Question

political, moral, and social fabric of our nation. which raises the question: to our students, and to ourselves, exactly what kind of great gatsby package are we selling?

1. i will grant fitzgerald this much: somehow, in the five years between his literary debut and the great gatsby, he taught himself to write. this side of paradise is intermittently brilliant but terrifically uncontrolled. gatsby, by contrast, is focused and deliberate: a single crystal, scrupulously polished.
2. it is an impressive accomplishment. and yet, apart from the restrained, intelligent, beautifully constructed opening pages and a few stray passages thereafter - a melancholy twilight walk in manhattan; some billowing curtains settling into place at the closing of a drawing-room door - gatsby as a literary creation leaves me cold. like one of those manicured european parks patrolled on all sides by officious gendarmes, it is pleasant to look at, but you will not find any people inside.
3. indeed, the great gatsby is less involved with human emotion than any book of comparable fame i can think of. none of its characters are likable. none of them are even dislikable, though nearly all of them are despicable. they function here only as types, walking through the pages of the book like kids in a school play who wear sashes telling the audience what they represent: old money, the american dream, organized crime. it is possible, of course, to deny your readers access to the inner lives of your characters and still write a psychologically potent book: i give you blood meridian. but to do that, you yourself must understand your characters and conceive of them as human.
4. what does the word \potent\ mean, as it is used in paragraph 9?

confusing
horrific
powerful
strong
clear all

Explanation:

In the context of "psychologically potent book", "potent" means having a strong or powerful effect. Among the options, "powerful" best fits this meaning. "Confusing" (causing confusion) and "horrific" (causing horror) do not match the context. "Strong" is more about physical or general strength rather than the psychological impact implied by "potent" in this literary - analysis context.

Answer:

powerful