The Great Gatsby
Discussion Questions
Chapters 1-2
1.What is the difference between East Egg and West Egg?
2. Please explain and analyze the quote "I hope she'll be a fool-that's the best thing a girl can be in the world, a beautiful little fool."
3.What does the valley of ashes symbolize?
4. What were the major events that occurred within the impromptu party?
1. The difference between East and West egg is that the West egg is the "New money," rich but not prestigeous and the East egg is like the rich and prestigeous, "Old Money." Inherited from past generations.
ReplyDelete2. Daisy is refering the social values if her era. It also shows Daisy's character and what type of person she is. She's not a fool, and doesn't value intelligence in women.
3. It symbolizes the poverty behind prosperity of West Egg and New York.
4. There was drinking problems with Myrtle which allowed her to cause a ruckus. Due to her angry drinking problem, she began to cause more problems by chanting Daisy's name in front of Tom, which he told her not to mention.
1.The difference between the East and West Egg is that the East Egg has very wealthy individuals who have inherited their fortunes from past generations while the West Egg individuals are those who did not start off being rich, but worked up to achieve the fortune that they now have.
ReplyDelete2.When Daisy says this quote she refers to her daughter and how she hopes she fits in to this "value." I agree with Jessica that Daisy herself is not a fool, but has grown in a world where the stereotype of women being hopeless and useless has been implemented into the everyday life, so she has stayed being a conformist with that generalization. From her personal experience she has come to the conclusion that it is better for a woman to be a fool since she, herself, has never stood up for what she truly believes.
3.I agree with Jessica that the valley of ashes symbolizes the poverty of those poor families who do not live in either the East or West Egg. This ugly, dirty and unpleasant place reflects the exact opposite of what East & West Egg offer showing the huge gap between classes.
4.I agree with the major events that Jessica said occurred at the party, but also many of the characters acted differently or hid behind the huge hypocrisy.