Monday April 23 The Great Gatsby

Bathtub Gin.
The post World War I world wasn't all doom and gloom as reflected in Eliot's The Love Song of J.Alfred Prufrock or the angst and disillusionment of the characters in Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises. In The Great Gatsby (another ironic title?) we are looking at the pursuit of the American Dream. There is still disipation, but there is a vitality and overall celebration of life. Langston Hughes' poem says it well:

Jazzonia

Oh, silver tree! 
Oh, shining rivers of the soul! 

In a Harlem cabaret 
Six long-headed jazzers play. 
A dancing girl whose eyes are bold 
Lifts high a dress of silken gold. 

Oh, singing tree! 
Oh, shining rivers of the soul! 

Were Eve's eyes 
In the first garden 
Just a bit too bold? 
Was Cleopatra gorgeous 
In a gown of gold? 

Oh, shining tree! 
Oh, silver rivers of the soul! 

In a whirling cabaret 
Six long-headed jazzers play. 

Due today at the beginning of class for full credit: vocabulary 12
Chapters 3 and 4 of Gatsby. Quick write. As said before you will have one each day. I'll drop the lowest grade.
Classwork: What constitutes the American dream?
                   review of chapters 1-4
Gatsby. Reading schedule;
For Friday April 20 through chapter II
For Monday April 23 through chapter IV
For Tuesday April 24 through chapter V
For Wednesday April 25 through chapter VI
For Thursday April 26 through chapter VII
For Friday April 27 through chapter VIII
Be prepared for a quick write or short quiz for each day.

 I'm handing out vocabulary 13 (copy below), which is due on TUESDAY MAY 1.

Vocabulary 13    definitions

1.            abstruse- (adjective)- extremely difficult to understand; esoteric; arcane, recondite, occult

2.            affront- (noun)- an open or intentional insult; a slight, offense; (verb) to insult to one’s face; to confront,

          offend

3.            canard- (noun)- false rumor, fabricated story, hoax

4.            captious- (adjective)- excessively ready to find fault; given to petty criticism; intended to trap, confuse; show

       up,  fault finding, nit-picking, carping

5.            cognizant-(adjective)- aware, knowledgeable, informed, having jurisdiction; conscious, acquainted

6.            contrite- (adjective)- regretful for some misdeed or sin; plagued with a sense of guilt; thoroughly penitent, 

                     remorseful, rueful

7.            cynosure (noun) the center of attraction; attention or interest, something that serves to guide or direct, focus

8.            decorous (adjective)- well-behaved, dignified, socially proper, seemly, becoming, tasteful

9.            deign (verb)- to think it appropriate or suitable to one’s dignity to do something; to condescend, deem, stoop

10.        desiccated (adjective)- thoroughly dried out; divested of spirit or vitality, arid and uninteresting

11.        efficacy (noun)- the power to produce a desired result, effectiveness, potency, reliability

12.        engender (verb)- to bring into existence, give rise to, produce, to come into existence, assume form, beget,

                       generate

13.        ethereal (adjective)- light, airy, delicate; highly refined; suggesting what is heavenly (rather than earthbound)

                      celestial, gossamer

14.        façade (noun)- the front or face of a building; a surface appearance (as opposed to what may lay behind); exterior,  surface, mask, pretense

15.        ghoulish (adjective)- revolting in an unnatural or morbid way; suggestive of someone who robs graves or

                  otherwise preys on the dead; fiendish, barbarous, monstrous

16.        incongruous (adjective)- not in keeping, unsuitable, incompatible; discordant; jarring

17.        machination (noun)- craft, scheming, or underhanded action designed to accomplish some (usually evil) end; plot scheme, maneuver

18.        mesmerize (verb)- to hypnotize, entrance; fascinate, enthrall, bewitch

19.        opprobrium (noun)- disgrace arising from shameful conduct; contempt, reproach, infamy, dishonor, odium, shame

20.        putative (adjective)- generally regarded as such; putative; hypothesized, inferred, supposed, presumed

                              Vocabulary 13, exercise 1             Use the correct form.

