English 308: Paper 2 Spring 2018

For Paper 2, select one of the topics below and write a paper of approximately 500-750 words that describes Fitzgerald’s techniques for developing The Great Gatsby. (Your responses should come from your close reading of Chapters 1-4.) Write from a thesis and illustrate your work with aptly selected (and accurately documented) quotations:

Option A: What impact does Fitzgerald’s narrative structure have on your reading of The Great Gatsby?

Option B: Select one or several elements of Fitzgerald’s style and discuss how it is (or they are) interwoven in The Great Gatsby—and to what effect?

Option C: Select a repeated image—cars, homes, clothes, or some other—and describe the ways in which the repetition of the image makes it central to the development of The Great Gatsby.

  • Follow MLA guidelines for manuscript preparation; follow MLA, 8th edition, guidelines for documentation. If you have not retained your Beacon Handbook [or an alternative handbook] from your freshman composition course, visit Purdue Owl on-line for the current MLA guidelines.
  • Type your name, ENG 308, Paper #1, my name, and the date in the upper left hand corner of the paper.
  • Submit your paper as a MS Word file by e-mail attachment to my ISU e-mail address: . Title your Word file with your last name as the first word of the file title. For example, Smith Essay1.docx.
  • The paper will be evaluated on (1) the quality of the thesis statement, (2) the logical arrangement of your discussions, (3) the selection and analysis of quoted materials, and (4) stylistic and technical sophistication.
  • DUE:Friday, February 16 no later than 11:59 p.m.

STYLE NOTE: Quotations should be accurately incorporated into your text, of course, but they should also be woven in in interesting ways. Consider, then, alternative ways of positioning the “tag lines” that provide the quotation’s context:

When asked by Daisy if her Chicago friends had missed her, Nick playfully says, “The whole town is desolate. All the cars have the left rear wheel painted black as a mourning wreath and there’s a persistent wail all night long along the North Shore” (14).

“The whole town is desolate,” Nick playfully says when asked by Daisy if her Chicago friends had missed her. “All the cars have the left rear wheel painted black as a mourning wreath and there’s a persistent wail all night long along the North Shore” (14).

“The whole town is desolate. All the cars have the left rear wheel painted black as a mourning wreath and there’s a persistent wail all night long along the North Shore,” Nick playfully says when asked by Daisy if her Chicago friends had missed her (14).