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AP Success - AP English Literature Prose Analysis: Excerpt from "The Great Gatsby"

Question 1

Essay

The following excerpt is from F. Scott Fitzgerald's nove "The Great Gatsby.” In it, the narrator recounts witnessing a kiss between Jay Gatsby and Daisy. The narrator draws comparisons between the idealized experience of the kiss and the lived experience of the narrator as the observer.

In a well-written essay, analyze how Fitzgerald uses literary elements and techniques to explore the theme of idealism versus reality as experienced by the narrator and the characters in the scene.

In your response, you should do the following:

Respond to the prompt with a thesis that presents a defensible interpretation of the theme.
Select and use evidence from the passage to support your line of reasoning.
Explain how the evidence supports your line of reasoning.
Use appropriate grammar and punctuation in communicating your argument.

Your essay should consider how specific literary elements such as metaphor, imagery, symbolism, and tone contribute to the portrayal of this central theme.

Source 1.1

His heart beat faster and faster as Daisy’s white face came up to his own. He knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of God. 
So he waited, listening for a moment longer to the tuning fork that had been struck upon a star. Then he kissed her. At his lips’ touch she blossomed like a flower and the incarnation was complete. Through all he said, even through his appalling sentimentality, I was reminded of something—an elusive rhythm, a fragment of lost words, that I had heard somewhere a long time ago. 
For a moment a phrase tried to take shape in my mouth and my lips parted like a dumb man’s, as though there was more struggling upon them than a wisp of startled air. But they made no sound, and what I had almost remembered was uncommunicable forever. 
I stayed late that night, Gatsby asked me to wait until he was free, and I lingered in the garden until the inevitable swimming party had run up, chilled and exalted, from the black beach, until the lights were extinguished in the guest rooms overhead.

From "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald

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