Examples Of Dialectical Journal For The Great Gatsby

Passage 1: “My parents were nonmaterialistic. They believed that money without knowledge was worthless, that education tempered with religion was the way to climb out of poverty in America, and over the years they were proven right.” (29) Response: James’ mother was always consistent in saying that money means nothing. School and Church was all you really needed to succeed. His mother was deeply religious and her and her kids went to church every Wednesday and every Sunday. Her kids went until they were old enough to decide for themselves that they didn’t want to go. But over the years, they all turned to God and turned to school and they all became doctors, teachers, and psychologists. Being passionate about God and Education is what got them where they are today.
Mommy was, by her own definition, “light-skinned” a statement which I had initially accepted as fact but at some point later decided was not true. My best friend Billy Smith’s mother was as light as Mommy and had red hair to boot, but there was no doubt in my mind that Billy’s mother was black and my mother was not. There was something inside me, an ache I had, like a constant itch that got bigger and bigger as I grew that told me. It was in my blood, you might say, and however the notion got there, it bothered me greatly. Yet Mommy refused to acknowledge her whiteness.”