Gatsby : Jay Gatsby Flashcards
“He had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced, or seemed to face, the whole external world for an instant and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favour. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself.”
• Nick’s first close examination of Gatsby’s character and appearance
• Captures both the theatrical quality of Gatsby’s character and his charisma
• Encapsulates the manner in which Gatsby appears to the outside world, an image FG slowly deconstructs as the novel progresses to his death in chapter 8
• One of the main facets of Gatsby’s persona is that he acts out a role that he defined for himself when he was 17
• His smile seems to be both an important part of the role and a result of the singular combination of hope and imagination that enables him to play it so well
• Here, Nick describes Gatsby’s rare focus – he has the ability to make anyone he smiles at feel as though he as chosen that person out the “the whole external world”, reflecting that person’s most optimistic conception of themself
“Elegant young rough neck”
• Contradictory noun phrase → Oxymoronic
• Elegant//rough
• Shows his 2 sides: criminal and gentleman
• Hints to criminal side → bootlegging + speakeasies → Rebellion after WW1
“If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away.”
• With these words, which come early in Chapter 1, Nick describes Gatsby for the first time → Nick indicates that many people find Gatsby “gorgeous” because he exudes an aura of success.
• But this aura is just the effect of “gestures”—that is, Gatsby projects an image of success, whether or not there is any substance behind the image.
• Nick also implies that Gatsby is able to project an image of success because he’s especially responsive to what others desire. According to Nick, Gatsby possesses “an extraordinary gift for hope,” and he measures this hope with great sensitivity, like a seismograph.
“It was testimony to the romantic speculation [Gatsby] inspired that there were whispers about him from those who had found little that it was necessary to whisper about in this world.”
• At this point in the book, Nick has yet to meet Gatsby face to face, and rumours are circulating about the party’s host.
• One young woman puts forward an especially extreme hypothesis: “I’ll bet he killed a man.” In response, Nick observes that such gossip just goes to show how greatly Gatsby is shrouded in mystery.
• Even those world-weary and cynical folks who are not usually driven to gossip find pleasure in speculating about Gatsby.
“He hurried the phrase “educated at Oxford,” or swallowed it, or choked on it, as though it had bothered him now. And with this doubt, his whole statement fell to pieces, and I wondered if there wasn’t something a little sinister about him, after all.”
• Nick once again notes an oddity in Gatsby’s speech → This time the oddity relates to the moment when Gatsby says he was educated at Oxford.
• The way Gatsby seems to choke on the words makes Nick suspicious → telling a lie?
• As Nick finds out in Chapter 7, Gatsby was not educated at Oxford - or not exactly.
• He attended Oxford for five months before dropping out → Although at this moment in the novel Nick doesn’t yet know this information, he senses the lie, which in turn makes him mistrustful of Gatsby altogether.
“There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams—not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion.”
• Here Nick comments on Gatsby’s idealism regarding Daisy
• The “colossal vitality” of Gatsby’s illusions about Daisy doomed their reunion from the start
• There’s no way Daisy could live up to the image Gatsby’s created of her
• Nick foreshadows the inevitable failure of Gatsby’s pursuit of Daisy.
“It excited him, too, that many men had already loved Daisy—it increased her value in his eyes.”
• It is unclear whether Gatsby said this to Nick, or if this represents Nick’s interpretation.
• Either way, Nick’s words indicate how Gatsby’s desire for Daisy cannot be separated from a concept of value.
• Although the “value” mentioned here is not monetary value, the economic metaphor still holds: the greater the demand for Daisy, the greater her value.
“[Gatsby] must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream. He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass.”
• Nick speculates about Gatsby’s last moments of life
• Nick imagines that Gatsby must have felt a sense of grief about how the events of the previous day had unfolded
• Nick describes this grief in his own characteristically abstract way, referring to the loss of “the old warm world.”
• This turn of phrase encompasses Gatsby’s desire for Daisy and his hopes for their future together, both of which Nick thinks are illusory
• With Gatsby’s hopes shattered, the old world of illusions gives way to a “grotesque” and “raw” reality
