Directions: Using your knowledge of the The Scarlet Letter and The Great Gatsby, select ONE quote from
EACH NOVEL which are noted below. In an essay of no LESS than 3 pages, but NO MORE than five pages
compare/contrast each quote noting similarities/differences in the literal, inferential and figurative
meanings associated with each quote.
Requirements:
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Select one quote from EACH NOVEL
3-5 pages in MLA format (use resource: https://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/)
12 pt. font/Times New Roman/double-spaced/one side of page only (not double-sided)
Rubric (each category will receive a score of zero-four...0-4):
4:
Absolutely stellar without errors or any ambiguity; above average
3:
Average with some errors, but essentially understandable
2:
Below average with several errors, elicits confusion for the reader and/or missing components
1:
Relatively unclear and lacking in effort; exhibits lack of understanding and/or many errors
0:
Category is missing completely and/or does not exhibit honors’ level implementation of
knowledge/content/material
Timeline:
CATEGORIES:
Assigned Prompt: Aug. 27
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Two quotes have been selected (one from each novel)
1st draft due: Sept. 3
Introductory paragraph identifies clear focus of analysis/comparison/contrast
2nd draft due: Sept. 10
Thesis statement
3rd draft due: Sept. 17
Transitions
Sentence structure
FINAL DUE: SEPT. 24
Thorough explanation/understanding of novels and grasp of
themes/symbol/etc. for incorporating use of quotes
7. Legitimacy for selection of two quotes (ex: sensible explanation for why selected to be compared
together)
8. Conclusion
9. Conventions (punctuation/capitalization)
10. Mechanics (spelling)
The Scarlet Letter – QUOTES
1. “A writer of story-books! What kind of a business in life, - what ode of glorifying God, or being serviceable to
mankind in his day and generation, - may that be? Why, the degenerate fellow might as well have been a
fiddler!” Such are the compliments bandied between my great-grandshires and myself, across the gulf of time!
And yet, let them scorn me as they will, strong traits of their nature have intertwined themselves with mine.
2. “Mother,” said little Pearl, “the sunshine does not love you. It runs away and hides itself, because it is afraid of
something on your bosom. . . . It will not flee from me, for I wear nothing on my bosom yet!”
“Nor ever will, my child, I hope,” said Hester.
“And why not, mother?” asked Pearl, stopping short. . . . “Will it not come of its own accord, when I am a
woman grown?”
3. But Hester Prynne, with a mind of native courage and activity, and for so long a period not merely estranged,
but outlawed, from society, had habituated herself to such latitude of speculation as was altogether foreign to
the clergyman. She had wandered, without rule or guidance, in a moral wilderness. . . . The scarlet letter was
her passport into regions where other women dared not tread. Shame, Despair, Solitude! These had been her
teachers,—stern and wild ones,—and they had made her strong, but taught her much amiss.
4. “Mother,” said [Pearl], “was that the same minister that kissed me by the brook?”
“Hold thy peace, dear little Pearl!” whispered her mother. “We must not always talk in the market-place of
what happens to us in the forest.”
5. But there was a more real life for Hester Prynne here, in New England, than in that unknown region where
Pearl had found a home. Here had been her sin; here, her sorrow; and here was yet to be her penitence. She
had returned, therefore, and resumed,—of her own free will, for not the sternest magistrate of that iron period
would have imposed it,—resumed the symbol of which we have related so dark a tale. Never afterwards did it
quit her bosom. But . . . the scarlet letter ceased to be a stigma which attracted the world’s scorn and
bitterness, and became a type of something to be sorrowed over, and looked upon with awe, and yet with
reverence, too.
The Great Gatsby – QUOTES
1. I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool. (chpt. 1)
2. In consequence, I‘m inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to
me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores...Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite
hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I
snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parceled out unequally at birth. (chpt. 1)
3. He smiled understandingly –much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality
of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced –or seemed to face
–the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on youwith an irresistible prejudice in your
favor.
It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe
in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impressionof you that, at your best, you hoped to
convey. (chpt 3)
4. He seemed absorbed in what he had just said. Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance
of that light had now vanished forever. Compared to the great distance that had separated him from Daisy it
had seemed very near to her, almost touching her. It had seemed as close as a starto the moon. Now it was
again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one. (chpt. 5)
5. Her voice is full of money‘...That was it. I‘d never understood before. It was full of money –that was the
inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals‘ song of it...High in a white palace
the king‘s daughter, the golden girl... (chpt. 7)