Connection3

I always thought the women looked so happy in this painting, but when I look at it next to Eliot and Plath I get a new sense of sadness. What if, like Daisy Miller, you had no options but to behave as society expects or risk death - and that death could be a metaphor ("You are dead to me") or real - like in the Henry James. Daisy Miller and Jay Gatsby, too, challenge the rigid roles of society. Both flame out, in a way. Myrtle Wilson, Tom Buchanan's mistress in __Gatsby__ also challenges social roles and status. She dies as well. Do if you die a bit every day, like J. Alfred Prufrock, reinvent yourself to die again like Lady Lazarus (or Jay Gatsby), or die floating in your pool or from a mosquito met in the moonlight at the Coliseum? Do you risk it all, or do you die in increments?

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