Ryan Ryersen 1-6-17

Today in class we continued our study on The Great Gatsby, specifically chapter 7. We looked at chapter  7 in a document that was shared with the class. We were split into three groups one group focused on the beginning and end of the chapter specifically when they are in West Egg, one group focused on the car ride into and out of NYC and the third group focused on the time spent in NYC. I was in the group that focused on the car ride into and out of NYC. Everybody was supposed to identify specific parts of the chapter that represented a character’s high point and low point. We were looking specifically for high and low points because going from high to low is what we deemed to be tragic. On Thursday our class defined a tragedy as a rapid downfall from good fortune to bad fortune in a very short amount of time. So, we tried to analyze each character’s fortune in the beginning of the chapter compared to the end ot the document. We tried to cover each of the seven characters. For example, I focused on Tom’s low I focused on a section where Tom was talking to the policeman and Tom, usually an arrogant macho man becomes nervous and timid as he tries to cover his story. While this is bad for Tom in the scheme of things this not as bad compared to some of the other characters due to Tom’s immense amount of good fortune. In class other people focused on more tragic characters such as Gatsby who has a tragic downfall as he is now taking the blame for murder.