1. Warming up with beautiful words
- Which words / phrases seem to carry symbolic weight?
- What might they mean?
- What are you wondering?
- Can you connect these beautiful words to the writing prompt you're most interested in?
2. Enjoying our final (and extended) fishbowl on The Great Gatsby, Chapters 8 and 9
3. Wrapping up with take-aways
HW:
1. For MONDAY: Come to class prepared for your in-class writing; I recommend writing your thesis and having your quotations selected before class.
*Also, make sure your Gatsby journals are complete; I will be grading them while you write your essays.*
2. For WEDNESDAY: Complete your book club letter and have your book IN YOUR HANDS when you walk into class on Wednesday.
On page 172 it says, " it was a photograph of the house, cracked in the corners and dirty with many hands." I was wondering what he is symbolizing with the word choice of "many hands" and how that relates to early in the book were he talked about hands?
ReplyDeleteWhat is Gatsby's legacy? What do you want your legacy to be?
ReplyDeleteI feel like Gatsby's legacy was just a rich guy who threw a lot of lavish parties. If people didn't use him for his money I feel like his legacy AND his funeral would've been bigger.
DeleteYeah I agree with Marc, people didn't really get to know him as a person so nobody really cared when he died
DeleteI think Gatsby's legacy was to become the man he wanted which was a wealthy man who fell in love. I think Gatsby died because he did achieve his legacy. I think once you achieve your legacy you can die at any moment. The legacy I want is to be remembered as a happy person that no one could bring down.
Deletethe words I underlined in one of the sentences was presence, air, and emotions. I think this might mean that anything can have a huge presence in someones heart or in the tone of a room. From this I wondered do happy dreams and emotions have a bigger impact then sad dreams and emotions?
ReplyDeleteI think that that is part of life you will have sadness with happiness. I believe that you cannot be happy without knowing what being sad is. When you do have a good day or a good memory you must embrace it because you never know when it could end. I belive that life is a rollercoaster and you have to have downs to get back up again.
DeleteWhy do the colors green and blue show up so much in this book?
ReplyDeleteI think the colors show up so much to emphasize what they represent for example green could represent wealth and the American Dream. And blue could represent the sadness and guilt that is in the book.
DeleteWhy is it that Daisy seems to levitate above the rules and live without consequence?
ReplyDeleteI think that's because she is the girl everyone wants, and can kind of wiggle around the law
DeleteGatsby struggled to get his dad's hair of his coat on page 167
ReplyDeleteWhat else is Gatsby struggling with in his life at this time?
On page 147 it says, " I felt that I had something to tell him, something to warn him about, and morning would be too late." I think that this quote is foreshadowing to the end of the chapter and it is strange how Nick has this feeling that something bad is going to happen.
ReplyDeleteWhat words would best describe Gatsby?
ReplyDeleteReluctant and lingeringly because he is very reserved when it comes to his very personal and close topics and he also lingers throughout the book never satisfied until he finds Daisy.
DeleteI would describe him as mysterious, extravangant, and careless. I chose these words because he has always been mysterious throughout the book. He happen to just come across a lot of money yet he never says how. Extravagant because he is always looking spiffy and throwing these grand parties that are illegal because for some reason he has a lot of alcohol. Careless because he does not consider the down fall. At first he uses Nick to get to Daisy, then he tries to make Daisy stand up to Tom and tell him she doesn't love him. He does not talk to her about what she wants, only what he thinks and wants.
DeleteHow does the energy portrayed in chapter 8 compare to the energy portrayed in the previous chapters?
ReplyDeleteI feel like the energy throughout the book has had various ups and downs but overall the energy started lower then went up and is now going back down.
Delete"...Dutch Sailor eyes- a fresh green breast of a new world"
ReplyDeleteI think green is used through out the book to represent wealth and the american dream. In this quote I think it is applying green in the quote to the new world that Nick is about enter and what his new american dream consist of.
