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The Great Gatsby. Discussion. Discussion Items. Characters Setting Plot Theme Mood/Structure Fictional Technique. Historical Context F. Scott Fitzgerald’s biography Your Point of View. Setting.
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The Great Gatsby Discussion
Discussion Items • Characters • Setting • Plot • Theme • Mood/Structure • Fictional Technique • Historical Context • F. Scott Fitzgerald’s biography • Your Point of View
Setting The time and place in which a narrative takes place; the physical and psychological background against which the action of a story takes place; the scenery and stage effects for a dramatic production. • Environment: The surrounding things, conditions, and influences in the narrative. • Place: The physical location of the narrative. • Time: The period or era in which the narrative takes place.
Setting as Means to Convey Theme • Midwest vs. East • West Egg - where Nick and Gatsby live, represents new money • East Egg - where Daisy lives, the more fashionable area, represents old money • The City - New York City, where the characters escape for work and play • The Valley of Ashes - between the City and West Egg, site of Wilson’s gas station
East vs. West • The East is corrupt. The West is innocent. • Nick, Jordan, Tom, and Daisy are all from the West. • The image of the West in America: the frontier, possibility, Hollywood. • Nick remembers life in the Midwest, full of snow, trains, and Christmas wreaths, and thinks that the East seems grotesque and distorted by comparison.
Queens and Long Island • The Valley of the Ashes is modeled on the city dump Fitzgerald passed many times, traveling between Manhattan and Great Neck. • The huge fading eyes of T. J. Eckleburgconvert a commonplace eyesore into a vast metaphor of modern desolation and futility. • Great Neck is refashioned into West Egg. • Manhasset is turned into East Egg (where the sun rises).
NYC In Manhattan: action takes place in specific locations. • Tom's love nest is on west 158th Street. • Nick first encounters Meyer Wolfshiem in a cellar restaurant on Forty-second Street. • Nick dines at the Yale Club and often strolls afterward "down Madison Avenue past the old Murray Hill Hotel, and over Thirty-third Street to the Pennsylvania Station.” • Wolfshiem's office is on frenzied Broadway. • The main characters assemble at the Plaza Hotel, which Tom specifies as being on the south side of Central Park.
Classwork • Find quotations that describe settings. • Look for contrasts between east and west, night and day, rain and sun. • Notice the sensory details and the language that FSF uses to develop these settings. • Note at least five quotations about setting. • Then…
Classwork • Choose your favorite quotation. Note the first and last words and page number. • Do a LIP Analysis: • Literal translation: rewrite the text in Nutley English • Interpret: explain how the setting conveys a specific message or theme • Personal connection: make it yours. • Draw an illustration, map or a diagram, or • Write a detailed description of the setting as you imagine it.
By Lucy Bowes: http://lucybowes.blogspot.com/2010/03/illustrations-inspired-by-great-gatsby.html