Blog Post
Objectives:
- IWBAT: Romantic and modern qualities of tragedy
- IWBAT: Evaluate how suffering varies by social class
Today in class, we continued yesterday's lesson on the difference between romantic and modern tragedy. Yesterday's lesson involved each person answering a question on Google Classroom asking what section of Chapter 7 they focused on (the group's trip to NY City, and their departure from the City). We were put into groups with others who selected the same topic. The groups looked at an online version of Chapter 7 and identified the highs and lows of each of the main characters.
Today, our previous groups were put into new groups with people who concentrated on the other topics and explained our observations on the characters from yesterday. We discussed which character we thought was the most tragic in this chapter (my group thought Daisy and Gatsby were the most tragic). Then, we had a class discussion expanding on this, referring to the Venn diagram made earlier in the class period. On one side of the chart, was romantic tragedy, which revolves around and personal flaw and human error and related mostly to people from noble birth and high social status. It was absolute and completely destroys one's life. Modern tragedy is caused by systemic flaw, which is error that can be attributed to uncontrollable circumstances. This form of tragedy can be applied to the common man and has a grey area because only a part of a person's life is destroyed. Both forms of tragedy involve a drop in status, which is more impactful the quicker it happens.
Our class filled out the romantic tragedy side of the diagram first, finding that this is what Gatsby wanted for Tom because Tom would lose everything while Gatsby gained everything he ever wanted. Gatsby's personal flaw was his obsession with Daisy and a five year plan ending with them running away together and being happy. His tunnel vision was his downfall because he was too emotionally attached to this idea, holding onto the past and how he and Daisy and were trying to recreate the impossible. On the modern side, we found that Daisy was able to let things go, which let her move on from Gatsby and causing her to fall in love with Tom. Myrtle's personal flaw was her search for self improvement. She wanted to have a better life and escape her poverty and home life through Tom, leading to her death and destroying a part of her husband's life because she was all he had.
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