Vilhotti, December 23, 2014
Ms. V’s guide to conclusions
Conclusions: Closing the Deal for the Reader
Conclusions: Notes
Conclusion Requirements:
1. YOU MAY begin with a conclusion transition or choose not to
a. Clearly, …Certainly,…Indeed,… In essence,…Essentially,…
2. Restate thesis and subtopics 1 & 2 – use different wording
3. Attempt to begin each sentence with an appropriate transition word or phrase
4. Attempt to show how your thesis is relevant to each stage of plot: exposition, rising action,
climax, falling action, and resolution
5. End with at least two of the following closing strategies:
A. Return to or build upon the epigram or quote you used for your introductory hook
(this strategy is my favorite because it creates a sense of unity and sophistication)
B. Revisit each assertion: remember, your reader will likely be visiting your title, epigram,
hook, thesis, assertions, each “go big,” and your conclusion to grasp your point. Make sure
to revisit each assertion in your conclusion
C. Discuss a quote and/or scene from the closing pages of the text as a strategy to
discuss each paragraph’s key point or to close out your essay completely.
Which strategies are you most likely to use in your conclusion? Why?
Sample Conclusion: Label what you notice based on 1-5 in your notes above.
Student Author: Rosie Nagele, 2013
[1] In essence, Fitzgerald uses Daisy’s voice to demonstrate how wealth can create a manipulative image of
power and how that image is destroyed by the truth. [2] He traces Daisy’s voice throughout the story of Nick’s
dynamic perception of his wealthy friends to represent his own journey of discovery of the true nature of the
wealthy. [3] Fitzgerald introduces its beautiful mysteriousness in the beginning, giving no hint to the reader
that it is manipulative, which mirrors Fitzgerald’s own attitude toward the wealthy during his relationship with
the idealized Ginevra and the beginning of his relationship with Zelda. [4] Through the story, the power of
the voice grows, first by seducing and then by commanding. [5] When Gatsby suddenly asserts the truth of
Daisy’s voice, which he may only have been enlightened to after seeing similarities in his own character after
becoming wealthy, it comes as shock to Nick, but thereafter his perception of her voice changes in a way
that demonstrates the truth in Gatsby’s statement. [6] These events emulate Fitzgerald’s discovery of
Zelda’s deceitful affair, and how this discovery brought reality to his view of his once idealized wife. [7]
Through the utter loss of power of Daisy’s voice at the end of the novel, Fitzgerald suggests that money
has power only when it is disguised as human superiority and not in its ordinary material form. [8] The
shiny cars and splendid houses that money buys suggests that extraordinary people inhabit them and exciting
things happen in them, but there is nothing to the money itself. [9] Once this realization is made, the wealthy
no longer seem so extraordinary, so “different”. [10] Indeed, all that makes them different, as Hemingway so
shrewdly remarked to Fitzgerald and as Fitzgerald eventually learned for himself, is the fact that they
possess more money.
How Is The Conclusion Related to the Title and Introduction?
Think: In her conclusion, how did Rosie expertly revisit her title and the historical frame
she used in her epigram and hook?
“Don’t believe everything you hear”: Daisy’s Voice as a Tool of Deception in Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby
“The very rich… They are different from you and me.”
-F. Scott Fitzgerald
“Yes, they have more money.”
-Ernest Hemingway
While this often-mythologized exchange never actually occurred between Fitzgerald and Hemingway, it
accurately represents their disagreement about the nature of the very rich. Hemingway accuses Fitzgerald of
having a “romantic view” of the rich in his 1936 story “The Snows of Kilimanjaro”. Indeed, in his real life, the
middle-class-born Fitzgerald fell deeply in love with an upper class woman, Ginevra King, whom he could only
dream of but not actually marry because of her elevated economic status, noting forlornly in his ledger that
“poor boys shouldn’t think of marrying rich girls.” Thus, Fitzgerald arguably fostered an idealistic image of an
upper class woman, experienced briefly that she was “different” without having the opportunity to discover
what it was that made her different. Fitzgerald’s relationship with his upper-class-born wife, Zelda Sayre, whom
he persuaded into marriage only after guaranteeing the financial success of his first novel, gave him a different
perspective on the nature of the wealthy, as he became exposed to her deceitful and malicious ways.
Fitzgerald’s journey from having a fantastical view of the monetarily endowed as superior creatures to having a
cynical view of their commonplace flaws is reflected in his 1925 novel The Great Gatsby. Through this novel,
Fitzgerald traces the narrator’s perception of his wealthy cousin Daisy Buchanan’s voice, which starts out as an
intriguing song, but ends up as a pathetic whimper. In essence, once the narrator discovers that the only thing
making her voice “different” is money, it loses its beauty and charm, becoming nothing but a weak whimper.
The narrator’s perception of the voice parallels the trajectory of his attitude toward his wealthy friends, which is
a demonstration of the shift in Fitzgerald’s own attitude towards the upper class.
Conclusions: label what you notice about the underlined elements of the conclusion in #’s 1-10 below.
[1] In essence, Fitzgerald uses Daisy’s voice to demonstrate how wealth can create a manipulative
image of power and how that image is destroyed by the truth. [2] He traces Daisy’s voice throughout the story
of Nick’s dynamic perception of his wealthy friends to represent his own journey of discovery of the true nature
of the wealthy. [3] Fitzgerald introduces its beautiful mysteriousness in the beginning, giving no hint to the
reader that it is manipulative, which mirrors Fitzgerald’s own attitude toward the wealthy during his relationship
with the idealized Ginevra and the beginning of his relationship with Zelda. [4] Through the story, the power
of the voice grows, first by seducing and then by commanding. [5] When Gatsby suddenly asserts the truth
of Daisy’s voice, which he may only have been enlightened to after seeing similarities in his own character after
becoming wealthy, it comes as shock to Nick, but thereafter his perception of her voice changes in a way
that demonstrates the truth in Gatsby’s statement. [6] These events emulate Fitzgerald’s discovery of
Zelda’s deceitful affair, and how this discovery brought reality to his view of his once idealized wife. [7]
Through the utter loss of power of Daisy’s voice at the end of the novel, Fitzgerald suggests that money
has power only when it is disguised as human superiority and not in its ordinary material form. [8] The
shiny cars and splendid houses that money buys suggests that extraordinary people inhabit them and exciting
things happen in them, but there is nothing to the money itself. [9] Once this realization is made, the wealthy
no longer seem so extraordinary, so “different”. [10] Indeed, all that makes them different, as Hemingway so
shrewdly remarked to Fitzgerald and as Fitzgerald eventually learned for himself, is the fact that they
possess more money.
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