writing workshop

PARAGRAPH SAMPLES REVIEWED IN CLASS

Review the following writing samples.  Pay particular attention to clarity, language usage, and analysis.  Is the thesis one of analysis, or of summary?  Is the point of analysis significant?  When there is an introductory and a body paragraph, does the writer seem to address their own thesis?

BODY PARAGRAPH

Tom Buchanan displays the corruption of the American dream through his extravagant purchases and habitual disloyalty to his wife Daisy.  When Jordan describes Tom and Daisy’s wedding, she says that he “came down with a hundred people in four private cars, and hired a whole floor of the Muhlback Hotel, and the day before the wedding he gave [Daisy] a string of pearls valued at three hundred and fifty thousand dollars”(76).  Tom Buchanan is a member of the old money class; he has been handed down money from generations before him, and he has learned to sord the entrepreneurs of his time.  Because money has come to Tom his easily, he has no understanding of the value of a dollar; he has never had to work for wages a day in his life.  Because of this mentality, it is very easy for him to squander his fortune away on superficial items, rather than what is nevessary for one’s survival.  In the same conversation with Nick, Jordan tells him that

 “It was touching to see them together—it made you laugh in a hushed, fascinated way.  That was in August.  A week after [Jordan] left Santa Barbara Tom ran   

into a wagon on the Ventura road one night, and ripped a front wheel off his car.  The girl who was with him got into the papers, too, because her arm was

broken—she was one of the chambermaids in the Santa Barbara Hotel” (77).

This passage illustrates only one instance of Tom’s infidelity.  He and Daisy are able to maintain a façade that shows the world that their relationship is still very much in tact, although both of them know very well the weight of Tom’s actions.  In the end, after inflicting damage on themselves and the people around them, the two of them stay together through the devastation, because despite their differences, they are exactly alike.  Both Daisy and Tom are selfish and weak-willed individuals who are willing to hurt other in order to put themselves ahead.

 INTRO and FIRST BODY PARAGRAPHS

            The American Dream is the idea that through honest hard work, one can achieve monetary success.  During the 1920’s, this dream became more and more obscure, as people were trying to attain success not by sincere labor, but by the easiest means, whether ethical or not.  People earned their money by dealing drugs or blackmailing others or by simply lying to get their way.  Fitzgerald displays this corruption through the actions of characters such as Gatsby, Jordan, and George, and through circumstances of the events that concern them.

Fitzgerald presents corruption of the American Dream through the changes from boy to man that Gatsby goes through.  Gatsby’s one goal in life is to win Daisy however he can.  In order to get Daisy to love him, he makes her believe that he is a rich man, fully capable of taking care of her, instead of admitting that he is “a penniless young man without a past” (149).  Here, Gatsby can be still be seen as a man with the real American Dream in mind.  He, like so many men of his time, simply wants to live a better life.  It is when he transforms into “Jay Gatsby” that he starts to become corrupt.  James Gatz is the young man who dreams about a big future and schedules his time and sets standards and rules for himself to keep him on that track.  He is a boy with the hopes of one day working his way up to the top.  He is the real American Dream.  “Jay Gatsby,” however, is the corrupted form of the American Dream. With his focus on becoming a rich man for Daisy, Gatsby turns to underhanded work in order to earn money:

 “I found out what your ‘drug stores’ were… He and this Wolfsheim bought up a loft of side-street drug-stores here and in Chicago and sold grain alcohol over the counter.  That’s one of his little stunts.  I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him, and I wasn’t far wrong” (133).

Gatsby is the man who wants his wealth by whatever means possible.  He gains his wealth in a dishonest manner and not only that, but flaunts his new wealth by throwing lavish parties that he does not like, for people he does not know.  He has steered off the track that he once was on, blinded by his love her (sic) Daisy.  Fitzgerald shows the contrast of the decisions and views young Gatz and older Gatsby make in order to show how the American Dream is no longer clear as it once was.

 INTRO PARAGRAPH

            “It was an age of miracles, it was an age of art, it was an age of excess, it was an age of satire,” (Fitzgerald, x).  No other statements holds truer for the 1920’s.  Having occurred after the First World War, the 1920’s was witness to a cultural rebirth, the casting off of old ideals and the birth of a more carefree society, prone to deterioration of morals.  Filled with lavish parties, “risqué” fashions, and expressive forms of music, the 1920’s promised to keep any casual observer on his toes.  The 1920’s was epitomized by luxury or the pursuit of it, usually by illicit means.  This post-war social change, consisting of the loss of many past norms and the creation of more blithe ones, was best captured in The Great Gatsby and its many characters.  The sheer degree of avariciousness, rampant infidelity, and moral corruption exemplified in the practice of bootlegging, embodying the moral corruption of the American Dream in the 1920’s, is best witnessed in the characters of Daisy, Myrtle, and Gatsby.

 INTRO and FIRST BODY PARAGRAPHS

            The Great Gatsby is often viewed as a representation of the death or corruption of the American Dream from one of hard work and determination to climb the social strata, in exchange for get rich quick schemes and using as little effort as possible to climb to the top.   The upper classes scoffed at the people below them and hypocritically criticized the denizens below them with attempting to gain what they really did not deserve, while their soapboxes were filled with the fortune of their ancestors of real enterprise.  The other classes, not willing to take such tongue against them, refuted with the obvious fact that many of the “old rich” had no true industry or direction to claim their own, even if not in words.  The characters within The Great Gatsby exemplify this struggle of the classes and in the futile fight to improve where people stand socio-economically leads to Fitzgerald’s theme of the perversion of the American Dream, ending ultimately with the “success” of the idle rich, specifically Tom and Daisy, over those actually following the Dream.

            It must first be understood the position of those of the lower classes to comprehend their position, George Wilson being the main subject of the lower to middle working class.  Wilson as a character does not wish to climb the socio-economic ladder, and instead opts to live the American Dream through his garage business.  With every customer “a damn gleam of hope [springs] into his light blue eyes” (29) revealing an optimistic and even naïve outlook on life and his business, in hopes of accomplishing the American Dream.  Thus, in the fact of “living over that garage for eleven years” (39) speaks of the last vestiges of actual character in wanting to attain the American Dream, as George continues to push toward his goal, despite eleven years of what appears to be mediocre work.  In relating to this, Gatsby as a character also possess several characteristics that reside within Wilson.  Both men have made the involuntary agreement to follow the American Dream as originally defined, both not relying on past wealth to get ahead, but relying on themselves to make their lives to the best of their abilities.  Unfortunately, in the end, Fitzgerald makes the statement that the Dream is truly dead, with the murder suicide of both Gatsby and Wilson, with involuntary assistance from Tom.  Gatsby’s death by the pool signifies a poisoning of the very dream he set out for himself, since the water within the pool, normally associated with purity, is now seen stained by human blood, and human hands.  In such a manner, Fitzgerald makes the statement through Gatsby and Wilson about the death of the American Dream.

 INTRO PARAGRAPH

 In the roaring twenties, the nouveau riche and the old rich are considered two of the most powerful class both socially and economically. Although distinctively different in their own establishment, these two class share a common ground of moral corruption. Throughout his novel The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald laments his view of the morally corrupt people in the two classes by establishing their materialistic views and the abuse of alcohol.

 REVIEW:  RULES OF COMMA USE IN FORMAL ESSAYS