1.            After years of neglect, the sooty __________________________ of the cathedral is finally getting a much needed cleaning.

2.            The ____________________________ practice of grave robbing is sometimes motivated by the desire to find and sell valuables.

3.            The physicist tried to explain her _________________________ research in the field of quantum mechanics.

4.            For over a century, the Statue of Liberty has been the _________________________ for millions of immigrants entering New York Harbor.

5.            Abraham Lincoln, the backwoods lawyer, and Mary Todd, the rich socialite, seemed a(n) _______________________________ couple.

6.            The tabloid journalist was responsible for spreading the ________________________ about the candidate’s mental health.

7.            On formal occasions, like weddings and graduations, participants are expected to behave in a _______________________________ manner.

8.            Shakespeare’s Othello was the victim not only of Iago’s evil ________________________________ but also of his own jealous nature.

9.            She is an invariably _________________ critic, finding fault with even the best performances.

10.        Jerald took the joke that Deanna had told him as an __________________, not as a harmless joke.

11.        The magician was able to ______________________________ the audience with his fast-moving hands and distracting chatter.

12.        Police officers must make sure that crime suspects are made ____________________________ of their rights before they are questioned.

13.        The enlisted men were surprised that the four-star general __________________________ to speak to them as he toured the camp.

14.        Despite the passage of centuries, ________________________________ is still attached to the name of the traitor Benedict Arnold.

15.        The convicted felon had the look of someone who was truly ____________________________ and ready to pay for his crimes.

16.        The cornfield was _______________________________ by the scorching sun after the long, hot summer without rain.

17.        Ancient Celtic rituals and ceremonies are the ____________________________ origins of some of our modern Halloween customs.

18.        The university has made an appealing videotape in order to ____________________________ student interest in studying abroad.

19.        Our team of inventors took great care to measure the _______________ of their newly designed machine.

20.        The Renaissance painter Fra Angelico captured the _________________________ beauty of angels in his famous frescoes.

                                  Vocabulary 13, exercise 2

1.            The longer I study this country’s history, the more ______________________________ I become of my rich heritage of freedom.

2.            Some historians question whether Benedict Arnold really deserves all the _____________________________ he has been accorded as America’s arch-traitor.

3.            At the risk of appearing a trifle _____________________________, I would like to raise a few small objections to the wording of this proposal.

4.            After the battle, camp followers began the _______________________________ process of stripping the dead of whatever valuables they possessed.

5.            Some teachers are able to present the most ____________________________ subjects in terms that are crystal-clear to even the dullest of students.

6.            The _________________________________ of the unscrupulous wheeler-dealers involved in that unsavory scandal boggle the imagination.

7.            I didn’t really believe that he was sorry for what he had done until I saw the ______________________ expression on his sad little face.

8.            The pages of the old book were so __________________________ that they began to crumble as soon as we began to touch them.

9.            There is not a vast body of evidence that supports the idea that poverty tends to ________________________ crime.

10.        To be the ____________________________ of all eyes could be the joyous fulfillment of a dream or the unhappy realization of a nightmare.

11.        The only surefire way to establish the __________________________of a new drug in treating a disease is to test it “in the field.”

12.        For more than five minutes she stared at the telegram containing the bad news, as if she were _____________________________.

13.        His fantastic stories about his academic, athletic, financial and romantic achievements are a(n) ______________________________ to common sense.

14.        Am I supposed to feel honored simply because that arrogant lout sometimes _________________________ to nod vaguely in my direction?

15.        Except for a balcony built during the Truman administration, the ____________________________ of the White House has remained virtually unchanged since it was constructed.

16.        What could be more _________________________________ that the 6-foot, 7-inch center on the basketball team dolled up in baby clothes for the class play!

17.        No one knows for sure who really wrote the scene, but Shakespeare is generally regarded as its ________________________________ author.

