Gatsby Critics Flashcards
John McRae - Nick
“Nick narrates the novel through contradiction”
“Underlying insecurity makes Nick an unreliable narrator”
“[Nick] keeps undermining [his] self-image”
John McRae - Gatsby
“Contradictions between solidity and the intangible” - Gatsby’s green light
“Gatsby has a heart that is hollow”
John McRae - Wolfsheim
“Wolfsheim is the epitome of the grubby capitalist”
John McRae - America
“From nothing to the pinnacle”
“From a log cabin to the White House” (Abraham Lincoln)
Tredell
“[Jordan is the] epitome of the emancipated young American woman”
Cluley - Gatsby
“Gatsby builds his identity via his appearance”
“Gatsby becomes not only his own advertisement and product but his own dream from which he is awoken abruptly by a reality he had refused to acknowledge”
Cluley - Daisy
“Daisy, the creator of dreams, also has a great capacity to destroy them”
Cluley - book
“Whenever reality clashes against illusion in this novel the result is violently destructive”
Platt (f)
“[valley of ashes] is a world of insubstantial people, beliefs and morals”
Clark
1925 - “this patient romantic hopefulness against existing conditions symbolizes Gatsby”
Stocks
2007 - “Nick wants to portray Gatsby as ‘great’ and to ignore or edit anything that might undermine that image”
Flanagan
2000 - “Gatsby lives in the world of romantic energies and colours, a world shaped as a conspiracy between himself and the writer who has been creating him”
Fitter
1998 - “The spectral underclass […] wreaks the novel’s horrific climax, emerging as the apocalyptic assassin of the ideologically saturated ‘ideal’ order”
PBS Biographys
“F Scott Fitzgerald’s life is a tragic example of both sides of the American Dream - the joys of young love, wealth and success, and the tragedies associated with excess and failure”
Dyson
“Gatsby is the apotheosis of his rootless society”
“[Gatsby is set] apart from the cynically armoured midgets whom he epitomizes”
Rowe
“It is Nick’s own confused responsiveness to his cousin’s sexual power and charm that allows him to understand Gatsby’s equation of Daisy”
“Nick cannot help but be compelled by the buoyant vitality which surrounds her”
Bruccoli
“It is one of those novels that so richly evoke the texture of their time”
Topham
“Gatsby is really nothing more than a man desperate for love”
