1. Tuesday, March 8, 2011 Good morning, English 11!
Please pick up a Gatsby book and get your study guide out. We need to finish!
The class final is on Gatsby!
This means TOMORROW or THURSDAY!

2. The Great Gatsby Ch. 9.– pp. 171 - 189
Please turn to the appropriate page and continue reading.
Ch. 9.– pp
Nick’s narration returns to the present for a little bit. (Most of the book is a flashback of his memories of Gatsby.)
Take a look at your study guide questions for Ch. 9 before you read, so you know what to look for as you read.

3. The Great Gatsby – Chapter 9
Holocaust: 1. Great or total destruction 4. A sacrificial offering that is consumed entirely by flames. (American Heritage Dictionary)
Why do you suppose Fitzgerald chose that word to describe the deaths of Gatsby and Wilson? Were they sacrificed? For whose sins did they die?

4. The Great Gatsby – Chapter 9
“After two years I remember the rest of that day, and that night, and the next day, only as an endless drill of police and photographers and newspapermen in and out of Gatsby’s front door.” p. 171

5. The Great Gatsby – Chapter 9
“I think it was on the third day that a telegram signed Henry C. Gatz arrived from a town in Minnesota. It said only that the sender was leaving immediately and to postpone the funeral until he came.” p. 175

6. The Great Gatsby – Chapter 9
“ ‘Look here, this is a book he had when he was a boy. It just shows you.’ He opened it at the back cover and turned it around for me to see…” p. 181
Gatsby’s boyhood schedule
“ ‘Jimmy was bound to get ahead. He always had some resolves like this or something.’ ‘ p. 181

7. The Great Gatsby – Chapter 9
“About five o’clock our procession of three cars reached the cemetery…Mr. Gatz and the minister and I…and…four of five servants and the postman from West Egg…. As we started through the gate…I heard someone splashing after us over the soggy ground. It was the man with the owl-eyed glasses…. I don’t know how he knew about the funeral or even his name.” p. 183

8. The Great Gatsby – Chapter 9
One afternoon late in October I saw Tom Buchannan…
‘Tom, what did you say to Wilson that afternoon?’ He stared at me and I knew I had guessed right about those missing hours…

9. The Great Gatsby – Chapter 9
“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together…” p

10. The Great Gatsby – Chapter 9
“I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked our the green light on the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him…” p. 189

11. The Great Gatsby – Chapter 9
“Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter – tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther….And one fine morning – So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.” p. 189

12. The Great Gatsby – Chapter 9
Is the American Dream possible?
Does it exist or is it a myth?
Can we get lost in that dream and lose our grasp on reality?
Do the rich take advantage of our desire to be among them?
Remember that a tragic hero has defect or a tragic flaw that contributes to his or her downfall and only recognize it when it is too late to change the course of events. Is Gatsby a tragic hero?