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ReplyDeleteIt seems as if Gatsby has some type of legacy. What is it and does it tie to the tone of book. If so, how?
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ReplyDeleteOn the very last page (180) Nick writes "So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past." I thought this was very interesting as when Gatsby and Nick had the conversation after the party that Daisy attended that Gatsby is trying to repeat the past and Nick quotes "You can't repeat the past." Now at the end Nick clarifies that he is re-entering the past.
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ReplyDeleteGatsby was always so amazed by everything that had to do with daisy even though he probably had better things and more than she did but he though that it was a way to get closer to her. If Gatsby and Daisy did not split up when Gatsby went to war what kind of things would they have in there house and where would they live?
ReplyDeleteThe Rain in the Great Gatsby represented nervousness and sadness. Whenever it rained it was before Gatsby was doing something big like meeting Daisy. I think Fitzgerald made it like this to making scary or sad situations more relaxed and calm. Owl eyes mentions "Blessed are the dead the rain falls on." because even though it represents sad situations in the book, it always rain when Gatsby and Daisy had tension and it always made the mood feel different which was why the rain was so important in the book and Gatsby's life.
ReplyDeleteOn page 153 one of Gatsby's men asks about draining the pool. I was thinking that this was symbolism of what may occur to gatsby. Gatsby says "You know old sport, I haven't used that pool all summer" How symbolistic is this of what may occur later in the book?
ReplyDeleteWhen you drain a pool it usually means you're going into a colder season. Symbolically, I think this might mean that they are wanting to drain all of the bad away and start fresh just like when you are able to fill the pool back up again for a good time in the summer next year.
Delete“In various unrevealed capacities he had come in contact with such people, but always with indiscernible barbed wire between”
ReplyDelete“He felt their presence all about he house. Pervading the air with the sagas and echos of still vibrant emotions”
These word give me a sense of mystery, some of them are dark and heavy which may be foreshadowing. Some of them are very captivating and catch my attention.
"..."Jay Gatsby" had broken up like glass against Tom's hard malice, and the long extravaganza was played out." I think this is proof that everyone puts on a mask in order to fit in especially Gatsby because he is trying too hard to please Daisy. Tom see's this and starts to poke and prod in order to expose Gatsby. He does finally suceed and everyone sees Gatsby break.
ReplyDeleteWhat do T.J Eckleburg's eyes stand for
ReplyDeleteI think the eyes represent a higher power that sees everything or like someones conscious. They watch over everything and judge everything, and it is then the characters choice to do right or wrong and the have to accept the consequences
DeleteIs there something that we are missing as the readers that no one showed up to Gatsby's funeral? Is this in a way symbolic of the whole book as that we never truly know what person Gatsby is.
ReplyDeleteEmma Smith
I think no one showed up to Gatsby funeral because everyone used him for his parties and money and when he actually died, no one probably wanted to come because they were scared to show up because they never actually got to know him but all they knew was he had money.
DeleteWhy is Fitzgerald using the quote "The touch cluster of leaves revolved it slowly," to represent the fall of Gatsby? The book talks about leaves falling in various instances to represent tone and it feels like now Fitzgerald is saying leaves fall and seasons ends just like love dies and people die. Very dark comparison.
ReplyDeleteI think that no one decided to show up because throughout the book Gatsby is being used because of his riches. Not many people actually knew Gatsby as a friend.
ReplyDeleteAs well as the fact that Gatsby was a ghost, not many people had ever even seen the man let a lone talked to him and that's why I think very few people showed up.
DeleteI think it was symbolic. Through out his whole life he was around people who didn't care and used him for his wealth. I think it is Fitzgerald symbolizing how you can feel alone in a crowd of people, because in Fitzgerald life he did feel alone in a crowd of people. He worked hard to be successful and no one supported him through his. failures until he gained success. The tone created in the book about his funeral shows people care but not enough which is what Fitzgerald experienced his whole life. Pg 169 "Of course you'll be there yourself." "Well, I'll certainly try."
