Ben Dottinger 12/21/16

With most of our time in class today, we analyzed how the revelations about Gatsby’s past in the beginning half of chapter six pertained to the topic of the American Dream as well as what themes about the American Dream became prevalent as a result.
Remember, topic is just an idea or subject that prevails in a text or a passage, while a theme is an evidenced assertion that can be made about a given topic in a text.
We had focused mainly on the American Dream because this is, after all, 11th grade American Literature, and the American Dream is a hot topic amongst many American writers, especially in the modern era, which we are currently studying.
The activity today consisted of leafing through the nonlinear development of Gatsby’s origins that Nick relates in the head of chapter six to find quotes that were indicative of Gatsby’s change in social status as well as his achieving the American Dream and to write them down on the given note cards. Some of the events chosen and sampled in class were the fact that the young James Gatz had resolved to change his name to Jay Gatsby from a very young age, and, on top of that, he didn't believe he was the product of his unsuccessful, “shiftless”, farming parents. From these humble beginnings we can see that Gatsby had started with a social status pretty much as low as they come, his status did improve slightly when he made the attempt to leave North Dakota for a small Lutheran college elsewhere. His status, however, fell again when Nick described how Gatz had moved to the shores of Lake Superior, where he dug for clams for his own sustenance and survival. The first time we see Gatz’s status rise to neutral is when he meets Dan Cody and joins him on his yacht. This is as far as we had gotten with the note card activity before time had expired.
My sister showed me a song today, which offers what sounds to me like a modernist view on the modern-day American Dream, how not everybody is perfect or going to achieve perfection and have their dreams fulfilled, like the singer’s mom or even the line “We’re secretly out of control”. It’s attached below. Not my cup of tea for genre, but I really enjoy the meaning of the song, and I thought it was relevant. Hope you enjoy!
https://youtu.be/k0yxIXz8Yqw