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Fresh from the world of organized parties that we saw in Chapter 3, now we dive head-first into the world of organized crime. In The Great Gatsby Chapter 4, our narrator Nick gets a short private audience with one of New York's premier gangsters - Meyer Wolfshiem, Gatsby's business partner. But, just as Chapter 4 exposes the seamy side of get-rich-quick East Coast life, we also learn the origin story of Gatsby's love for Daisy.

So, basically: come to The Great Gatsby Chapter 4 for human teeth as jewelry, stay for the thwarted romance.

In Arthur Miller's The Crucible, Rebecca Nurse is a prominent and respected older woman in Puritan Salem, drawn into the witchcraft trials because of her and her husband’s friction with the Putnams. Though she has the least stage time of any of the major characters, Rebecca is important because of the moral ideals she represents.

This guide goes over what we do know about Rebecca and explains why she is so important to the play despite her limited time in the audience’s eye.

In studying The Crucible, you will inevitably be faced with questions about the play's connections to the "Red Scare" of the 1950s and the phenomenon known as McCarthyism. These connections are important because they demonstrate that The Crucible is not merely a (highly adapted) retelling of historical events but also an allegorical reference to the timelessness of certain central human flaws.

In this article, I'll provide historical background on McCarthyism, tell you about Arthur Miller's personal involvement with the investigations of alleged communists in the 1950s, and explain how and why interpretations of The Crucible are so closely tied to the political attitudes and events of that decade.

In Act 3 of The Crucible, we meet the judges who have been conducting the witch trials. John Proctor and Mary Warren finally confront the court with the truth, but, as you'll see, the truth has limited currency when it doesn't align with what people have already chosen to believe. I'll include short and long summaries of Act 3, a list of the most important quotes, and a thematic analysis covering the events of this part of the play.   

Have you ever come across an object or an image in a book that was really over-described? That the author seemed way too over-invested in? Most of the time, that feeling is a hint that what you've encountered is a symbol! The Great Gatsby features many objects and images that pop up exactly like this.

But how do you interpret Great Gatsby symbols once you've found them? And how can you find symbols that don't have as much signposting around them? In this article, I'll take you through an explanation of what symbols are, how to locate them, and how to write about them. I'll also point you to in-depth articles about each of the most important symbols in The Great Gatsby.

In Great Gatsby Chapter 8, things go from very bad to much, much worse. There’s an elegiac tone to half of the story in Chapter 8, as Nick tells us about Gatsby giving up on his dreams of Daisy and reminiscing about his time with her five years before. The other half of the chapter is all police thriller, as we hear Michaelis describe Wilson coming unglued and deciding to take bloody revenge for Myrtle’s death.

Get ready for bittersweetness and gory shock, in this The Great Gatsby Chapter 8 summary.