What’s better than mystery, love, deceit, and death? Not much, you say? Then do we have the course for you!
Should you decide to take our PSAT prep course not only will you leave with the knowledge you need to be successful on the PSAT, but you will be able to teach The Great Gatsby to your teacher.
Sounds good to you? Excellent!
So, your name is now Jay Gatsby and here we go.
You live in Long Island, New York. In the West Egg to be exact. You stand outside your house and stare at a green light across the way. You had a love thing a long time ago with your new friend Nick’s cousin Daisy. Then Daisy married some guy named Tom. Following so far? Good. Nick has Daisy over for tea so you can “bump” into her after lo these many years. Let’s say things heat up quickly and you pick up where you left off.
You meet Tom, you don’t like him, and then Tom starts trying to figure out where you came from. You have, after all, come from outside the aristocratic life and nobody’s ever heard of you. Odd. So after his research, Tom outs you for being a bootlegger with a self-made story of when, how, and with whom you grew up, which means Daisy can’t be with you; she stays with Tom.
One night, on the way home from New York City, you kill Tom’s mistress (yep…affairs all around) by striking her with your car. Oops!
But wait! There’s more!
You tell Nick that Daisy was driving, but that he’s going to take the blame for it. Tom, the creep you know him to be, tells his mistress’s husband where to find her murderer. The husband finds you, kills you, and then kills himself.
NOT the end.
You don’t know, nor do you care because you’re dead, that the story continues.
Long story short, Daisy and Tom take off to do their own thing. Nick takes care of your affairs. Your “friends” don’t show up to your funeral. At the very end, Nick discovers the mystery of the green light – it’s the light in front of Daisy’s house across the bay. Even if he wanted to, Nick couldn’t repeat the past. Although he couldn’t repeat the past, he couldn’t escape it either.
Now take that information, put it in your pocket, and start teaching Great Gatsby first thing Monday morning.
After you’ve wowed your teacher and classmates, bust out what you learned in your PSAT prep course. You’ll look so good that the girl you’ve had a crush on since third grade will actually give you the time of day.
Thankfully it’s the time of day to go home. Ahhhh…home – where your copy of Huckleberry Finn awaits you as if it was a long lost puppy. Life is good.
Paul Thomson is an avid reader of English Literature. His areas of expertise include teaching Great Gatsby, PSAT prep, and American Poetry. In his spare time, he loves to participate in online literature forums and promote reading for youth.