The Great Gatsby

1. The Great Gatsby • First Thoughts • General Discussion Questions • Important Quotes • Digger Deeper: Chapter Analysis • Final Thoughts Examining Chapters 4-6

2. First Thoughts… • Are the mysterious questions fully answered? • What pieces of the puzzle did we learn? Sum it up • What do you still want to know? • So Gatsby is….. • The green light is…. • What are your predictions for what will happen? No spoilers…

3. General Discussion Questions • Gatsby and Daisy finally meet again in person, how does that initial meeting go? Why? • Do Daisy and Gatsby both truly love each other still? Did they in the past? • Why include Wolfshiem?

4. Important Quotes: Close read together • Just after Jordan reveals that Gatsby bought his house strategically so that Daisy would be across the bay, Nick says “Then it had not been merely the stars to which he had aspired on the June night. He came alive to me, delivered suddenly from the womb of his purposeless splendor”(83). Explain what this means. Close read this quote. • “There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams-not through her own fault but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion. It had gone beyond everything…He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion…No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart”(101). Explain this. Does this reveal a flaw in Gatsby?

5. Jigsaw: Digging Deeper 3 chapters 3 groups • For your assigned chapter, work on your own to find examples and familiarize yourself with the questions for about 5 mins. • Then, gather with your group, discuss what you found, and organize your findings into articulate, analysis-filled words. Your groups will be pretty large so I expect you to treat them like a discussion group. Don’t divide the questions fully but work together. • Put these synthesized words on your nice piece of white paper; they will be shared with the class via the document camera. Please use a dark pen and write appropriately largely. (we all have the questions so you don’t need to write those). • You will have limited time to be effective and on topic, this is worth 8pts.

6. Chapter 4 • 1. Give your chapter a name/title and provide a one sentence justification for your title • 2. Choose a character (not Daisy) who features prominently in your chapter and write a topic sentence in response to a question asking what the character’s purpose in the novel is. • 3. Provide us with insight into Daisy. Is she a naïve but adaptable woman or does she manipulate in order to be on top? What are her priorities? • 4. Choose a “meaty” quote from Chap 4, record it, and provide some close reading for it.

7. Chapter 5 • 1. Give your chapter a name/title and provide a one sentence justification • 2. Choose a character who features prominently in your chapter and write a topic sentence in response to a question asking what the character’s purpose in the novel is. • 3. In what ways does Gatsby represent the real or stereotypical American Dream? • 4. Is Daisy all Gatsby needs to be happy? Is she what he is missing? Consider this quote: “Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever…His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one”(98).

8. Chapter 6 • 1. Give your chapter a name/title and provide a one sentence justification • 2. Choose a character who features prominently in your chapter and write a topic sentence in response to a question asking what the character’s purpose in the novel is. • 3. Explain how Gatsby “sprang from his Platonic conception of himself”(104). What does this mean? How exactly did he change himself and into what? • 5. Back to the West Egg vs. East Egg commentary, explain what is meant by the quote, “She saw something awful in the very simplicity she failed to understand”(114). What other parts of the chapter show the Egg distinctions?

9. Final thoughts • What is your assessment of Gatsby’s character now that you have much more information about him? Is he corrupt? Do you empathize with him. • Do we know what Gatsby is referring to when he says he has been, “trying to forget something very sad that happened to [him] long ago” (70)? • What is the “elusive rhythm” and “fragment of lost words” that Nick can’t remember at the end of Chap 6 and why does Fitzgerald do this to us? • Is Gatsby right, can you repeat the past?

10. Chapter 7 • Your homework is to read chapter 7, please respond to these four questions in your journal as well. Use a quote for each one. 1. How does Daisy go from Tom to Gatsby back to Tom in just one chapter? Follow this scene closely and identify the things that sway her most crucially. Use at least two pieces of evidence to explain. 2. Based on his actions, particularly in chapter 7, evaluate whether or not you think Gatsby is in fact “great”. You should have at least a couple of reasons…. 3. What purpose does Michaelis’s character have? Think big picture. 4. What are Daisy and Tom “nodding in agreement” and “conspiring” about at the end of chap 7? Does Tom really think Gatsby was driving?