Getting+Started

  YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR TWO POSTS!! SEE DISCUSSION BOARD! DUE DATE: ** Monday, March 30th **

Since our most recent work is __The Great Gatsby__, let's revisit a writing assignment from Chapter 8, in which you considered two major characters as symbols of the era. What did YOU CONCLUDE about Fitzgerald's expose` of the 1920s? *You already completed this task, so look at your response to this assignment!* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Focus on Fitzgerald’s language, as well as his expose` of the 1920s. Write your questions and thoughts in the margins. After reading and annotating, use the passage and your notes to write a paragraph that explores the following: ** // For Daisy was young and her artificial world was redolent of orchids and pleasant, cheerful snobbery and orchestras which set the rhythm of the year, summing up the sadness and suggestiveness of life in new tunes. All night the saxophones wailed the hopeless comment of the “Beale Street Blues” while a hundred pairs of golden and silver slippers shuffled the dining dust. At the grey tea hour there were always rooms that throbbed incessantly with this low sweet fever, while fresh faces drifted here and there like rose petals blown by the sad horns around the floor. // // Through this twilight universe Daisy began to move again with the season; suddenly she was again keeping half a dozen dates a day with half a dozen men and drowsing asleep at dawn with the beads and chiffon of an evening dress tangled among dying orchids on the floor beside her bed. And all the time something within her was crying for a decision. She wanted her life shaped now, immediately—and the decision must be made by some force—of love, of money, of unquestionable practicality—that was close at hand. // // That force took shape in the middle of spring with the arrival of Tom Buchanan. There was a wholesome bulkiness about his person and his position and Daisy was flattered. Doubtless there was a certain struggle and a certain relief. The letter reached Gatsby while he was still at Oxford.” // -Excerpted from __The Great__ Gatsby, Chapter 8 *In this assignment, you considered on some level HOW FITZGERALD'S NOVEL DEPICTS THE ERA IN WHICH IT WAS WRITTEN. Therefore, you have already analyzed a work of literature as a mirror of its time. Get the idea? Now, it is time to take it to the next level, focusing more specifically on the SOCIAL and POLITICAL climate of the era. **
 * Read and annotate the following passage from __The Great Gatsby__.
 * How can Gatsby be seen as a SYMBOL of the 1920s? EXPLAIN
 * How can Daisy be seen as a SYMBOL of the 1920s? EXPLAIN
 * Ultimately, what does Fitzgerald’s novel expose about 1920s society?
 * // “He did extraordinarily well in the war. He was a captain before he went to the front and following the Argonne battles he got his majority and the command of the divisional machine guns. After the Armistice he tried frantically to get home but some complication or misunderstanding sent him to Oxford instead. He was worried now—there was a quality of nervous despair in Daisy’s letters. She didn’t see why he couldn’t come. She was feeling the pressure of the world outside and she wanted to see him and feel his presence beside her and be reassured that she was doing the right thing after all. //