Quotes

Question 1

What does Nick recount in the opening of Chapter One that his Father told him?

Answer 1

That others have not enjoyed the ‘advantages’ he has.

Question 2

What does Nick describe his past and choice to move as in Chapter One?

Answer 2

‘Instead of being the warm centre of the world the middle-west now seemed like the ragged edge of the universe - so I decided to go East and learn the bond business’.

Question 3

How does Nick first describe his observation of Gatsby’s nighttime ritual in Chapter One?

Answer 3

‘He stretched out his arm toward the dark water in a curious way’.

Question 4

What does Nick say Gatsby fell victim to in Chapter One?

Answer 4

The ‘foul dust’ of the Roaring Twenties.

Question 5

What does Daisy hope her daughter will be in Chapter One?

Answer 5

‘I hope she’ll be a fool - thats the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool’.

Question 6

What is Nick’s house described as in Chapter One?

Answer 6

An ‘eye-sore’.

Question 7

What is the Valley of Ashes residents described like in Chapter Two?

Answer 7

‘men who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air’.

Question 8

What about Doctor TJ Eckleburg’s eyes can be linked to Gatsby?

Answer 8

‘Then sank down himself into eternal blindness or forgot them and moved away’ - Relatively similar to how Gatsby clings to his former relationship with Daisy - no longer exists just as the optical practice does not.

Question 9

What are Doctor TJ Eckleburg’s eyes described as in Chapter Two?

Answer 9

‘But his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground’.

Question 10

How does Nick describe Gatsby’s smile in Chapter Three?

Answer 10

‘It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it’.
‘Believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself’.
Both Gatsby and those he smiles at become fundamentally empty - Gatsby for putting on a performance and others for so desperately wanting to be understood.

Question 11

How does Fitzgerald assert criticism of the lavish parties in Chapter Three?

Answer 11

‘Pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold’ - So exquisite that they are practically enchanted whilst ‘bewitched’ suggests people of the 1920’s are possessed by consumerism.

Question 12

What has European style influenced in Chapter Three?

Answer 12

The Gothic library - ‘panelled with carved English Oak, and probably transported complete from some ruin overseas’.

Question 13

Who does Owl Eyes relate Gatsby with in Chapter Three?

Answer 13

‘It fooled me. This fellas a regular Belasco’ - Compares to David Belasco, an American play-write, director and impresario in the early 20th century.
Was known for using stage lighting and special effects to create realism and naturalism.

Question 14

What signifies the economic expansion of the 1920’s in Chapter Three?

Answer 14

‘Stocked with gins and liquors and with cordials so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too young to know one from another’.

Question 15

What are the people at Gatsby aware of in Chapter Three?

Answer 15

‘Agonisingly’ aware of the ‘easy money’.

Question 16

What does Gatsby refer to everyone as first made clear in Chapter Three?

Answer 16

‘Old Sport’

Question 17

What does Nick notice about Gatsby saying he was educated at Oxford?

Answer 17

‘He hurried the phrase ‘educated at Oxford’, or swallowed it or choked on it as though it had bothered him before’.

Question 18

What route to riches had Nick never seriously considered to exist before Wolfsheim in Chapter Four?

Answer 18

‘It never occurred to me that one man could start to play with the faith of fifty million people’.

Question 19

What does Gatsby call Wolfsheim which makes Nick uneasy in Chapter Four?

Answer 19

‘Smart man’ or fixing the 1919 world series. Realises Gatsby is aligned with a world of crime and unchecked power.

Question 20

What does Wolfsheim say about Gatsby in Chapter Four?

Answer 20

A man of ‘fine breeding’ who would never so much look at a friends wife’.

Question 21

What does Daisy say about Gatsby’s house which gives the appearance that his plan is unfolding perfectly in Chapter Five?

Answer 21

‘That huge place THERE?’ She cried pointing’.
‘I love it, but I don’t see how you live their all alone’ - a comment on the lifestyle of the 1920’s.

Question 22

What does Daisy say upsets her in Chapter Five?

Answer 22

‘It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such - such beautiful shirts before’ - Shows Daisy’s superficiality, yet they also represent her newfound ability to be with Gatsby. Her marriage with Tom was not as necessary as she thought it had been.

Question 23

How is Gatsby’s house described on the tour with Daisy and Nick in Chapter Five?

Answer 23

‘Through dressing rooms and pool rooms and bathrooms with sunken baths-‘. - Singsong sound emphasises the endless amount of rooms.

Question 24

What did Gatsby revalue in his house after Daisy’s visit in Chapter Five?

