love and desire Flashcards
Ch1 – “a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of the dock”
“gatsby had vanished and I was alone again in the unquiet darkness”
green symbolises money in the usa, first colour seen when discovering US land, the garden of eden which all have potential. – when we learn this is Daisy we know he was reaching out for her, reaching for hope.
- mysterious + odd behaviour, uses an oxymoron to show the uncertainty.
ch4 “a strained, unfamiliar look of embarrassment came over gatsbys face”
- Love is more powerful as gatsby is never embarrassed.
the facade is broken slightly to show how his desire for daisy is so powerful. - tom is proof of daisys relationship and feels intimidated.
ch5 “gatsby, pale as death, with his hands plunged like weights in his coat pockets, was standing in a puddle of water glaring tragically into my eyes”
- gatsbys pockets are deep with nothing, daisy exposes his raw emotions and love weighs him down physically in wealth and emotionally as he cant function without her.
- ‘tragically’ emphasises the genre
ch5 “he literally glowed…a new well-being radiated from him”
- the emphasis on light imagery is too far done, almost non-metaphorical and too good to be true
“He was silent and i guessed at his unutterable depression”
He wanted nothing less of daisy than that she should go to tom and say:’i never loved you’”
- Gatsby acknowledges their wealth divides them and they cannot be together.
He wants daisy completely for himself and still fantasises a life with her despite the differences showing how strong his desires are.
ch6 “he knew that when he kissed this girl, and forever wed his unutterable visions to her perishable breath, his mind would never romp again like the mind of god”
- ”perishable” would end the world he created and all his imaginations would be real.
- alternatively, “his mind would never romp again like the mind of god” because the platonic conception he is living in would plummet.
ch7: “from the ballroom beneath, muffled and suffocating chords were drifting on hot waves of air” (v similar to facade vs reality)
the wedding sounds are suffocating gatsbys dreams as he realises what Daisy has with Tom.
Ch7: “he spoke as if daisy’s reaction was the only thing that mattered”
He isn’t interested in myrtle’s tragic death, only daisy’s reaction as he builds his world around her
“So i walked away, and left him standing there in the moonlight- watching over nothing”
- Shows gatsby is stuck in the past whilst everyone around him is moving forward.
- The moon can represent passing of time/cycle and the moonlight could be daisy as a feminine symbol.
- Watching over nothing (juxtaposition) shows his pride and masculinity but nothing is contrasting his foolishness as he is not protecting anything anymore, now daisy has become distant and they relationship has hit an obstacle with myrtles death.
Ch8 “he stayed there [louisville] a week, walking the streets where their footsteps had clicked together through the november night
…Melancholy beauty”
- He spent all his money reminiscing about their relationship, contradicting the idea that Gatsby loves Daisy for wealth?.
- November symbolises the approaching of winter and death.
- Oxymoron shows their unrequited love. He wanted to create an idea of daisy like he did with ‘jay gatsby.’
ch5 “when i came home to west egg that night i was afraid for a moment that my house was on fire”
- foreshadowing later events when gatsby and daisy reunite there.
- fire symbolises warmth , passion, light and security but also represents danger and prometheus (greek god of fire) stole and deceived. american old money = ancient europe
ch7 tom: “go on. He won’t annoy you. I think he realises that his presumptuous little flirtation is over”
- very diminutive. The ‘little flirtation’ is so much more and the whole reason for the book
Ch1 “there a bird on the lawn which I think must be a nightingale come over over on the cunard or white star line…its romantic isn’t it tom”
AO1: daisy could be trying to grasp the attention of tom and she uses her vivid imagination but them when she says to tom its romantic that could be showing her sarcasm.
AO2: allusion
AO3: The titanic travelled on the white star line so this could be emphasising her sarcasm of romanticism in her relationship with tom as it is destined to sink.
AO4: ‘Ode to Nightingale’ by John Keates (part of the Romantics poetic movement)
The speaker is torn between the enchanting nature of death and uncertainty of life.
Could be an allusion to Daisy when she says “isn’t it romantic tom?” after seeing a nightingale as a possible poetic symbol. However, the “shrill” of the phone rings after depicting how modernity kills nature’s beauty.
AO5: ???
ch4: she began to cry - she cried and cried… she took it into the tub with her and squeezed it up in a wet ball… it was coming to pieces like pieces of snow”
- this shows she has changed her mind and no longer wants to marry tom.
- the letter is dissolving and the snow links to winter which links to death.
ch5 “im glad jay”
daisy knows the partial truth of gatsby behind the facade. she has power over him possibly?
