Reference no: EM13649747

1)Gatsby is dead, but Nick survives, and indeed seems to have been changed by knowing Gatsby. In what way is Nick different now? If the novel has a moral (it may have several), Nick is the one left to speak it. What do you think the moral is? What does the final sentence in the novel (one of the two or three most famous in all of American literature) mean?

2)Here's a short question with a potentially long answer: Who is responsible for Myrtle Wilson's death?

3) America, it used to be said, is a place where a man (and perhaps a woman, but this is less certain) can completely reinvent himself. James Gatz initially seems a perfect example of this. And yet Fitzgerald appears to question whether such reinvention is ultimately possible. In what ways do Gatsby's origins as Gatz affect him?

4)With the concept of hamartia that we have discussed this semester in mind, is The Great Gatsby a tragedy? Is Jay Gatsby a tragic figure? What, then, is his "tragic flaw," or what "error" does he make? And now that you've seen his dead body floating on an air mattress in his pool, what do you make of Nick's assertion at the beginning of the novel that "Gatsby turned out all right at the end"?

5)Gatsby believes Daisy will leave Tom, and is clearly nonplussed when she loses her resolve in the hotel room. Why doesn't she leave Tom? Why did Gatsby fail to anticipate her actions? What does Tom understand that Gatsby does not?