Jay Gatsby, Old Sport!

We have started on our tragic heroes project, and so far it's been coming along very well. I absolutely love doing hands-on kind of projects, as I've always been the kinesthetic type of learner. Emiko, McCall, Katherine and I decided to do The Great Gatsby for our film, choosing Jay Gatsby as our tragic hero. I have always been a HUGE fan of Leonardo DiCaprio, so when Katherine suggested this movie I had no problem with going home and watching it right away. I fell in love with the movie, and after a good bit of thinking I agreed Jay Gatsby filled the role of a tragic hero completely. We are now in the process of painting golden stripes on our poster, and I think it will turn out great.

Jay Gatsby believes that there is a completely logical reason for his actions, yet all they do is bring disaster and pain. He follows the American Dream; he starts off "poor as dirt" and works his way to become extremely rich and very successful. However, he doesn't earn his money in a very clean way, foreshadowing his future problems. He meets Daisy, who is quite rich while he was starting off as very poor, and the difference in their social status kept them apart, although he never got over her. Daisy has a very materialistic outlook, and this influences Jay greatly. He claims it's all for Daisy, but it eventually becomes extremely excessive and corrupts him. He dies very tragically, and not one of the "friends" who used to come to his magnificent parties came to his funeral.