{ELIT 48C Class #17

Less versus Fewer

Use fewer if you’re referring to people or things in the plural (e.g. houses, newspapers, dogs, students, children). For example:

People these days are buying fewer newspapers.

Fewer students are opting to study science-related subjects.

Fewer than thirty children each year develop the disease.

Use less when you’re referring to something that can’t be counted or doesn’t have a plural (e.g. money, air, time, music, rain). For example:

It’s a better job but they pay me less money.

People want to spend less time in traffic jams.

When I’m on vacation, I listen to less music

Agenda

The Great Gatsby

Themes Discussion

Culture Clash By juxtaposing characters from the West and East in America in The

Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald makes some moral observations. Appearances and Reality

Gatsby himself is a put-on, with his “Oggsford” accent, fine clothes, and “old boy” routine; behind this facade is a rags to riches story.

Moral Corruption The wealthy class is morally corrupt in The Great Gatsby. There are no

spiritual values in a place where money reigns: the traditional ideas of God and Religion are dead here.

In a similar manner, T. S. Eliot's renowned poem The Waste Land describes the decline of Western civilization and its lack of spirituality through the objective correlative (a term coined by poet and critic T. S. Eliot that refers to an object that takes on greater significance and comes to symbolize the mood and world of a literary work) of the wasteland.

Themes

Gatsby represents the American dream of self-made wealth and happiness, the spirit of youth and resourcefulness, and the ability to make something of one's self despite one's origins. He achieved more than his parents had and felt he was pursuing a perfect dream, Daisy, who for him embodied the elements of success.

Inherent in this dream, however, is the possibility of giving in to temptation and to corrupt get-rich-quick schemes like bootlegging and gambling. Fitzgerald's book mirrors the headiness, ambition, despair, and disillusionment of America in the 1920s: its ideals lost behind the trappings of class and material success. American

Dream

How is the story an ironic twist of the American Dream?

Do they achieve the dream?

Daisy Gatsby Tom Myrtle George Wilson Nick Jordan.

Examples of the American Dream gone awry are plentiful in The Great Gatsby: Meyer Wolfsheim’s enterprising ways to make money are

criminal. Jordan Baker's attempts at sporting fame lead her to

cheating. The Buchanans' thirst for the good life victimizes others

to the point of murder. George Wilson fails at his business even though he works

hard. On the flip side of the American Dream is

inexperience, gullibility, and a susceptibility to evil and poor-intentioned people.

Demand for the many new products that emerged in the 1920s was pumped up by a new industry, advertising, which developed new methods of enticing buyers to desire new products through new media like the radio.

The minstrel-show radio sitcom, Amos n' Andy, became a smash nationwide hit, sponsored by Pepsodent toothpaste. Through such sponsorships, the advertising industry grew in perfect harmony with the emerging industries of mass culture—especially network radio and Hollywood cinema. The emergence of broadcast networks and proliferation of studio-linked movie theaters made possible the development of a robust nationwide mass culture.

For the first time, a Detroit factory worker, a San Francisco longshoreman, and a Birmingham domestic could be expected to enjoy the same radio programs and watch the same films... and to smoke the same cigarettes and use the same toothpaste promoted on screen and on the radio.

Mass Production, Mass Consumption, Mass Culture

Some of the characters in the novel symbolize a production ethic; others symbolize a consumption ethic. Classify the characters accordingly, and draw a conclusion about the American Dream, as you understand it, from Fitzgerald.

Read Marxist Criticism Post #17: Brain Buster

Discuss Feminist, New Critical or Marxist theories in terms of The Great Gatsby. Choose a specific passage on which to focus your interpretation.

Homework