Paper 2 CRITICS

James E Miller

• Great Gatsby comparison with My Antonia

• worth the dream?

Gatsby’s Daisy is not worthy of his dream, Jim’s Antonia is perhaps worth more

Randall

• imagination

• My Antonia

• lack of strength

Mr Shimerda has the imagination to be a pioneer but not the strength

Joan Acocella

• My Antonia

• blessing and curse

• the dream

all the while that Cather is describing life’s terrors, she never stops asserting it’s beauties.. the dream is still there; we just can’t have it

Sarah Churchwell

• Great Gatsby

• Daisy is a rotten pomegranate

Daisy Buchanan, for all her charm and allure, remains a symbol of moral decay and superficiality that pervades the society depicted in the Great Gatsby

Drew

• Prelapsarian

• My Antonia

The prairie is the Garden of Eden (compare to fresh green breast vs valley of ashes- sense of innocence, the New World is post-lapsarian because of the rising corruption of morals and environment)

Christine Ramos

• Tom

• Great Gatsby

• ashes

by attempting to maintain his way of life, Tom has reduced whole people to ashes without any consequences

Claire Stocks

• Great Gatsby

• If Gatsby has no fans Nick is dead

Nick wants to portray Gatsby as great and to ignore or edit anything that might undermine that image

Stuckey

• My Antonia

• symbolic painting

Antonia is converted into a beautiful picture by Jim

Lucenti

• refuge

• My Antonia

Antonia becomes a pure ideality, a safe refuge to which Jim can return again and again.

Sarah Churchwell

• Antonia fan club

• My Antonia

• Jim haters

The book likes Antonia but it does not always like Jim- we are encouraged to distance ourselves

James E Miller

• My Antonia

• The Dream

My Antonia does not portray in any meaningful sense the fulfilment of the American Dream

Kelly McCormick

• My Antonia

• Immigrant experience

• footrprint

• dream

Each immigrant’s story represents a footprint in the journey of the American Dream

Peterman

• My Antonia

• pregnant energy

Larry Donovan can only make her pregnant; he cannot misdirect her energy

Whipple

• My Antonia

• evil land

(the land) a great antagonist (The American psyche is troubled by guilt, is it just a karmic response to its mistreatment)

Charles

• My Antonia

• Jim peaked on the prarie

for him (Jim), the sinking sun affords symbolic illumination for his own golden age

Charles

• My Antonia

• Mr Shimerda

• identity

• doom

the very marks of aristocracy forecast his doom

Reginald Dyck

• uneasiness

• change

• My Antonia

the novel reflects the uneasiness its readers felt toward the changing US culture

Joseph Uro

• My Antonia

• P & P

• Knight rebels

Pavel and Peter break from the chivalric code and they are the ones that survive

Catherine Holmes

• My Antonia

• picnic

• connection

• cutter

the picnic teaches the rewards of connection; the Wick Cutter episode teaches its price

Lambert

• my Antonia

• women’s success

Cather succeeded because she could imagine women achieving identity and defining their own purpose

Tredell

• My Antonia

• routes

Shows a spectrum of possibilities for woman rather than prescribing one route

Toby Tanner

• Great Gatsby

• Green light

The green light offers Gatsby a suitably inaccessible focus for his yearning

Toby Tanner

• Great Gatsby

• Mr Nobody from Nowhere

Can anyone in this book be said to be Mr or Ms Somebody from somewhere? They are all restless nomads from the Midwest, simply with more of less money ... he wants to show America desecrated, mutilated, violated".

Lionel Trilling

• AMERICA

• Great Gatsby

Gatsby stands for America itself

Michael Holoquist

• Great Gatsby

• erect

• belong

• forever

Gatsby is someone who is seeking to erect his own selfhood, and an identity that is whole, immaculate and lasting

A.E. Dyson

• Great Gatsby

• rootless

In one sense, Gatsby is the apotheosis of his rootless society. He really believes in himself and his illusions.

(apotheosis- culmination/climax, is being American searching for roots? Jim’s connection to Antonia is a way for him to connect, most of America lacks roots, rootlessness- what makes him the figure of the ‘`the Great Gatsby’ yet everyone in the novel is trying to escape being rootless)

James E Miller

• My Antonia

• the road

• the past

this road (at the end of the novel) is America’s road, leading not into the future but into the past, fast fading from memory

James E Miller

• My Antonia

• something missed

• national

• Jim

his melancholy sense of loss and longing for something missed in the past is a national longing

Amy Ahearn

• My Antonia

• past

• childhood

• symbol

Antonia is emblematic of the past, representing the whole adventure of childhood which the narrator wants to recapture

The Great Gatsby published

1925

My Ántonia published

1918

The term ‘self-made man’ was coined

in 1842 by Henry Clay in the United States Senate

American Civil War lasted from…

1861 to 1865

Slavery was abolished in…

1865

First World War lasted from

1914 to 1918

USA joined First World War in

1917

Second World War lasted from

1939 to 1945

Wall Street Crash was in …

(October) 1929

Great Depression lasted from …

1929 to 1939 (ish)

The 1920s were known as the…

Roaring Twenties

What was ‘Roaring’ about the Twenties?

