Example Essays
Here are two examples of the kind of response to today’s essay assignment that students might take. You may take a very different approach to your essay response content, but your essay must link together the answers you came up with to all three of the questions asked in the assignment.
*Remember that the formatting is to be double spaced with no space between paragraphs.
Your essay must be finished and ready to upload to Turnitin when you come to class tomorrow.
Student Name
Mrs. Scales
Eng. 10
8 February 2016
Sophisticated, Not Content
In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby everything has a significance that isn’t always apparent when it is first read. Nearly everything that Fitzgerald writes comes to mean more when added to additional information further into the book. He does this through descriptive detail as well as the character dialog his complex characters deliver. When Daisy first utters, “Sophisticated—God, I’m sophisticated!” (17) the reader is unaware of the lack of satisfaction Daisy has found in her sophisticated life at a time in history when other women are stepping out of the traditional roles ascribed to them to live more carefree, spirited lives. At a time when women were throwing themselves into a life of fun, parties, and freedom Fitzgerald’s Daisy seems trapped in a life as desolate as glim as the valley of ashes separating the two sophisticated neighborhoods of East and West Egg from the modernized New York City.
Daisy Buchanan was born into sophistication. She did the sophisticated thing and marries someone from a wealthy class and a high standing family. They moved to the more sophisticated East Egg. While at the same time, her first true love struggled to acquire sophistication through amassing a fortune and buying a home in West Egg, which is known for it’s crassness and less sophisticated roots. All the time, neither character finding happiness nor contentment in either location.
As both main characters develop through Fitzgerald’s poignant story we see how desperate, unhappy and void of satisfaction their inner lives are in comparison to the sophisticated outer lives they are both living. Neither Daisy, nor Gatsby find happiness though they both live in sophisticated wealthy situations. Just as Fitzgerald describes the dark and desolate stretch of the Long Island Sound known as the valley of ashes, both Daisy and Gatsby live unsatisfied lives that do not bring them happiness. Their youthful hopes and dreams have decayed into the reality of a dark and harsh spirit breaking existence that mirrors the plight of those less fortunate and less sophisticated inhabitants of the valley of ashes.
Just as Fitzgerald lays out a path from privileged sophisticated lives out on Long Island, through the valley of ashes, to New York City, his characters follow a developmental path of youthful optimism for a future of sophistication and happiness that gets derailed by the destructive decisions they make, taking them into a hopeless, desperate state of being, void of satisfaction. To really understand just how unsatisfied Daisy’s life has turned out readers must pull together the skillfully crafted details that so powerfully define the internal struggles, disappointments, and resulting decisions that Fitzgerald’s characters are created from.
Works Cited
Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby. New York City: Scribner, 2004. Print.
Example 2
Emma Davis
Mrs. Scales
English 10 Honors
8 February 2016
Contemptuous Sophistication
The old generation ideals and the new generation ideals are both clearly displayed by the characters in The Great Gatsby written by F. Scott Fitzgerald. There is also one character whom struggles with making a decision as to which side she wants to be on: Daisy Buchanan. When Daisy exclaims, “Sophisticated―God, I’m sophisticated!” she is implying that she is disgusted by her choice of sophistication over happiness, but her undeniable lack of the free spiritedness of the 1920’s deters her from making he change(p. 17). Like the valley of the ashes, Daisy is stuck in a lonely desolate place between two seemingly wonderful lifestyles.
Daisy Buchanan has chosen a life of sophistication and class with Tom Buchanan, an utterly arrogant, close-minded and hulking man. She has made this decision in spite of an undying and passionate love she has with a newly rich man from a poor background named Jay Gatsby, whom would’ve given her happiness but not sophistication. When Jay Gatsby and Daisy are reunited thanks to Nick she is forced to reconsider her decision and given the chance to change her mind. Daisy has trouble with this decision because while she hates the fact that she is living this life of depressing sophistication, she also struggles to let go of it because she is scared to make herself and her family look bad; she is stuck in this presumable valley of ashes and doesn’t know exactly how to escape. This hesitation is an example of Daisy’s nonconformity to the Age of the Flapper within which women stood up for themselves and didn’t care about what others thought.
Daisy may send herself further into a state of self pity and resentment by choosing not to leave Tom. On the other hand she may take the step out of the valley of ashes into modern happiness, a life with Gatsby.
Works Cited
Scott Fitzgerald. The Great Gatsby. New York City: Scribner, 2004. Print.