Lessons in Literature

The podcast episode discusses the lessons the host learned from reading literature in high school. The first lesson is that having too much ambition can lead to selfish choices that harm oneself and others, as seen in "The Great Gatsby" and "Macbeth". The second lesson is that racism against black people is a significant issue, highlighted in the poem "Harlem" and the novel "Homegoing". The host realizes the importance of managing ambition and being inclusive of others as they head to university. Hello, I'm your host, Luna Primero. Thank you so much for choosing to tune in on today's episode. Before I get started, I just want to say that this podcast will be all about real life lessons I've learned through my four years in high school, ranging from topics on friends to in-class lessons. And today will be all about lessons I learned reading literature. As you saw from the title, I'll be talking about my journey in English class throughout high school, reading certain texts and sharing some valuable life lessons I learned along the way. So I used to think that having ambition was a good thing because you have determination to achieve success. But by reading The Great Gatsby by X-Cop and Cheryl and The Best by Shakespeare, I learned that having too much ambition can lead to making selfish choices that affect those who are close to us and harming ourselves. The second lesson I learned is that racism, the discrimination of black people and slavery is far worse than I thought. And by reading the poem Harlem by Langston Hughes, the novel Ongoing by Yaya Gatsby helped me understand this. So let's start with the first lesson, having too much ambition is bad. And like I said, the two books that helped me come to this conclusion were Gatsby and Macbeth. I read Gatsby when I was in 11th grade and Macbeth in 10th grade. And in my early years of high school, I always thought having ambition was a good thing because you're striving for something that's important to you and you want to make that possible. But after reading these two texts, I realized that ambition is still good, but having too much of it and striving for something that may not be good can lead to your own downfall. So in The Great Gatsby, the part that helped me understand this lesson of ambition is that Gatsby has this determination to succeed in life, to win daily over and become very rich, that he accomplishes this by doing illegal activities like his bootlegging business. And ultimately, Gatsby's ambition to be a wealthy man and have a woman beside him and have this perfect American dream was crushed because of his ambition to repeat the past. Through Gatsby's story, this taught me that ambition to succeed and have a perfect life can lead to the loss of loved ones, because in the end, Gatsby ended up losing Daisy in his works. Of being rich came to an end because through his ambition, he ended up dead. This also taught me that your own actions can be the cause of your own suffering because our actions have consequences, whether that be hurting ourselves or others directly or indirectly. Similarly, in Macbeth, his ambition to become more powerful and king is what drives him to kill people. His need to become king gets in the way of his friendship with Banquo and Macbeth, and from Banquo, his best friend. Through this, it opened up my mind and I realized that ambition can also be toxic, because once ambition becomes toxic, it's when you only care about yourself and you don't worry about how your actions can affect others and yourself because you don't know what you're getting yourself into. And this is demonstrated in Macbeth, because Macbeth's ambition to be the ruler is what ultimately leads to his own tragic demise. I also realized that toxic ambition drives you to not let anything get in your way and you end up destroying and hurting others. So the lesson I learned in these two texts is that when you have too much ambition, it makes you make selfish choices that affect you and those around you, and your relationship with those who are important to you in life can be seriously damaged. So moving on, the two texts that taught me the second lesson that racism is far worse than I thought is the poem Harlem and the novel Homegrown, and these two texts I read in 12th grade. I used to think that racism wasn't that big of a deal, and looking back now, I realize that I was so naive that I actually thought this, but I've now learned that racism, specifically against black people, is still a major problem in the past and in today's society. The first text that taught me this lesson was Harlem, a poem I read about the life of the black community in Harlem and the continuous racial injustice down there. In the very beginning of the poem, Langston Hughes writes, what happens to the dream preferred? And he goes on and describes some similarities that could answer this question, but what I learned is that this preferred dream is the dream of the black community to have racial equality. If this equality keeps getting delayed, it's because white people want to have all the power and rule over the black community. This continues in today's society. When you hear on the news that cops are killing innocent black people, or black teenagers having to deal with their mental health because of people bullying them for the color of their skin, or parents having to kill their young children, why they might not be able to sit in and this relationship keep going. And in the end of the poem, the last line, he writes, or does it explode? Does this dream of the black community explode? And ultimately, the answer is yes, because even though there are plenty of people out there that accept and support the black community, there will always also be those who are against them and questioning this dream. Additionally, the novel Homegoing also helped me take a look into the past of the slavery and trauma that black people face. This novel took me through some really gruesome topics that I never thought black people face and can imagine the difficulty and pain physically and emotionally, instead of having the courage to try and make a life for themselves and try and make a difference. So, in Ness's chapter and A.T.'s chapter, slavery plays a huge role in these two chapters. And while reading them, I was astounded by the poor conditions that they went through and the brutality. And in Willie's chapter, racism is the center of that chapter, and reading it really saddened me because I can't imagine the difficulty of not being able to find a job because of being able to find a job because of my skin color and not being able to interact with my husband in Corbett and the world putting shame onto you. And in Sonny's chapter, what really stood out to me was when the boy, he kept telling Sonny that he can't do anything, just when he realized that the little boy is right, because back then and even now, everyday people are still trying to fight for racial equality, and it's been decades since this, and it's still a huge problem. So, reading through all these chapters, I learned the truth about how bad it really was for black people. It made me realize that I never really knew the troubles, the terrible things they went through. I honestly thought that they didn't go through this much, but now I see how I was so wrong and reading this really helped me open up my eyes and taught me that I need to continue and learn more about this because it's not just something from the past, because although it may not be as intense now, racism is still a big problem in today's society. So now that I'm finishing high school and heading off to university, these two lessons that I learned about ambition and racism will continue to have an effect on me as I go into secondary, because now when I'm at school, trying to do my best and get good grades, I have to remember that I can't have too much ambition to get good grades, because then I'll be working late, not getting enough sleep, not eating, and not having time to spend time with my friends and family. And instead, I need to have a set schedule on how I'm going to manage my time and balance out my life in school. And now that I know more about the history of African Americans, going into the next year, I know that I have to be careful of my actions and be inclusive of everyone and not judge others just because they don't look like me, because in reality, no one looks like anyone. Everyone is different and that's what makes everyone unique. So that's the end of today's episode on lessons in literature. I hope you enjoyed it and learned something new. Thank you for tuning in and stay tuned for the next episode on lessons about friends.