Nov 2 In Class 6
Due Nov 9
The Great Gatsby: Questions Chapters 4 – 6
You may work with 1 – 2 other people who is/are reading The Great Gatsby from the same critical perspective as yourself. If you work with partners, you should help one another as you answer the questions.
Verbal Irony and Situational Irony
There are two common types of irony in literature—verbal and situational. Verbal irony involves an incongruity between what appears to be or should be and what actually is. Verbal irony and sarcasm are very close. A character who is frequently sarcastic or dishonest might be a person who should not be trusted or who is going to harm another character. Verbal irony can also be used by one character to condemn or draw out the flaws of another. For example, if one of your friends says, “Let’s go to the beach” on a rainy day, and another friend says, “Yeah, what a great idea; we can enjoy the sunshine!”
Situational irony occurs when something entirely different happens from what readers may be expecting, or the final outcome is opposite to what the reader is expecting. Situational irony generally includes sharp contrasts and contradictions. The purpose of ironic situations is to allow the readers to make a distinction between appearances and realities, and eventually associate them to the theme of a story.
Chapters 4 – 6 contain many contradictions and irony.
Exercise 1: Critical Perspective Group Discussion
Directions: Go back to the notes on In Class 4 (5) and re-read the description of your critical perspective. Write down a synthesized version of everyone’s understanding of your critical perspective. You can also have members of your group search the internet for more information on your critical approach. The purpose of this exercise is to activate your schema on your critical perspective as well as increasing your current understanding. Each member should write answers for herself/himself.
Exercise 2: Critical Perspective Group Questions.
1. What is your critical perspective’s attempting to understand?
2. List any secondary goals of your critical perspective.
3. Why did you choose this particular critical perspective?
4. List and explain any current, practical, educational, or professional situation in which you can apply your critical approach.
Exercise 3: Group Answers
Within your Critical Perspective group, discuss and write down your groups’ responses to the following questions below. Each person should write down the group response.
1. Each person chooses one of the following pairs of characters: a) Daisy/Myrtle, b) Tom/George, or c) Gatsby/Jordan.
a. Explain what each character represents from your critical perspective.
i. Give evidence from chapters 1 – 6 to support your response. Evidence can be the manner in which she/he speaks, the characters’ behavior, his/her social environment, her/his appearance.
b. Each person creates 2 similes or metaphors that best exemplify the pair of characters that you chose.
c. Describe the extent...
