IntroductionThe Great Gatsby is often remembered as a novel about wealth, parties, romance, and the American Dream.But beneath all of that glamour is a more unsettling question:What happens when the dream that gives your life meaning also prevents you from living the life you actually have?Jay Gatsby spends years transforming James Gatz, a poor young man from … [Read more...] about The Great Gatsby Experts Explain Gatsby’s Dream and Tragedy
Literature
The Great Gatsby: Did Gatsby Love Daisy or His Dream?
Introduction The Great Gatsby is often remembered as a story about wealth, parties, romance, and the glittering excess of the Jazz Age.But underneath the champagne, the enormous mansion, the yellow car, and the green light across the bay is a much more intimate tragedy.Jay Gatsby spends years becoming the man he believes Daisy Buchanan should have chosen.He … [Read more...] about The Great Gatsby: Did Gatsby Love Daisy or His Dream?
After Of Mice and Men: What Happened to George After Lennie?
Introduction What Happened to George After Of Mice and Men?John Steinbeck ends Of Mice and Men beside the Salinas River.George tells Lennie about their little farm one final time. Lennie listens to the familiar dream of a house, land, freedom, and rabbits.Then George shoots him.The novel ends soon afterward.But George's life does not.What happened when the … [Read more...] about After Of Mice and Men: What Happened to George After Lennie?
Of Mice and Men in 7 Minutes: When Love Is Not Enough
Insert Video George Milton spends most of Of Mice and Men protecting his best friend.At the end of the story, he raises a gun and kills him.That is the shocking contradiction at the center of John Steinbeck's 1937 novel.But the deepest question is not simply:Was George right to kill Lennie?There is an earlier question.How did one man end up carrying so … [Read more...] about Of Mice and Men in 7 Minutes: When Love Is Not Enough
Of Mice and Men: 5 Modern Stories About Love, Care and Responsibility
Introduction George and Lennie’s tragedy in Of Mice and Men begins with friendship, but gradually becomes something much heavier.George is not simply Lennie’s friend. He becomes his protector, caregiver, problem-solver, safety plan, and eventually the person forced to make an unbearable decision about Lennie’s future.That leaves us with a question that … [Read more...] about Of Mice and Men: 5 Modern Stories About Love, Care and Responsibility
Of Mice and Men: Was George Right to Kill Lennie?
Introduction John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is often remembered as the heartbreaking story of George Milton and Lennie Small, two migrant workers traveling through Depression-era California with a simple dream.They want a little land.A house of their own.A few animals.And rabbits for Lennie.But beneath that small dream sits a much harder question.What … [Read more...] about Of Mice and Men: Was George Right to Kill Lennie?
Of Mice and Men: Was George’s Final Choice an Act of Love?
Introduction John Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men is often remembered as the story of two migrant workers and a dream that never comes true.But after listening to George, Lennie, Candy, Crooks, Curley’s wife, and Slim speak together, the novel begins to look much larger.It becomes a story about what happens when human beings need one another in a world that … [Read more...] about Of Mice and Men: Was George’s Final Choice an Act of Love?
The Grapes of Wrath Today: 5 Modern Stories About “I” and “We”
Introduction John Steinbeck wrote The Grapes of Wrath about one displaced family, but he was never writing about only one family.The Joads lose land, work, stability, privacy, and certainty. Yet the deeper injury is harder to measure. Again and again, they are forced to ask whether poverty changes what a person is worth, whether protecting one’s … [Read more...] about The Grapes of Wrath Today: 5 Modern Stories About “I” and “We”
The Grapes of Wrath Explained: 5 Questions Readers Still Ask
Introduction Few American novels have been praised, attacked, banned, taught, argued over, and reinterpreted as intensely as John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.It is easy to see why.On the surface, the novel follows the Joad family as they leave Oklahoma during the Great Depression and travel west in search of work. Their farm is gone. Their security … [Read more...] about The Grapes of Wrath Explained: 5 Questions Readers Still Ask
The Grapes of Wrath: When Does “Me” Become “We”?
Introduction What happens when a family does everything it was told to do, works hard, stays together, keeps moving, and still cannot find a secure place in the world?John Steinbeck's The Grapes of Wrath begins with one family losing its land, but it gradually asks a much larger question.At first, the Joads think in the language of survival.Our land.Our … [Read more...] about The Grapes of Wrath: When Does “Me” Become “We”?