gatsby & native son themes + quotes Flashcards
dreams (futility, freedom, versus reality)
gatsby:
* “Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us.”
* “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”
* “There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams… because of the colossal vitality of his illusion.”
native son:
* “They say we ought to keep out of trouble, but they don’t give us a chance to live.”
* “He had always felt outside of it all, as though he were looking in on life through a knothole in a fence.”
corruption & moral decay
materialism, violence, american dream, dehumanisation
native son:
* “Mr. Dalton hires Negroes and gives money to Negro schools. It’s his way of saying, ‘I’m all right.’ But what’s he doing for them? Nothing.”
* “He had committed murder twice and had created a new world for himself.”
* “he was frozen with the cold thought that he had killed a white girl.”
the great gatsby
* “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money.”
* “Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand.”
* “Can’t repeat the past? Why of course you can!”
women
the great gatsby:
* “her voice is full of money”
* “i hope she’ll be a fool – that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool”
* “Dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blame deeply—I was casually sorry, and then I forgot.”
native son:
* “She was not so much a person as a symbol”
* “He had killed a white woman… and that made him feel a certain sense of satisfaction.”
* “Lord don’t let this happen to me! I ain’t done nothing for this to come to me! I just work! I ain’t had no happiness, no nothing.”
violence
as a product of social systems, which has consequences
gatsby:
* “Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand.”
* they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money
native son:
* “He felt the pressure of the walled-in city closing in on him, like a prison.”
* “He was filled with a bitter pride. He had done something.”
prejudice
barrier to equality, classism, tragedy, old money
gatsby:
* “An Oxford man! Like hell he is! He wears a pink suit.”
* “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money.”
* “She vanished into her rich house, into her rich, full life, leaving Gatsby—nothing.”
native son:
* ““If I wasn’t black and if they’d let me go to that aviation school, maybe I could fly one,” Bigger said bitterly.”
* “We know how you people feel.”
* “He knew that the white folks were looking at him in the same way that they looked at all the Black men and women in America: with a hard and steady gaze that held guilt and punishment.”
class divide
lack of opportunity, morality
gatsby:
* “an oxford man! like hell he is! he wears a pink suit.”
* “They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money.”
* “mr. nobody from nowhere”
native son:
* “he was bitterly conscious of the line that divided them.”
* “He gave millions to the Negro schools… but Bigger and his kind lived in rat-infested homes.”
the american dream
promise or lack of possibility, materialism
gatsby
* “gatsby believed in the green light”
* “ her voice is full of money”
native son
* “He had been brought up to believe that he would die within a certain number of years”
* “He could not understand why the very people who were responsible for this plight had all the power and money and never wanted to give him a chance.”
racism
gatsby:
* “If we don’t look out the white race will be utterly submerged”
native son:
* “All of ‘em I know ain’t got nothing and ain’t going nowhere.”
* “They own the world.”
family
gatsby:
* “shiftless and unsuccessful farm people”
native son:
* “knew that the moment he allowed himself to feel to its fullness how they lived… the same thing would happen to him that had happened to his mother”
* “he hated his family because he knew that they were suffering, and that he was powerless to help them”
religion
gatsby:
• “the eyes of dr. t.j. eckleburg”
native son:
• “he feared that the preacher would make him feel remourseful.”
