How do we look at people who are notably different from us? What kind of assumptions do we carry with us? For whites in rural Indiana, we tend to make a lot of assumptions about the world around us. Even the term "white" carries with it a set of assumptions, as if it were a default setting, or something completely normal and neutral. We tend to draw differences between "us" and "them." When we do so, we create an "Other," someone or something to be studied and analyzed and possibly feared, but whatever "it" is, it's something we're drawing a distinction against.
For this post, I'd like for you to respond to Tyson's observations about Nick's depiction of either Wolfsheim, the blacks on the bridge Gatsby and Nick pass, or Michaelis. We must learn to notice how and what Nick notices--and how Fitzgerald uses diction to create an Other-ing effect.
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