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Priscilla Ceja
Mrs. Storer
English 3H, Block 5
25 November 2019
Socratic Seminar Reflection: Winter Dreams
Reflection on Performance:
For starters, our inner circle, as well as the other groups, spoke only about “Winter
Dreams” and “Hills Like White Elephants”, we did not mention the “Class Differences” article.
What our group discussed were questions like: Was a decision made at the end (Hills Like White
Elephants) and Does the American change his mind throughout the story the same way as the
girl? (HLWE). My personal favorite was: Is Dexter Green’s love for Judy Jones more true/real
than Judy’s love for Dexter? (Winter Dreams). My group could probably all agree that we had
good evidence to back up our claims. When the facilitator challenged Sophia’s perspective, I was
glad that she was able to defend her view about the man’s thinking throughout the story not
changing. As for Nellie, although no one challenged her view, she still provided good evidence
and had a strong argument about the symbolism that Fitzgerald uses to represent Marxism
(maybe that is why no one disagreed with her).
I remember defending around three questions in my argument, they were: Does the quest
for money and social status permeate all aspects of our lives as the APA article suggests? (WD),
Is Dexter Green’s love for Judy Jones more true/real than Judy’s love for Dexter? (WD), and Are
money and social status the same thing? (WD). What I was felt really good about in the
discussion is that in my opinion, I defended my topics pretty well. For example, when Kate, the
facilitator, asked if money and social status were the same thing, I answered that no because even
if you are in the lower class you can still make a lot of money; Dexter made a lot of money as a
caddy and he was in a lower class. I also believe I defended my view about Dexter’s love being
as real as Judy’s love very well; Dexter only liked Judy because she was pretty. What I wish I
did different was understand the passages a bit more. Although the facilitator did not choose to
discuss Hills Like White Elephants, I did not feel very good on the subject and if the Kate had
asked anything about that my arguments would not have been as strong. I was not even too sure
about much during the Winter Dream topic either, I felt much more prepared when we had the
Crucible Socratic because there were more class discussions on the subject and it was a more
interesting story.
Reflection on Content:
Judy has more power in her Marxist aspect than her beauty aspect because money gave
you many advantages back then.
There are many points that one could make for this argument. For example, with money,
Judy could buy products to enhance her beauty, adding on her to seductive powers. Another way
money gives her power is that many men would do anything for her because she was rich. In
addition, her being in an upper class (having more money) could force a poor man to turn into a
rich one to even consider her, an obvious example being Dexter. One more argument, though not
as strong as the others is that Judy could already use her existing money to get even more power.
For example, a wealthy politician might want to marry Judy because he wants her money, and in
exchange, Judy would gain political powers.
Although people may think that being beautiful is worth more than being rich, being rich
is better because it can make you beautiful. For example, many K-Pop stars in Korea start off as
ugly, but then they get plastic surgery or buy certain makeup and make themselves pretty. Also,
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being rich is better than being pretty because it brings more power. If Judy did marry a wealthy
politician, she would gain political powers because her opinion would influence her husband. For
example, the reason that the queen is more powerful than the King when playing chess is that the
people who played the game based it off of real kingdoms. The Queen was usually more
powerful than the King because she always got what she wanted by influencing the King’s
decisions. Judy could not even become a powerful “queen” if she did not have her wealth.