Who are you?

Are you a person who is themselves when and where ever you are, are you someone who hides being scared or even ashamed of what people think or are someone who creates and illusion for yourself and becomes someone who you’re not. Many people in the world don’t want others to see their truth because they don’t want their illusion they have created for themselves to be destroyed. An illusion is something people create or give someone or themselves a better look. An illusion is given whether its wanted or not whether it’s necessary or not. In this piece i will explore the illusion of these for text “Cool kids” by Echosmoth, “The Great Gatsby” by F. Scott Fitzgerald, “Everything everything” by Stella Meghie and the “Landlady” by Rald Dal, and how the characters within these texts create an illusion for themselves and for others.

The first text i will be discussing is a song by Echosmith called Cool Kids. The theme woven through this text is illusion. The illusion of people wishing that they were a better version of themselves, the ‘cool kid’ version. this texts creates this illusion but saying ‘She sees them walking in a straight line but thats not really her style, they all got the same heartbeat but hers is falling behind… there invincible, but shes just in the background.’ What this is saying is that there is a girl who is looking at this kids who are r ‘walking in a straight line’ but its not referring to the way they are walking but how they are able go through life without having any problems or embarrassing themselves but by her being able see them she tries to be able to ‘walk’ like them ‘but thats not really her style’, that she is comfortable and does feel herself when she does do it. The girl is this text is wanting and trying to be like the ‘cool kids’ but all of the people she is trying to be like have ‘all the same heartbeat but her is falling behind’. Her heart is a representation of her social class that no matter how hard she tries to be like a ‘cool kid’, she will never truly be able to keep up with them and their status that come with them. These ‘cool kids’ seem ‘invincible’ like nothing will bring them down and that they are on top of the world and ‘shes just in the background’ pretending to be someone that she is not and not being able to fit in. Its not only her that is creating an illusion but also the kids she is wanting be like because all she sees is the good side and how they seem to b perfect and not the stuff that goes on behind the scenes. ‘They’re driving fast cars but they don’t know where they’re going’, the ‘cool kids’ are ‘driving fast cars’ isn’t is a reference of their lives and how they are moving so quickly and how they are not enjoying and really living in the moment, how their growing up to fast acting like their parents do, instead of acting like a sixteen or eighteen year old. In the same way because they are moving too fast they ‘don’t know where they’re going’. There is illusion on both sides of the story theres the girl who wishes she was like them and then there is the people she wishes she was side, the ‘cool kids’ side of it. How the create the perfect person persona when they infact have no clue. This kind of thing happens everyday, everywhere within this world, with people trying to someone that they are not but when pretending they will never be truly satisfied it want feel like the real thing.

The Great Gatsby, written by F. Scott Fitzgerald is a novel with illusion going all the way throughout the story especially with one of the main characters Jordan Gatsby. He creates a life for him that fits perfectly for the love of his life and is one of the ways for him to get her back. Gatsby illusion of himself that he created was the he was ‘the son of some wealthy people in the Middle West,’ wanting everyone to see him as the young rich man who throws enormous and magnificent parties for everyone and anyone. However when he was introducing himself to Nick(the narrator of this novel) as they were on their way into new york everything he seemed to be telling nick about himself just seemed to all flood out of mouth with stories about stories and proof in case nick didnt believe the stories he was saying. By Gatsby being able to let his past to flow out of his mouth as if it had already been rehearsed, creates doubt that is he he telling the truth did this really happen? however further into the story we find out the truth behind the illusion he shows, ’His parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people…his imagination had never really accepted them as his parents at all… So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen-year-old boy would be likely to invent,’. As he was a younger bot he refused to believe that his parents were in fact farm people, his imagination insist him so much that he decided to recreate himself the way the seventeen-year old Gastby imagined. The Great Gatsby and the song cool kids link together because they are both about people trying to be someone in which they are not, as the girl in the first text want to like the ‘cool kids’ but it wasn’t ‘her style’ and how Gatsby become this rich man with a big house and throws big parties. With pretending they will never truly feel as if they belong.

Everything everything, is a film directed by Stella Meghie. It is about a young eighteen year old girl named Maddy who has been diagnosed with S.C.I.D (Severe combined immunodeficiency) when she was only young and so because of the conduction she isn’t allowed to go outside she must stay inside safe from all viruses and sicknesses. What this text has to do with illusion is that Maddy is not sick and that it was her mother which is a doctor and who allowed maddy to believe that she was in fact sick. Dr. Pauline Whittier (Mum) created the illusion of Maddy being sick and not allowing her to leave her or her home. ‘Is your daughter around… No she isnt’ When the new next door neighbours whent to introduce themselves to Maddy and Pauline the body who is same age as Maddy as if she was around and her Mum replied with no. With her Mum saying no she is reinforcing the illusion of maddy having S.C.I.D, enabling Maddy to live her life and leave. When Maddy was young before she was diagnosed her brother and father and a car crash and were both killed this is when Pauline began to realise that Maddy was all she ‘had left’ and that she ‘couldn’t loose her’ so by her being a doctor she was able to diagnose Maddy with a sickness so rare so that she couldnt leave and that she wouldn’t lose her. Eventually Maddy found out that she wasnt sick and ended up running away. Pauline created the illusion of maddy having S.C.I.D because she had already lost half her family, the love of her life so she wasnt going allow that to happen with Maddy, doing it to keep her safe and protected from the world. This film and The Great Gatsby have a similar idea of illusion with some projected it over someone else for their benefit, as Gatsby did with Daisy and Pauline did with Maddy. People creates illusions everyday for people they have never meet and for popel they have none simce they were little its become 

Everyone who has a pet loves them however the main character in the short story Landlady, written by Roald Dahl, doesn’t love the normal house hold pets that you see everyday but loves a very unique and peculiar sort. She is a little old lady who owns a sort of bed and breakfast for any that wishes to take shelter but this is her illusion that she creates of herself, shes uses her age and looks to mask her murderous nature. She lures her victims in by pretending to be a sweet innocent old lady, giving her guess cups of tea which tasting ‘faintly of bitter almonds’. One guest came in one night and she become very talkative and keep insisting for him drink the tea. when he checked in he noticed that there were two names checked in int the checkin book they were the names of two people in a report in the newspaper. The guest had taken note that it tasted of bitter almonds but he didnt take much notice of it he thought it was just the flavour if the tea. When in fact it was the taste that he was tasting was the taste of cyanide. WHile she was talking to him she wouldnt stop about all her disease pets, and how “I stuff all my little pets myself when they pass away.” The lady is not meaning the every day house pets like a cats and dogs but she is meaning all her guest that stay with her. she gives the illusion to her guests that she is a little old lady that wouldn’t hurt a fly, when really when you pull away he mask that she is hidding behind she a psycho and murderous human being. The land Lady and the Great Gatsby have similar qualities because these two characters both build this kind of wall which is their illusion that they show to every one around them being the kind of person that society would expect them to be but when in realty they are the complete opposite to what they show the world.