Symbols In The Great Gatsby

Reconciling the Ramifications of DGS' Indoor Graduation Ceremony

Regardless of the piece of literature, English teachers have hounded students to find the symbolism of every significant event.

High school English is coming to an end for Downers Grove South seniors, but there’s still one last bit of analyzing to do before that big event—graduation.

The 2011 Downers Grove South graduation ceremony joins its 2010 predecessor as being an anomaly because it will be held in South’s large gym rather than the football field (the traditional location for the ceremony).

While the venue for graduation ceremony will be the same as the previous year, the rationale behind the selection is different. The 2010 graduation was held indoors due to potential weather hazards, while the 2011 Graduation will be held indoors due to the turf renovation on the football field.

South High students have been very vocal about the turf field. There have been several positive reactions from some, such as senior Matthew Cohen, 18.

“I think the football field is really cool," Cohen said. "Very few schools have them, and I’m glad that the school is doing something awesome for once.”

However, many students feel the football field adversely affects their graduation and aren't happy because they don’t get to experience it.

“I’m kind of mad that graduation isn't outside," said senior Nick Grunert, 18. "I’m not upset about getting the field but if it’s for next year I don’t see why it should ruin our graduation.”

Those are the circumstances. Now let's talk symbolism. 

Everyone has already heard that life isn’t fair, and while having graduation inside a stuffy gym while it’s 100 degrees outside might cause a few heat strokes, it’s not going to kill anyone. Throughout high school, students have always been taught to compromise, but never give up.

Having graduation in a less-than-ideal location in conjunction with budget cuts and no football field has the making of a lose-lose situation. In times like these, it’s important for students to understand that while circumstances may seem unfair, they don’t diminish the impact of what they have done. 

The high school career is coming full circle, and graduation is about what the students have made of their experience, not what experience has made them.

Another ramification of the indoor ceremony: each student only gets three tickets. Two tickets are for the large gym where parents can watch the ceremony live. One is for the auditorium, where the ceremony will be telecast. No one else can see the ceremony.

To Hashtag or #To Hashtag

I have been a communication professor for 40 years. I am also a painter, sculptor, husband, and the father of two adult children. My wife Christine and I live in North Carolina. She cooks exquisitely, I eat too much. My blogs are addressed to different purposes and different audiences, but apparently my profile must remain the same for all of them. Strange. Oh, well, hopefully the content will be sufficient clue as to the intended audience. I just read an article about the extent to which the “hashtag”, the symbol formerly known as the “number sign” or the “pound key” - “#”, has made it's way out of Twitter into the language at large.  The rather long NY Times article asserts that the symbol has come to indicate a sort of ironic separation from the content following the #.  I admit to not completely understanding - as I don't tweet.  But apparently a # inserted before the content seems to have much the same linguistic function as "not" inserted behind the content.  So, "#I completely agree" and "I completely agree . . . Not!" would be roughly equivalent statements. In the interest of full disclosure I must admit to a personal history of symbolic manipulation.  It was probably sometime after 5th and 6th grade spent in Vienna, Austria, when I first encountered exotic symbol systems, but before college, when the odds of being outed as a poser would have been far greater. I used to take notes in class in fluid nonsense symbols.  I would cover pages with intricate symbols - sometimes starting from the left, sometimes from the right.  It was great fun.  I would even cross out and make corrections.  I think, perhaps, it was somehow tied up with masking ignorance as secret knowledge.  And that, it seems, is a characteristic shared with the #.  The symbol, the article implies, carries the flavor of shared, but assertive, indecision.  A declaration of "I may not know what I'm talking about - but here is what I think anyhow!" It is a phase we all go through, and perhaps there is something hopeful in a generation with the courage to symbolically acknowledge, no matter how obliquely, their indecision or uncertainty. Still, it worries me that there seems to be an increasingly positive connotation attached to imprecise expression.

F. Scott Fitzgerald's The great Gatsby

F. Scott Fitzgerald, The great Gatsby

The Great Gatsby

The double-edged sword, the technological sublime in American novels between 1900 and 1940

Understanding The great Gatsby, a student casebook to issues, sources, and historical documents