READING AND ASSIGNMENTS FOR
THE GREAT GATSBY

Begin by actively reading The Great Gatsby with an eye for the following focus areas. We recommend highlighting and making marginal notes, or using colored tabs/post-its if you’re using school copies of the texts.

Our focus areas for the books are:

  • the American Dream (What does it seem to be and what commentary does the book make on it?)
  • causes of disillusionment (Who is disillusioned? When? Why?)
  • interesting sentences (poetic, symbolic, or emphatic)
  • symbols (You identify and interpret these. Avoid Sparknotes or other hackneyed analysis.)
  • turning points (When does the action shift? What are the pivotal moments for each character?)
  • character development (Can you relate a character’s development to one of the above focus areas?)

After you read the book, you will consider Fitzgerald’s style in two isolated passages. Style analysis involves studying the manner in which authors write – their tone, word choice, selection of detail, organization and sentence structure, and other elements – in order to arrive at a better sense of each passage’s purpose. We understand that you are new to style analysis and will assess your work based on the skills you should possess having mastered an upper-level tenth grade English class. Do the best you can – relax, people.

Choose one of the following passages and answer the following prompt in a well-developed essay. Your essay should be 2 typed pages in length (double-spaced with 12-point font). Your essay should use quotations from the passage to support your analysis and assertions.
  1. pages 27-28 in Chapter 2, beginning with“About half way” and ending with “Tom
Buchanan’s mistress.”
  1. the last four paragraphs of the novel, beginning with “Most of the big shore places
were” and ending with “borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
Please respond to the following questions:
  • How does the passage you have chosen for analysis reveal Fitzgerald’s attitude towards American life in the 1920’s?
  • How do his details, images, specific diction, and organizational choices convey his attitude?
  • How does this passage relate to the work as a whole—perhaps an overarching theme, different moment in the text, or the characters’ development?
**Note: When writing use short, yet specific examples – focus more on explaining why or how your example supports your ideas.
** A big hint – the above questions are organized deliberately. If you consider them carefully, you should see an implied essay pattern.