2. Choose a character from one of the texts we have studied, and discuss how and why he/she transformed in the course of the text, how the author depicted the transformation, and how that transformation is related to a theme in the text. Finally, connect or compare that character to another character from another text from this or last semester.

How they transformed

Jane in the yellow wallpaper and Gatsby in the great Gatsby never transformed in their books. Both of them were beaten down by circumstances that surrounded them. In the great Gatsby Nick transforms through his understanding of what Gatsby went through. In the yellow wallpaper the author never shows you what happened when Jane’s husband woke up after seeing her transformation into a crazy person perhaps he transformed as well. The theme of the yellow wallpaper is that you cannot allow people to control your life you need to understand your needs and not just how down to how somebody else feels like Jane did with her husband. In the great Gatsby you learn that money does not make you a good person. Gatsby believed right up to the very end that his loyalty and love with win over Daisy that she was too shallow to see that.

3. American literature often explores how the realities of the nation contradict its ideals. Use two texts to develop an analysis of one such contradiction. Do the authors offer a way to resolve the contradiction?

Ideally and America everyone should be treated like equals. Life liberty and the pursuit of happiness based on nothing but how hard you are willing to work. It’s should not be based on how much money you have or whether you are a woman or a man. But that is not true. Jane in the yellow wallpaper and Gatsby in the great Gatsby are not treated as equals. Jane because she is a woman and Gatsby because he did not grow up in wealth.

The yellow wallpaper

  • Jane is treated like a child after she has a baby in the book the yellow wallpaper
  • her husband locks her up in the house and she spends nearly all of her time alone
  • Jane has no control over her life
  • Jane’s husband is a doctor and he tells her he knows what is best for her when it’s obvious that Jane is losing her mind he tells her he still knows best
  • Jane is being treated this way because she is a woman
  • it is an American ideal that all men and women are equal but it is not true Jane is only treated this way because she is a woman

 

The Great Gatsby

In The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald depicts East Egg represents the old money, West Egg the newly rich.

West Egg the newly rich

  • New or the self-made rich. Meyer Wolfshiem and Gatsby’s fortune symbolize the rise of organized crime and bootlegging.
  • The main plotline of the novel Gatsby’s dream of loving Daisy is ruined by the difference in social statuses, his resorting to crime to make enough money to impress her
  • Gatsby instills Daisy with a kind of idealized perfection that she neither deserves nor possesses.
  • Gatsby’s dream is ruined by the unworthiness of its object, just as the American dream in the 1920s is ruined by the unworthiness of its object—Daisy
  • Fitzgerald portrays the newly rich as being vulgar, gaudy, ostentatious, and lacking in social graces and taste.
  • Gatsby, for example, lives in a monstrously ornate mansion, wears a pink suit, drives a Rolls-Royce,
  • Gatsby does not pick up on subtle social signals, such as the insincerity of the Sloanes’ invitation to lunch
  • Gatsby, on the other hand, whose recent wealth derives from criminal activity, has a sincere and loyal heart, remaining outside Daisy’s window until four in the morning in Chapter 7 simply to make sure that Tom does not hurt her. Ironically
  • Gatsby’s good qualities (loyalty and love) lead to his death, as he takes the blame for killing Myrtle rather than letting Daisy be punished,

4. [Adapted from a past AP lit. question.] Many texts use contrasting places (for example, two countries, two cities or towns, two houses, or the land and the sea) to represent opposed forces or ideas that are central to the meaning of the work. Discuss one text from this semester that contrasts two such places and explain how the places differ, what each place represents, and how their contrast contributes to the meaning of the work.

In The Great Gatsby Fitzgerald depicts East Egg represents the old aristocracy, West Egg the newly rich. The clash between “old money” and “new money” manifests itself in the novel’s symbolic geography:

West Egg the newly rich

  • New or the self-made rich. Meyer Wolfshiem and Gatsby’s fortune symbolize the rise of organized crime and bootlegging.
  • The main plotline of the novel Gatsby’s dream of loving Daisy is ruined by the difference in social statuses, his resorting to crime to make enough money to impress her
  • Gatsby instills Daisy with a kind of idealized perfection that she neither deserves nor possesses.
  • Gatsby’s dream is ruined by the unworthiness of its object, just as the American dream in the 1920s is ruined by the unworthiness of its object—Daisy
  • Fitzgerald portrays the newly rich as being vulgar, gaudy, ostentatious, and lacking in social graces and taste.
  • Gatsby, for example, lives in a monstrously ornate mansion, wears a pink suit, drives a Rolls-Royce,
  • Gatsby does not pick up on subtle social signals, such as the insincerity of the Sloanes’ invitation to lunch
  • Gatsby, on the other hand, whose recent wealth derives from criminal activity, has a sincere and loyal heart, remaining outside Daisy’s window until four in the morning in Chapter 7 simply to make sure that Tom does not hurt her. Ironically
  • Gatsby’s good qualities (loyalty and love) lead to his death, as he takes the blame for killing Myrtle rather than letting Daisy be punished,

East Egg represents the old aristocracy

  • rampant materialism that characterizes her lifestyle
  • Daisy and Tom represent this idea
  • They believe their money makes them not accountable for their actions
  • They expect people to respect them like when Tom breaks his girlfriends nose and she still goes out with him
  • When Daisy lets Gatsby take blame for the accident
  • What the old aristocracy possesses in taste, however, it seems to lack in heart,
  • as the East Eggers prove themselves careless, inconsiderate bullies who are so used to money’s ability to ease their minds that they never worry about hurting others.
  • The Buchanans exemplify this stereotype when, at the end of the novel, they simply move to a new house far away rather than condescend to attend Gatsby’s funeral
  • In contrast, the old aristocracy possesses grace, taste, subtlety, and elegance, epitomized by the Buchanans’ tasteful home and the flowing white dresses of Daisy and Jordan Baker.

Texts we’ve read this semester: “The Yellow Wallpaper,” The Grapes of Wrath, The Great Gatsby, Slaughterhouse-Five,