Harkness discussion 12/19

Today in class we had a very nice discussion about chapter 7 in the novel The Great Gatsby. During this discussion, my group mainly focused on the fact that Myrtle had died due to a car incident and how Gatsby confessed his love to Daisey and he didn't want to be with him. This chapter showed a lot of different characteristics of our characters and how they would act under pressure. We have never seen something this major happens in the book up until this point. When we came together to a class we had a great conversation about how gruesome the murder was and even managed to squeeze some good jokes and pun in there as well. As we reviewed everything about this chapter one of the points we covered but I feel wasn't acknowledged enough for its significance. After Myrtle was murdered a black man came up to the cops and said he had seen the car that did it and helped describe what color and what it looked like. Because this book is told from toms perspective and it is set in the 1920's we know racism is a big thing, but the way tom talks about said black gentleman, he doesn't see him as "funny" or "laughable" he sees him as an equal that helped a small role but played a big part in this chapter because he is the first person to step up and talk about this major event. This chapter has some romantic and modern aspects an example where you can see both is when Gatsby says he will take the blame for daisy for the murder. This is romantic because he is willing to throw away everything for her. This also shows modernism because as a man in this time they are supposed to step up and take responsibility for women, which we discussed would be easy for him because he has a lot of connections will big people so he most likely will be okay after all of this ends.