Quotations Flashcards
“A beautiful little fool”
• Daisy is a product of a society that does not value the intelligence of women
• Does No try to challenge the stereotype
• A girl can have more fun if she is beautiful
• Conforms to the standard of American feminist in the 1920s
“He had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it” chapter 3
• How Gatsby appears to the outside world which Fitzgerald deconstructs
• His smile seems to be important for the role he designed for himself at 17
• Reflects a persons most optimistic version of themselves
“That’s my middle west….I see now this has been a story of the west, after all- Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I were all westerners and perhaps possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life
• Brings the motif of geography to a conclusion
• The east is associated with a fast-paced lifestyle, decadent parties and crumbling moral values and the pursuit of wealth
• The west and Midwest is associated with more traditional values
• The western character of his acquaintances is the source of the story’s tensions and attitudes
• The impracticality of Nicks midwestern values in New York society mirrors the impracticality of Gatsby’s dream
“He stretched out his arms toward the dark water….i…distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away”
- Chapter 1
- The light represents Daisy
- Could symbolize money, success, and the past
- The inaccessibility of the green is an important element of its symbolism
“The apartment on the top floor- a small living room, a small dining room, a small bedroom and a bath”
- signifies the narrow opportunities that myrtle can achieve
- And how narrow her mind is
“…Its driver hurried back to where Myrtle Wilson, her life violently extinguished, knelt in the road and mingles with her thick dark blood with the dust”
- Brief explanation shows insignificance, one in many deaths
- sacrificed at the expense of wealthy careless men who abuse her