard as he can to prove them wrong. Amory doesn't enlist in the army extremely willingly, so i think that proves that he is only doing it, in his mind, to prove to everyone else that he is doing what kids his age 'should' be doing, and that he is the ideal person. However, i don't think that anyone is really paying attention, so he is really only trying to prove this to himself. But the fact that he is doing something that he doesn't really want to do will cause him serious grief in the future, especially for something as life changing as entering the army.

My prediction for the next passage differs from my hope. My hope is that Amory comes to grips with the fact that he is only doing this, and everything in his life for that matter, for the purpose of impressing other people, not for his own happiness. If this occurs, he will recognize it in time to change his life and improve it, doing what he wants to do. However, i don't think that this will happen at all...Amory is very intent on doing everything to the fullest, so i think that he will end up going through any pain, mental or physical, if that is what it takes to prove to everyone else (yet again, only in HIS mind), that he is the ideal man of his age. Overall, the book is becoming a little more exciting, but i still feel that it has large dead spots about essentially nothing, or rather useless information.