1. economic prosperity / 2. recovery from First World War / 3. boom in construction / 4. rapid growth of consumer goods / 5. cultural dynamism in arts / music (it was the JAZZ age)

Flappers

were young women with bobbed haircuts, short dresses, lipstick, usually smoking and dancing to jazz music

In the American Constitution (1789), ‘All men are …

… created equal”

In the American Constitution (1789), all Men have a right to…

… “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”

What is a self-made man? (according to Henry Clay)

“success of an individual lies within themselves”

Ernest Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, and Gertrude Stein were part of the (what) generation of the (when)?

The ‘Lost Generation’ of the 1920s

Literary Modernism began when, peaked when, and ended when?

Began 1890 (ish), peaked 1922 (publication of Ulysses by James Joyce and The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot) and ended around 1940 (ish)

What is the fundamental characteristic of literary modernism?

The modernists wanted to break away from traditional writing with experimentation. The poet Ezra Pound’s motto was ‘make it new’.

What and when was the Dust Bowl?

A severe drought in the Midwest in the 1930s. It led to massive agricultural failure and displacement of families.

What and when was the Great Depression?

A long period of major economic depression following the Wall Street Crash in October 1929. Lasted until Second World War in 1939. It comprised 1. mass unemployment / 2. increased poverty / 3. steep decline in industrial production / 4. deflation (steep drop in prices)

‘Old World’ …

is Europe: embodying tradition, rich history and culture… BUT decaying morals

Old Money

inherited wealth, passed down from generations (old industrialists, former plantation owners, wealth from slavery)… they are seen as respectable/sophisticated

New Money aka ‘nouveau riche’

recently rich people who made money in new / emerging industries… stock market, investors, entrepreneurs, celebrities, etc. … they are seen as gauche/unsophisticated/immoral

‘New World’…

is America: a land of opportunity, where wealth is defined by hard work… or is it?

The period 1850 to 1910 (ish)

The frontier / Old West / Wild West

The period 1861 to 1865

American Civil WarT

The period 1865 to 1870

The Reconstruction Era

The period 1870s to 1890s

The Gilded Age

The period 1890s to 1920s

The Progressive Era

The period 1917 to 1920

The USA joins the First World War

1918 to 1929

The Roaring Twenties

1922

The high watermark of literary modernism … Ulysses by James Joyce and The Waste Land by T. S. Eliot both published

The literary period of 1890 to 1940(ish)

Modernism

The period 1929 to 1939

The Great Depression

1939 onwards…

The Second World War

Billionaires, from 1916-onwards… three bits of context

John D Rockefeller became first billionaire in 1916

Billionaires made their money from exploiting workers

A few billionaires engaged in philanthropic pursuits, giving to the poor etc

Kathleen Parkinson says “Fitzgerald allows Daisy to exist only in… ”

“the images men create of her”

Kathleen Parkinson: “Daisy exists…” (finish the quote)

"Daisy exists as an object of his dream” (i.e. Gatsby’s dream)

Kathleen Parkinson says “Myrtle Wilson is a victim of the WHAT WHAT who hold the social and economic power”

callous rich

What does Kathleen Parkinson compare Myrtle to?

A climbing plant

Kathleen Parkinson says “WHAT and WHAT are an inherent part of the American Dream, yet it often leads to WHAT and WHAT”?

Idealism and hope … disillusionment and tragedy

1880 to 1900, population in cities grew by … people?

15 million

1880 to 1900, what % of U.S. towns lost people due to rural-urban migration?

40%

What are two examples of metropolitan development in 1880 to 1900?

1. Increase in railway lines

2. increase in high-rise buildings

What is the NAACP and when was it formed?

The National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People, 1909

What Amendment brought in the prohibition of alcohol?

The 18th Amendment, ratified on 16th January 1919

When did prohibition of alcohol begin and end?

Ratified 16th January 1919, repealed 5th December 1933

What and when was the 19th Amendment?

Gave women the right to vote, ratified on 18th August 1920

When did women gain the right to vote in America?

The 19th amendment was ratified on 18th August 1920