Michael Lopez

Ms. Storer
English 3 Block 5
February 20, 2020
Socratic Circle Reflection on The Great Gatsby
I would say that the performance of my group was pretty good. This was my first
Socratic where there were mixed opinions for every comment that was said. Since we discussed
The Great Gatsby by Stott Fitzgerald, it allowed many of us to prosper in our own thoughts
about the different scenes in the book. For example, we discussed question 6 which talked
about the power/vulnerability of a certain character. I personally discussed how Tom tried hard
to give of a persona that he was a powerful person in his relationship with Daisy, but he
seemed to be extremely bothered when Mertyl mentioned her name multiple times. My view
was that Tom was vulnerable emotionally because he knew that what he was doing was wrong
and tried to hide those feelings. After I said that, Kate had a different opinion in which she
believed that it showed Tom’s power and not his vulnerability. We also discussed the question
on Gatsby being a Christ-like figure and while I personally could not provide the evidence to
support my claim Max gave a good summary for both sides of the argument. His explanation
included how many people had different stories about him and that he lied a lot.
In the 3rd group, Patrick brought up the idea that Daisy is the definition of yellow in the
book. She herself is portrayed as the “golden girl” and many aspects of her life show this. For
example, he talked about the basic things such as the name “Daisy”. Daisy’s are yellow. Her hair
is yellow. He was able to make so many connections that were literally right in front of our eyes
yet most of us could not pick it up. Rachel also brought up an interesting point about the green
light on the dock. She concluded that the light on the dock symbolized the American Dream and
that it is obtainable. Nobody else was able to make that connection and I thought that was very
interesting. Patrick was able to provide lots of evidence surrounding the idea of yellow and
while it was basic, it was able to prove his point.
The differences in social class are greatly apparent in the story because characters poses
different attitudes toward each other, money plays a large role in the characters’ lives, and
characters were still able to be popular even if they did not have a lot of money.
This story seems to be all about social class and money. I mean the locations of the
characters’ homes in “West Egg” or “New Egg” show that there are different beliefs about that
money. Many of the wealthy people who inherited money from family look down upon those
who earned their money by working or going to school. Both sides had for example extravagant
homes and properties, but they differed in certain aspects like the architecture or the land
itself.
This story was pretty interesting to make connections in my life. For the most part,
making these connections were difficult because I don’t have an extremely wealthy family and
don’t have to deal with “rich people problems”, but there are certain characteristics about the
characters that I can relate to. For example, the whole idea of Gatsby’s true identity caused me
to realize that we really don’t know the truth about people in our life and we rely on rumors or
what the word is. It was also interesting to see that the people of old money looked down on
people who earned their money. To me that stood out because I would never look down on
someone who is hardworking like that. Other than that, there were not many connections to
make.