DeleteYeah I agree. People never saw him as a true person and people only liked going to his parties and using his money. I just thought it was very odd how everyone knew who he was but hardly anyone ever met him. Almost that idea of a ghost like Matt was saying.
DeleteYes I agree, Gatsby didn't have any friends who really knew him or were close to him, so people probably felt almost "disrespectful" going. This is why I think he reached out to Nick because that's what he was missing in his life and Nick came off as a very trustworthy type of person to everyone.
Deletein chapter 8 the author wrights a lot about shades and shadows like on pg 149 is says"...prevading the air with the shades and echoes..." and on pg 162 it says "With the little ripples that were hardly the shadows of waves...." do you think he did this to set up the darkness in this chapter?
ReplyDeletei think this sets the darkness in this chapter because he is showing the darkness in the shadows and the shadows are always in the background which is what a shadow is and if you think about an ally way, it had many shadows of buildings and it is considered a dark place.
DeleteThe pool represents Gatsby's dreams. He doesn't want to drain the pool because its his way of showing himself he can hold onto his dreams and in the end his last moment alive he falls into the pool which I think is Fitzgerald way of showing his last moment dying along with his dreams.
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ReplyDeleteDo you think the Nick will repeat Gatsby's legacy as a rich man? Not as a chaser to a girl or throw large parties but just be a fancy "Old Sport"
ReplyDeleteI don't think that Nick will. I think that he will go back to his lifestyle to before he met Gatsby and just live his simple life.
DeleteDaisy was really shallow and she didn't attend Gatsby's funeral for selfish reasons. She didn't want Tom to know how much she cared and she also didn't want to be connected to myrtles death even though she was the one who ran over her. She wants to move on and pretend her past with Gatsby didn't exist but its just like the prompt we had "What goes around comes around" meaning one day no matter how much she avoids everything that has happened she will have the face the reality of what lead to his suicide, and what she did while he was Alive.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe Daisy is shallow. When some of my close friends have died it didn't fully feel real until I saw them in a coffin and being bared. I think she doesn't go to preserve her thought of him. I think she doesn't want his death to actually be real cause if it is the man who loved her endlessly will no longer be there and no one can fully save her anymore
DeleteI don't think that Daisy was being selfish by not showing up to Gatsby's funeral. I think that her going would have made her feel guilty and very very sad. Knowing that he died because of his love for Daisy made her feel like it was her fault.
DeleteResponding to the inner circle: I think that maybe water, not the pool itself could be representing something that Gatsby has feared because he had created a connection of himself to Daisy, water being the division between the two. Gatsby had also mentioned to Nick that he hadn't stepped foot into his own pool once, the entire summer. Maybe that could be representing the fear of reaching out to Daisy, which didn't happen until Nick came along, and once things went wrong with Daisy, he threw himself into the nothingness of the dividing factor.
ReplyDeleteNow that we finished the book, what do the colors on the cover represent?
ReplyDeleteI think that the vibrant colors in the city below could be "covering up" or taking away from what lies behind or beyond the lights and colors that are attracting to the eyes.
DeleteDo you think that Nick's strong feeling of not wanting to leave Gatsby was a foreshadow of his death soon after?
ReplyDeleteTrying this one last time.... Who was always on the phone with Gatsby that he would look panicked then seemed fine when seen someone was watching.
ReplyDeleteTrying this one last time.... Who was always on the phone with Gatsby that he would look panicked then seemed fine when seen someone was watching.
ReplyDeleteTrying this one last time.... Who was always on the phone with Gatsby that he would look panicked then seemed fine when seen someone was watching.
ReplyDeleteTrying this one last time.... Who was always on the phone with Gatsby that he would look panicked then seemed fine when seen someone was watching.
ReplyDeleteTrying this one last time.... Who was always on the phone with Gatsby that he would look panicked then seemed fine when seen someone was watching.
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