18.        Only a thoroughly naïve and gullible person would actually believe every preposterous ___________________________ that circulates in this school.

19.        The child’s conduct during the ceremony may not have been appropriately____________________, but it was not horrendous either.

20.        The cherubic faces and __________________________ voices of the choristers almost made me believe that the music they were singing was coming from heave.

Vocabulary 13, exercise 3

Synonyms

1. a fiendish interest in death                                                                  ______________________________

2. exposed as a total hoax                                                                       _____________________________

3. bewitched by the speaker’s soothing voice                                         _________________________________

4. esoteric concepts developed by experts                                              ________________________________

5. stooped to give a few interviews                                                        _______________________________

6. the focus of a dazzled audience                                                          _______________________________

7. conscious of our mutual responsibilities                                            _______________________________

8. disliked for his nit-picking                                                                 ______________________________

9. an offense to an entire group of people                                             _______________________________

10. the jarring reunion of longtime rivals                                              _______________________________

11. foiled the schemes of the villain                                                      _______________________________

12. begets distrust by covering up mistakes                                          _______________________________

13. paintings of women with heavenly qualities                                   _______________________________

14. showed a mere pretence of gratitude                                               _______________________________

15. brought shame on the whole family                                                ________________________________

                                            

Antonyms

16. the known whereabouts of the fugitive                                            _______________________________

17. the ineffectiveness of our foreign policy                                         ________________________________

18. the unrepentant ringleaders of the riot                                            ________________________________

19. looked over the soggy farmland                                                      _______________________________

20. the unseemly appearance of the judge                                            _______________________________   

Vocabulary 13, exercise 4

1.            If you had listened to my warnings in the first place, there would be no need for you to feel (contrite / desiccated) now.    

2.             A government that fails to bring about peaceful reform (engenders / deigns) the kind of social unrest that makes violent revolution inevitable.

3.            “Do we have sufficient evidence at hand,” I asked, “to judge the (efficacy / cognizance) of the new method of teaching reading?”

4.            In my youthful folly, I inadvertently (affronted, engendered) the very people whose aid I was attempting to enlist.

5.            The (efficacy, opprobrium) of history forever attaches itself to the name of Lee Harvey Oswald, the assassin of President Kennedy.

6.            For any actor, it is a unique thrill to know that when you are alone on stage, you are the (façade / cynosure) of hundreds of pairs of eyes.

7.            He tried to conceal his lack of scholarship and intellectual depth by using unnecessarily (efficacious / abstruse) language.

8.            The book describes in great detail the odious (machinations / facades) involved in Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in Germany.

9.            The President must always be on his toes because a careless answer to a (contrite / captious) question could land him in hot water.

10.        The candidate’s “shocking revelation” about his opponent was later shown to be nothing more that a malicious (canard / cynosure).

11.        I resent your nasty question about whether or not I will (deign / affront) to speak to “ordinary students” after I’m elected class president.

12.        The audience was so quiet after the curtain fell that I couldn’t tell whether they were bored or (deigned / mesmerized) by her artistry.

13.        Like many people who are completely wrapped up in themselves, she simply isn’t (cognizant / decorous) of the larger world before her.

14.        His unmistakable interest in the gruesome details of the tragedy revealed that he possessed the sensibilities of a (canard / ghoul).

15.        The play is so peopled with spirits and other incorporeal beings that it has the (ethereal / captious) quality of a dream.

16.        Her quiet speech, subdued clothes and (decorous / desiccated) manner made it hard to believe that she was famous rock star.

17.        He acts like someone whose vital juices have long since dried up, leaving only a drab and (desiccated / contrite) shell behind.

18.        It has been said that humor is essentially the yoking of (incongruous / ethereal) elements within a familiar or recognizable framework.

19.        Philologists believe that many Western languages can be traced back to a (putative / decorous) parent tongue known as Indo-European.

20.        It wasn’t at all hard to recognize signs of extreme uneasiness beneath her (canard / façade) of buoyant optimism.