Part 4 · Close reading
Mirrors and an essay
Open both novels. Find each passage below, read it slowly twice, and answer the matching question. Then write the essay.
Five passages
| Book | Find this passage | Look for |
|---|---|---|
| Bel-Ami | Chapter II (Part 1, Chapter 2 in French editions): Duroy climbs the stairs to the Forestiers’ flat in his rented suit and sees himself in a large mirror. | He mistakes his reflection for a stranger, then rehearses his new self and believes it. |
| Bel-Ami | Chapter XVIII, the last chapter: the wedding to Suzanne Walter at . | Where he looks as he leaves the church. The climb is not over. |
| Gatsby | Chapter 6: James Gatz “sprang from his Platonic conception of himself.” | Self-invention as an act of faith, not a strategy. |
| Gatsby | Chapter 7: the quarrel at . | The insider unmasks the outsider. Who speaks most, and who goes silent? |
| Gatsby | Chapter 9: the boyhood schedule written in the back of a Hopalong Cassidy book. | Civility learned from a list. |
The essay
“Duroy succeeds because he has no illusions; Gatsby fails because he has nothing but illusions.”Essay prompt · about 300 words
Agree or disagree. Use Cuddihy’s idea of the ordeal of civility (Part 2) and at least one Gobineau excerpt (Part 3). Quote at least one passage from each novel.
A simple plan: (1) your position in one sentence; (2) Duroy and the code he unmasks; (3) Gatsby and the code he believes; (4) what birth and “race” add to the story, using Gobineau or Tom; (5) your position again, in new words.
Study questions
Your answers save in this browser. After you write an answer, you can compare it with a sample answer. The last box is for your essay.
Sources
- Guy de Maupassant, Bel-Ami (Paris, 1885).
- F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby (New York: Scribner, 1925).
- John Murray Cuddihy, The Ordeal of Civility (1974).
- Arthur de Gobineau, The Inequality of Human Races, trans. Adrian Collins (1915). gutenberg.org
- Eugen Weber, Peasants into Frenchmen (1976).