Answer 24

‘He hadn’t once ceased looking at Daisy and I think he revalued everything in his house according to the measure of response it drew from her well-loved eyes’.

Question 25

How does Nick describe Gatsby’s emotions to change in Chapter Five in his meeting with Daisy?

Answer 25

‘Daisy’s face was smeared with tears’ and Gatsby ‘literally glowed’.

Question 26

How is Klipspringer first introduced in Chapter Five?

Answer 26

‘A dishevelled man in pyjamas was doing liver exercises on the floor’.

Question 27

What does Nick criticise about Gatsby’s view of Daisy in Chapter Five?

Answer 27

That ‘Daisy tumbled short of his dreams - not through her own fault but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion’.

Question 28

What link does Nick make between Gatsby’s past and Plato?

Answer 28

‘He was a son of God - a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that - and he must be about his Father’s business’ - Swaps monotheistic religion for Plato’s Greek Philosophy - likening Gatsby to a self-imagined Jesus pursuing a holy end.

Question 29

What religious links are there between the green light and Christianity?

Answer 29

The green light implies that Gatsby must walk over the water just as Jesus.

Question 30

Despite a spiritual goal what does Nick describe it as in Chapter Six?

Answer 30

‘Vast, vulgar and meretricious beauty’ - may be meaningful and enormous but still fundamentally empty.

Question 31

What does Nick say spun out of Gatsby’s brain in Chapter Six?

Answer 31

‘A universe of ineffable gaudiness spun itself out in his brain’.

Question 32

What does Tom believe a lot of the nouveau rich are in Chapter Six?

Answer 32

‘A lot of these newly rich are just big bootleggers, you know’.

Question 33

What does Gatsby say about Daisy’s voice in Chapter Seven?

Answer 33

‘Her voice is full of money’ - Daisy has been brought up to perform in order to give off ‘inexhaustible charm’.
Has a ‘jingle’ to it.

Question 34

What does Tom say about Gatsby out of fear that he could steal Daisy in Chapter Seven?

Answer 34

'’She’s not leaving me!…‘Certainly not for a common swindler who’d have to steal the ring he put on her finger’.

Question 35

What does Nick say ended for Gatsby as the parties came to a stop in Chapter Seven?

Answer 35

‘The lights in his house failed to go on one Saturday night - and, as obscurely as it had begun, his career as Trimalchio was over’.

Question 36

Who was Trimalchio?

Answer 36

A character appearing in Petronious’s Satyricon from the first century - Trimalchio was a former slave who grew wealthy in an underhanded manner. Threw sumptuous dinners to impress his guests.
Trimalchio ends with the entire household acting out his funeral, foreshadowing Gatsby’s death.

Question 37

What other titles did Fitzgerald consider linked to Trimalchio?

Answer 37

‘Trimalchio’ and ‘Trimalchio in the West Egg’.

Question 38

What does Nick say after realising it was his thirtieth birthday in Chapter Seven?

Answer 38

That a ‘menacing’ decade was in front of them.

Question 39

What does Daisy say about her love in Chapter Seven?

Answer 39

‘I love you now - isn’t that enough? I can’t help whats past’.

Question 40

What does Nick leave Gatsby watching over in Chapter Seven?

Answer 40

‘Watching over nothing’.

Question 41

What does Nick say about Gatsby refusing to leave in Chapter Eight?

Answer 41

‘He was clutching at some last hope and I couldn’t bear to shake him free’.

Question 42

In Chapter Eight, what does Nick tell Gatsby as he leaves?

Answer 42

That he is worth more than all of the ‘rotten crowd…put together’.

Question 43

What does Nick say that asserts the idea that the events of the novels were predetermined in Chapter Nine?

Answer 43

‘Perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life’. - Their actions become less individual choices and more of the social types they represent.

Question 44

What does Nick describe the continent of America as in Chapter Nine?

Answer 44

A ‘green beast’.

Question 45

What does Wolfsheim say he raised Gatsby from in Chapter Nine?

Answer 45

He raised him ‘out of nothing’.

Question 46

What does Nick say about Gatsby’s dream in Chapter Nine?

Answer 46

‘His dream must have seemed so close he could hardly fail to grasp it’.

Question 47

What does Nick relate Tom to in Chapter Nine?

Answer 47

‘I felt suddenly as though I were talking to a child’ - Young children are often self-centred and unable or unwilling to take responsibility for their actions and frequently make self-serving decisions.

Question 48

What is Tom’s conclusion in Chapter Nine about Tom and Daisy?

Answer 48

‘They were careless people, Tom and Daisy - they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness’.