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Theme of the great Gatsby and how the author shows it in the book
The great gatsby summary chapter 1-6
The great gatsby summary chapter 1-6
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The Great Gatsby Chapter 1 RQs
What advice did Nick’s father give him? just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had
Why does Nick hold Gatsby separate from others?
Because Gatsby turned out alright in the end
How did Nick end up in the country? What was he doing there? to start a family business Describe Nick’s house as well as you can. What is significant about West Egg?
It is a small home on the island of West Egg. Nick's cottage in an eye-sore that has been overlooked and it is surrounded by the very rich including the Buchanans and Gatsby himself.
Compare Nick and Tom.
Nick Carraway comes from a Minnesota family. He travels to New York to learn the bond business. Tom comes from
Why is that better than knowing the truth?
If she's a fool, she'll not realize how empty and meaningless a live like Daisy's can be, and will not suffer for knowing that.
Why can’t Nick marry yet?
Because he hasn’t found anyone he has liked until he meet Jordan
The Great Gatsby Chapter 2 RQs
Why does Tom want to go to New York?
To see Myrtle
Describe the setting of the valley of ashes where George and Myrtle live. What aspects of the setting imply that it is intended to have a symbolic meaning as well as a literal one?
Compare the Valley of Ashes to East Egg where Tom and Daisy live.
The valley of ashes is home to the perpetually impoverished. The inhabitants which work the mines are described as “ash-gray men which swarm up with leaden spades and stir up an impenetrable cloud. The use of gray symbolises the monotony and sadness of the workers, caught in an inescapable cycle of poverty. The east egg is shown to be conservative old money and society with polo ponies and old style mansions.
Where did Tom, Nick, and Myrtle go in New York?
To Tom and Myrtle apartment
How does Tom really feel about his wife? What argument exposes the truth to
Gatsby knows that Daisy didn’t have a good time at his party. What advice does Nick give?
How does Gatsby react to the advice he receives from Nick?
The Great Gatsby Chapter 7 RQs
How could F. Scott Fitzgerald be using the weather in a figurative way throughout this chapter? *Hint- Explain the weather. Then explain some of the things that are coming up within the story. (2)
Daisy and Tom’s wealth leaves them bored often, which is part of the reason for the moves to interesting places. With that in mind, do you think Daisy truly loves Gatsby or could it be something else? (1)
What is Tom’s reaction to Daisy’s affair? Why do you think he has that reaction? (2)
What has George Wilson finally discovered? (1)
Compare Tom and George in terms of knowing about their wives affairs. (3)
Tom
Both
George
What happened to Myrtle? (1)
Who did she think was driving? Who was really driving? (2)
How did Nick change after Myrtle’s accident? (1)
The Great Gatsby Chapter 8 RQs
How has Gatsby made Daisy into his own “Holy Grail”?
What foreshadows Gatsby’s
He rents a house in the West Egg district of Long Island surrounded by newly rich people. Nick is happen to see the garish display of wealth by his next-door neighbor a mysterious man named Jay Gatsby, who lives in a colossal Gothic mansion. Nick plans to meet his cousin Daisy Buchanan, and her husband, Tom, a former classmate of Nick’s at Yale, who belongs to the reputable upper class society in the East Egg, a fashionable area of Long
Daisy is living under the illusion that Gatsby has become rich and successful by working so hard and getting lucky with some investments. I think that when she first met him she probably did love him. He conveyed something to her that was the complete opposite of what she was: a poor soldier that did not have the social class that she possessed. But now her attitudes have changed and she is attracted to him because of his money and his apparent success.
Trilling, Lionel. "F. Scott Fitzgerald." Critical Essays on Scott Fitzgerald's "Great Gatsby." Ed. Scott Donaldson. Boston: Hall, 1984. 13-20.
His duplicity continues, as he meets Tom’s mistress, and later arranges Daisy and Gatsby’s meeting, even going as far as to say “don’t bring Tom” (85). These are clear deceptions and violations of trust, which both reveal that Nick is not the honest and forthright man he wants the reader to believe he is; on the contrary, in many ways he is the opposite of honest and forthright. However, Nick’s most clearly professed lie is in protection of Daisy, when Tom insists that Gatsby had killed Myrtle, and Nick remains silent, forgoing telling Tom about the “one unutterable fact,” - that it had not been Gatsby who was driving the car when it had hit Myrtle, but Daisy - in favor of protecting Daisy (178). Once again, Nick mischaracterizes his traits and even fails to recognize his deceptions and violations of trust as being dishonest, failing to evaluate his own traits. By highlighting Nick’s opinions of and interactions with life amongst the rich, F. Scott Fitzgerald crafts Nick into a complex character whose contrasting thoughts and actions create a many leveled, multifaceted character who shows the reader that one’s appraisal of one’s own traits can often be incorrect.
“The ‘Valley of Ashes’.symbolizes the human situation in an age of chaos. It is ‘a certain desolate area of land’ in which ‘ash-grey men’ swarm dimly, stirring up ‘an impenetrable cloud, which screens their obscure operations from your sight.’” (Dyson 113). Nick thinks of the place as “a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills into grotesque gardens” (Fitzgerald 23). And that is exactly what it is, since it’s a barren land of human waste.
