The Great Gatsby Part 3

We finished The Great Gatsby this week and the prompt for this blog is determining the central conflict. The central conflict is, I believe, person vs. self. The reason why this is the case is that Gatsby wanted to recreate his past as well as create a fake version of his current self, among other things. First off, he falsified his past in the way he interacted with his friends at parties and tried to conduct himself as if he had an elevated level of education, since this chapter reveals that he did not actually attend Oxford through graduation and instead only attended for 5 months. He also falsified the world around him by having his house look like it belonged in East Egg and spending money in flamboyant and erratic ways. The way colors are represented throughout the book all have a deeper meaning, in particular the color yellow. Gatsby owned a lot of yellow throughout his house, from his car to his tuxedo. The yellow represented the lie behind Gatsby’s money, self worth, and personal background. As you can see, the central conflict is person vs self, and how Gatsby is fighting to change who he is and where he came from, as well as where he wants to be in life.

The Great Gatsby Part 2

The prompt for this weeks blog post is “in chapter 5, when Daisy and Gatsby meet, how is weather used to create mood, and what mood(s) is created?”

The weather in this particular scene plays a big role on not just the mood of the scene but how the characters hold themselves, Gatsby is most effective by the weather and here’s why. Weather can set the mood in many situations, and can either worsen or improve a character’s emotional state depending on their present situation and how they react to the weather. From a mental and emotional standpoint, Gatsby was fearful for many reasons and the weather made this worse. For example, he was nervous about Daisy coming over and the weather made it worse because bad weather can be seen as a bad omen. Because Gatsby was so nervous to begin with, he fed off of the bad weather. He developed the mindset that something can and will go wrong. The author used the weather to show how vulnerable Gatsby was in this scenario, and create a sense of how far apart Daisy and Gatsby were. This was confirmed since at the end of the  conversation after tea they discuss the green light, with Gatsby discussing how he would observe the green light and their future happiness as far away.

The Great Gatsby Part 1

This is the first blog post since spring break and A-Term, within this time we started reading The Great Gatsby. The prompt for this blog is “In chapter 2 we are introduced to "the valley of ashes," a place between the Eggs and New York City. "The eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg" watches over this desolate place. What are the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleberg and what do you think that these eyes and the valley of ashes represent? Use textual evidence to support your position.” I believe that these eyes represent the eyes of the rich looking out on the less fortunate. But these eyes are not sympathetic. For example, “his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days under the sun and rain, brood on over over the solemn dumping ground.” (24) The word to brood means to think about something that makes you unhappy. Here, the eyes are looking down upon the valley of ashes; in other words, looking condescendingly on the people working there. The valley of ashes represents the “other” portion of the population that is not well off and not a part of the financial elite.