Quotes Flashcards
chap 1 - unequal opportunities, metaphor
a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth
chap 1 - first description of gatsby, direct characterisation, attuned to the tone of a room
if personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heigtened sensitivity to the promises of life
chap 1 - start of a new story, renewal
life was beginning over again with the summer
chap 1 - description of tom, lexical field of superiority and arrogance
now he was a sturdy straw-haired man of thirty, with a rather hard mouth and supercilious manner. Two shining arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward… it was a body capable of enormous leverage - a cruel body.
chap 1 - daisy connection to sirens, indirect characterisation
I’ve heard it said that Daisy’s murmur was only to make people lean toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming
A promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour
chap 1 - tom and daisy united, simile
as if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged.
chap 2 - valley of ashes, metaphor, vivid visual imagery
where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of ash-grey men, who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air.
chap 2 - wilson’s lack of importance, indirect characterisation
mingling immediately with the cement colour of the walls
chap 2 - myrtle’s materialism
with the influence of the dress her personality had also undergone a change… converted into impressive hauteur
chap 3 - speculation about gatsby, still willing to attend his parties despite the rumours
you look at him sometimes when he thinks nobody’s looking at him. I’ll bet he killed a man
chap 4 - better that people turned a blind eye to Gatsby’s past, irony that a tribute is celebrating someone
paid him the subtle tribute of knowing nothing whatever about him
chap 4 - in new york, gatsby’s life is expected, juxtaposition of death to the optimism of the American dream
A dead man passed us in a hearse heaped with blooms, followed by two carriages with drawn blinds, and by more cheerful carriages for friends… Even Gatsby could happen, without any particular wonder
chap 4 - people’s ease at being blind sided, hyperbole - people knew it was fixed
It never occurred to me that one man could start to play with the faith of fifty million people
chap 4 - Daisy is dependent on Tom, weak and shallow, direct characterisation
If he left the room for a minute she’d look around uneasily… and wear the most abstracted expression until she saw him coming in the door
chap 5 - clock interrupts their meeting, showing how they wish to stop time
luckily the clock took this moment to tilt dangerously at the pressure of his head
chap 5 - daisy is upset over the time they have missed together, materialistic
It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such- such beautiful shirts before
chap 5 - the dream is more significant than the achievement
the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever
chap 6 - metaphor for the depth of gatsby’s dream, he can go anywhere with no restrictions
a promise that the rock of the world was founded securely on a fairy’s wing
chap 6 - Daisy doesn’t like the fast pace of the west, ironic that she can’t understand people having fun for the sake of it
she saw something awful in the very simplicity she failed to understand
chap 6 - Gatsby needs to be able to go back in time, can’t stand being able to not do something, esp. with all his wealth, rhetorical question, ignorance from wealth
“can’t repeat the past?… Why of course you can!”
chap 7 - gatsby did everything for Daisy, and her disapproval makes him stop, simile
so the whole caravansary had fallen in like a card house at the disapproval in her eyes
chap 7 - tom and daisy’s child is just a play thing for them, absent in their lives, adds complexity, ‘it’
Afterward he kept looking at the child with surprise. I don’t think he had ever really believed in its existence before
chap 7 - daisy and gatsby love each other, the heat muddles their thoughts, tom was blind to it and is hypocritical
she had told him that she loved him, and Tom Buchanan saw. He was astounded
chap 7 - gatsby explains daisy’s voice - direct characterisation, beautiful but 2D, wealthy and privelledged, a princess immature and no no understanding of consequences
“Her voice is full of money”… that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it… high in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl…
chap 7 - always watching, symbol of god, others may not see their actions but god does and will judge
over the ashheaps the giant eyes of Doctor T.J. Eckleburg kept their vigil
chap 7 - the sudden loss of gatsby’s dream once Daisy ruins it
They were gone, without a word, snapped out, made accidental, isolated, like ghosts, even from our pity
chap 8 - Gatsby’s worth nothing without his mask of wealth, appropriate everything, metaphor, reinventing himself
he was at present a penniless young man without a past, and at any moment the invisible cloak of his uniform might slip from his shoulders
chap 8 - end of the summer, start of autumn and the real world, draining the life from the party
‘I’m going to drain the pool today’
chap 8 - gatsby’s view of autumn, so different from the summer they were used to
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
chap 8 - wilson destroyed everything gatsby represented - self made man, individualist, lisr, fun, American dream
the holocaust was complete
chap 9 - ironic, tragic, used and abused and died alone
But it wasn’t any use. Nobody came.
chap 9 - Gatsby changed his view of wealth, and nick realises he doesn’t belong in the east, metaphor, repetition of distortion
After Gatsby’s death the East was haunted for me like that, distorted beyond my eyes’ power of correction.
chap 9 - blinded everyone with his money and charisma, tom has no sympathy, metaphor
He threw dust into your eyes just like he did in Daisy’s
chap 9 - Tom and Daisy’s wealth affords them freedom, run away t let other people deal with the consequences, smashed Gatsby’s dream, live in a bubble
They smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carlessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made
chap 9 - metaphor, no progress, can’t move against time, only goes in one direction, left in the past with no direction
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past
chap 1 - daisy’s materialism, experience of society, shouldn’t know what truly goes on in the world
‘I hope she’ll be a fool - that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful fool’
chap 5 - now that his dream is realised, the significance of it has disappeared
his count of enchanted objects had diminished by one
