Gatsby quotes

Question 1

The green light

Answer 1

• “green light minute and far away”
• “stretched out his arms”
• “the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever”

Question 2

Time

Answer 2

• “start over as if it were 5 years ago”
• “why of course you can” (repeat the past)
• “defunct mantlepiece clock”

Question 3

Gatsby’s dream/hope

Answer 3

• “colossal vitality of his illusion”
• “Daisy tumbled short of his dreams”
• “he invented Jay Gatsby… to his conception he was faithful to the end”
• “it had gone beyond her, beyond everything”
• “he talked a lot about the past… he wanted to recover something”
• “paid a high price for living too long with a single dream”

Question 4

Gatsby’s veneer of class

Answer 4

• “I lived as a young Rajah in all the capitals of Europe”
• “silver shirt and gold coloured tie”
• “gorgeous pink rag of a suit”
• “he invented Jay Gatsby… to his conception he was faithful to the end”
• “yellow car”
• “Oxford man”
• “old sport”
• “his phrases were worn so threadbare”
• “Mr Nobody from nowhere”

Question 5

Gatsby’s house vs Tom and Daisy’s house

Answer 5

• “two enormous eggs”
• “sinister contrast”
• “An imitation of some hotel de ville in Normandy”
• “world’s fair”
• “Georgian colonial mansion”

Question 6

Materialism

Answer 6

• “she married you because I was poor”
• “string of pearls valued at three hundred and fifty thousand dollars”
• “married Tom Buchanan without so much as a shiver”
• “they’re such beautiful shirts”
• “thy had spent a year in France… and drifted here and there unrestfully wherever people played polo and were rich together”
• “her voice is full of money”

Question 7

Myrtle and George’s marriage

Answer 7

• “I married him becuase I thought he was a gentleman”
• “walking through her husband as if he were a ghost”
• “neither of them can stand the person they’re married to”
• “I’ve got my wife locked up in there”
• “my wife and I want to go west”

Question 8

Myrtle’s apartment

Answer 8

• “small” x3
• “furniture entirely too large for it”
• “scenes of ladies swinging in the gardens of Versailles”

Question 9

Daisy’s wedding day/marriage

Answer 9

• “take ‘em downstairs… tell ‘em Daisy’s change’ her mind”
• “married Tom Buchanan without so much as a shiver”
• “the pearls were around her neck”
• “string of pearls valued at three hundred and fifty thousand dollars”
• “they weren’t happy… yet they weren’t unhappy either”

Question 10

Infidelity

Answer 10

• “fifth guest’s shrill metallic urgency”
• “Tom’s got some woman in New York”- Jordan
• “I did love him once- but I loved you too”

Question 11

The American Dream

Answer 11

• “green light minute and far away”
• “the colossal significance of that loght had now vanished forever”
• “so we beat on, boats against the current, borne ceaselessly into the past”
• “he invented Jay Gatsby… to his conception he was faithful to the end”

Question 12

The Valley of Ashes

Answer 12

• “dismal scene”
• “fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat”
• “grotesque, crumbling, ghastly”
• “ever watched by Dr. T.J Eckleburg”…“like the eyes of God”

Question 13

Myrtle being sexualised

Answer 13

• “stretched tight over her rather wide hips”
• “immediate perceptible vitality”
• “smouldering”
• “left breast hanging loose like a flap”

Question 14

Gender

Answer 14

• “I may be old-fashioned in my ideas but women run around too much these days to suit me”
• “I hope she’ll be a fool- that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool”
• “his wife and his mistress…slipping precipitately from his control”
• “broke her (Myrtle’s) nose with his open hand”

Question 15

Myrtle’s death

Answer 15

• “left breast swinging loose like a flap”
• “her life violently extinguished”
• “mingled her thick dark blood with the ashes’

Question 16

Gatsby’s funeral

Answer 16

• “nobody came”
• “Daisy hadn’t sent a message or a flower”