Mitchell Dohle
Mr. Jennings
AP English, 5 th
hour
February 24, 2014
The Great Gatsby
In Cornell Professor Dan McCall’s critic review, “On the Great Gatsby,” he proposes that
Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby are both images of the author Scott Fitzgerald and that he uses both characters to express himself. McCall uses the title by focusing on the word “great.” McCall points out that as we read the book there is two sides of the word “great” for Gatsby.
 combine
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One side being a legitimate hero, the other being a figure in a sideshow, a freak, and a carnival oddity. McCall also uses the sense of irony that is found throughout the book. He focuses on the character Jay Gatsby and how he has a misunderstanding of greatness. Another thing that the Cornell Professor focuses on is other sub-claims that the book introduces.
An example in which he talks about is the “anatomy of love and how all characters lover themselves, love things, and love each other.” As well as giving quotes in which Fitzgerald reflects about the book, “The burden of Gatsby is the loss of those illusions…” McCall focuses on this quote before he starts his main claim to show emphasis on “the loss of those illusions.”
The central claim in which the literary critic is proposing is that how Jay Gatsby and
Nick Carraway are just images of the author of the book, Scott Fitzgerald. Professor McCall uses sub-claims to really hook the claim into your head. He uses the title, irony, claims from the book, and quotes in which Fitzgerald says about the book .<--already told us this? The title has two meanings of the character Jay Gatsby, a good side and a bad side. Saying, “At one point… Nick

Carraway sees Gatsby as ‘a turbaned character leaking sawdust at every pore’”.
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SF (etc.)
But at another point in the story Nick looks at Gatsby as almost like a god, “ His tanned skin was drawn attractively tight on his face.” This traces back to Nick Caraway being an image of
Fitzgerald when the author states, “Gatsby was my imaginary brother.” Nicks attitude throughout the entire book was like a younger brother looking up to and talking about Gatsby.
The irony in which is shown is through the character Jay Gatsby and how there is two sides to him, the claim of love throughout the book, and the quotes in which are used to support all of the critics claims . McCall makes a good claim about love in the book, “The novel is a kid of anatomy of love – various characters in it love themselves, love things, love each other.”
Gatsby is a mysterious character, perhaps even super secretive. In chapter 4 Gatsby tells Nick that he is from the Midwest, Nick goes on to ask where from and Gatsby replies by saying, “San
Francisco.” Throughout the book it is easy to infer that Gatsby is hiding or protecting something.
But this all changes whenever Daisy appears because they have a past together. “Gatsby? What
Gatsby?”  YOUR IDEAS OR MCCALL’S?-->This is what Daisy said whenever she heard the name “Gatsby” for the first time. The two love birds meet up and start reliving there past by going on dates and going to parties. "They're such beautiful shirts," she sobbed, her voice muffled in the think folds. "It makes me sad because I've never seen such – such beautiful shirts before." Daisy is so in love with Gatsby and his shirts that she starts to cry. The irony of the situation is that this whole time Gatsby thinks Daisy loves him, Daisy loves her husband while her husband never did anything. This comes back to Gatsby being a figure of Fitzgerald, when
Fitzgerald says, “I never at any time saw him clearly – he started out as man I knew than changed into myself.”

Overall, I agree with the claim the critic is making, how Nick Carraway and Jay Gatsby are figures of the author Scott Fitzgeral. McCall uses effect quotes and outside evidence to get the reader’s attention and makes them think about how the claim of, Gatsby and Nick being images of Fitzgerald, could actually be true.
Mitchell: A good start. For revision, start with being very specific and only specific about the claims your literary criticism is making. Pay particular attention to the sub-claims and evidence.
Then state very clearly where the claims and evidence are those made by the author of your literary criticism and where the claims, evidence or warrants (explanation) are your own additions to the lit.crit’s argument. Make sure then to edit for conventions, sentence fluency and word choice. Worth a revisit to clarify your claim.