... Nick makes a small funeral for Gatsby and Daisy does not attend it. He took the blame for her, and he is dead all because of her, he sacrificed for her. She and Tom decide to travel and take off. Also Nick breaks up with Jordan, and he moves back to Midwest because he has had enough of these people, and hates the people that were close to Gatsby and for bareness, emptiness, and cold heart they have of the life in the middle of the wealthy on the East Coast. Nick realizes, and reveals that Gatsby’s dream of Daisy was ruined by money and un-loyalty, dishonestly. Daisy all she cared about is wealth, she chased after the men that have a lot of money. Even though Gatsby has control, influence, and authority to change his dreams into making it into real life for him this is what Nicks says makes him a good man. Now both Gatsby’s dream and the American Dream are over.
This led Gatsby on because he dedicated his whole life to getting Daisy back, and she had no gratitude towards it. At the hotel suite scene, Daisy reveals to all that she loves Gatsby, but then also says that she loves Tom as well. This leaves the reader in awe, because after all the suffering that Tom puts her through, she still wants to be with him.... ... middle of paper ...
The main characters, Daisy, Nick, Gatsby, and Tom are all from the Mid-west. While Tom and Daisy Buchanan live an East Egg, being attracted by its glamour, excitement and promise of success, Nick enjoys living on West Egg. He mentions the friendship between Mid-Westerners, who are brought together by their extremely long and cold winters (in contrast to the New York summers' heat).
By exploring the physical site of the valley, followed by the inhabitants of the valley – George and Myrtle, George representing the working class and Myrtle the exception, extending this to the references of the valley to Gatsby’s humble origins, the Valley of the Ashes represents the low social mobility and the failure of the American Dream.
However, although the owners of industry found themselves better off wages didn’t rise equally, causing the gap between the rich and poor to grow markedly. Parkinson argues that the settings “represent [these] alternative worlds of success and failure in a modern capitalist society”. The valley of ashes symbolises this failure and moral decay, acting as a foil to the affluent “world of success”, East Egg, and highlighting that the lower classes must suffer to support its existence. This setting is introduced in Chapter 2 and is described as where “ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens”. The personification of the environment creates the sense that these failures are rooted in the land, suggesting that poverty is an inescapable part of American society.
Tom Buchanan is described as having a strong and repugnant presence. He was a star athlete at Yale and is restless after his glory days of playing there, “…had been one of the most powerful ends that ever played football at New Haven-a national figure in a way, one of those men who reach such an acute limited excellence at twenty-one that everything afterwards savours of anti-climax” (page 10). He is arrogant and seems to believe that he can have anything that he wants. Even though he has a wife and child, he has no problem with having a mistress on the side and does not care that others, including his wife, know about it. In addition, Tom is very self-absorbed and cares only about himself and his own desires. Tom was what Daisy’s family considered to be suitable for their daughter. That, along with his money, is mainly why she married him.
At the end of the book, it is revealed that all of Tom, Daisy, and Nick are extremely careless. Nick’s carelessness detriments his reliability as a narrator. Because of Nick’s deep and familiar connection with Gatsby, Gatsby is “the exception” and Nick cannot be a reliable narrator towards him. Nick really admires and appreciates Gatsby as a friend, although it seems that Gatsby may not feel nth same way ads Nick. Gatsby may have befriended Nick solely because of his connection with Daisy. Nicks obsession with Gatsby and Gatsby’s obsession with
The valley of ashes is “a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat into ridges and hills and grotesque gardens; where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent efforts, or men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air” (23). Here, The Valley of Ashes is regarded as complete destitution and hopelessness. The people known as the lower class do not wish to live in the valley of ashes. This is why people, like Myrtle try to do anything to get away from it but instead it becomes unachievable for them.
In the next chapter, the reader is introduced the bleak stretch of land between New York City and West Egg. It was there that Nick first met Tom’s mistress. Nick and Tom were taking the train into New York City one Saturday when Tom signaled to Nick that they were going to get off the train halfway to their destination in what seemed to be the middle of nowhere. Tom walked into an auto garage where he talked with a man named George Wilson, who asked about a car Tom was supposed to sell him. Wilson’s wife, Myrtle, emerged from the upstairs of the garage. When Wilson went off to his office for a moment, Tom quickly told Myrtle that he wanted to see her and to take the next train into New York. They arranged where they would meet quickly and moved away f...
A seemingly easy read, The Great Gatsby has won over critics around the world, and rightfully so, has become one of today's greatest classics due to its complex literary content. The narrator of the novel, Nick Carraway, grew up in the Midwestern United States and went to school at Yale University. Returning home after traveling a great deal, he is discontent and decides to move to the East in 1922, renting a house in Long Island's West Egg section. Jay Gatsby is a wealthy neighbor living next door in a lavish mansion where he holds many extravagant weekend parties. His name is mentioned while Nick is visiting a relative, Daisy. As it turns out, Jay Gatsby had met Daisy five years before while in the military. Meanwhile Gatsby spent all of his effort after the war to buy his mansion through shady business dealings in order to be nearer to Daisy in the hope that she would leave her rich husband, Tom, for him. Daisy is impressed by Gatsby's wealth and the two begin spending much time together, raising the suspicions of Tom who had also has his own affair with a gas station owner's wife, Myrtle Wilson.