Gatsby Ch 4 and 5

Here are some review questions on Chapters 4 and 5 of Gatsby.

Resume Help

Click on the following link for guidance on how to craft a resume.

Great Gatsby CH 1

Here is a document on CH 1 of The Great Gatsby.

Grammar Practice

Here is a document for review of commas, colons, and semicolons.

The Great Gatsby Full Text

Here is a link to a full text, online version of The Great Gatsby.

TTTC Reading Assessment Practice

Explain the significance of the following quotations.  How do they highlight a key theme or idea from the book as a whole?  Where does the quote come from - in other words, what is the context?

"In a way I wanted to stop myself.  It was cruel, I knew that, but right and wrong were somewhere else.  This was the spirit world."


"But you can't say that.  All you can do is tell it one more time, patiently, adding and subtracting, making up a few things to get at the real truth.  No Mitchell Sanders, you tell her.  No Lemon, no Rat Kiley.  No trail junction.  No baby buffalo.  No vines or moss or white blossoms.  Beginning to end, you tell her, it's all made up.  Every goddamn detail--the mountains and the river and especially that poor dumb baby buffalo.  None of it happened.  None of it."


"Because late that same night he borrowed a pistol, gripped it by the barrel, and used it like a hammer to break his own nose."


"Then he burned the two photographs...He realized it was only a gesture.  Stupid, he thought.  Sentimental, too, but mostly just stupid.  Lavender was dead.  You couldn't burn the blame."


Symbolism:  Characters as symbols.

Consider how the men in the Alpha company function as symbols.  How does Azar function as a symbol in the book?  What sort of man does he represent?  Think specifically about the situation with Bobby Jorgensen at the end of the book to help you.

What does Linda symbolize?

TTTC - Rhetorical Analysis Practice

Examine the last paragraph on pg. 143 in "Speaking of Courage" and answer the questions that follow.

1. Describe the primary purpose of this paragraph.

2. In the beginning of the paragraph, O'Brien writes, "he took pleasure in the steady sounds of the engine and air conditioning."  Reflect on the "steady sounds" and how/why these may be a comfort to Bowker.  How do these "steady sounds" connect to his constant driving around the lake?

3. Through Bowker's eyes, O'Brien describes how the town "looked as if it had been hit by nerve gas, everything still and lifeless, even the people."  What does this perspective suggest about how the war has affected how Bowker views the world?  Be specific.  Think about his specific choice of words here and what they mean.

4. O'Brien repeatedly uses personification in this paragraph.  Identify some examples of personification and the significance they have on the paragraph's tone and purpose.

5.  O'Brien uses the adjectives brisk and polite twice at the end of the paragraph.  To what purpose?  Consider the connotations of these two words and their particular significance.



Now read the following paragraph from later in the chapter, on page 150.

A good war story, he thought, but it was not a war for war stories, nor for talk of valor, and nobody in town wanted to know about the terrible stink.  They wanted good intentions and good deeds.  But the town was not to blame, really.  It was a nice little town, very prosperous, with neat houses and all the sanitary conveniences.


Think about these two paragraphs together and how they exemplify the theme of this chapter.   How do these paragraphs explain Bowker's suicide?