The Great Gatsby Flashcards
Daisy Buchanan quotes
’ Her voice was full of money, that was the charm of it, that rose and fell
-Thats the best thing a girl can be in this world. A pretty little fool’
-You want too much. I love you now- isnt that enough’
-Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it
-They’re such beautiful shirts’ she sobbed
‘golden girl’
-‘been everywhere and seen everything and done everything’
Tom Buchanan quotes
-I suppose you think I’ll sit back and let Mr Nobody from Nowhere make love to my wife?
-I love Daisy, Once in a while I go off on my little sprees, but I do love her’
-With a deft movement, he broke her nose
Myrtle Wilson
‘The thickish figure of a woman blocked out the light… she carried her surplus flesh sensuously, as some women can
‘I married him because I thought he was a gentlemen, but he wasnt fit to lick my shoe
‘Her left breast was swinging loose like a flap. The mouth was wide open and ripped at the corners’
‘thick dark blood’- trapping her in the Valley of Ashes forever
‘I want to get one of those dogs’
Nick Carraway quotes
‘I am one of the few honest people I have ever met’
I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, and I felt it in others’
‘After Gatsbys death the East was haunted for me’
Jordan Baker quotes
‘She was incurably dishonest’
‘small breasts, slender muscles in her arm’
Gatsby quotes
‘I did it all for her’
‘You cant repeat the past? Why, of course you can!’
‘Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future
‘There was something gorgeous about him’
American Dream quotes
'’Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future
‘He invented just the kind of Jay Gatsby a 17 year old boy would likely invent
‘grey land’- Valley of Ashes- reinvention of Corona Ash dumps in Brooklyn- display social decay
Materialism/consumerism quotes
‘They were careless people, Tom and Daisy, they smashed things up and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness’
‘Ive never seen such beautiful shirts before’
‘This is a Valley of Ashes- a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat and ashen men move dimly through the powdery air’
‘The eyes of Dr T.J Eckleburg brood on over the solemn dumping ground’
Women quotes
’ Dishonesty in a women is something you can never blame deeply’
‘Tom felt hot whips of manic. His wife and mistress, until an hour ago both so secure, were slipping from his control’
Crime quotes
’ Meyer Wolfsheim. Hes the man who fixed the world series in 1919. They cant get him,, hes too smart’
‘ I picked him for a bootlegger the first time I saw him, and I wasnt wrong’
‘Wilsons body was in the grass, and the holocaust was complete’
Literary context
- Inspiration from Romantic poet- John Keats- modernist writing
-Gatsby as a modern day version of a medieval knight in shining armour (shirts)- chasing the unattainable holy grail- Daisy and American Dream
-Tragedy - tragic hero as an ordinary person struggling to maintain human dignity
Historical/social context
- The Jazz age
-Economic boom post ww1
-Prohibition/Lost generation/Bootlegging
-New women/flappers
-New money vs Old money
-Mass consumption
-Conspicious leisure
-The Wasteland
-Class and Wealth
Roaring 20s
American Dream
Truslow Adams- Epic of Aemerica- freedom includes the oppurtunity for prosperity and success, and an upward social mobility, for the family and children, achieved through hard work in a society with few barriers
’ Jay Gatsby stands for America itself’
Trilling
‘Daisy is torn between a desire for personal freedom and personal stability
Fraser
Fitzgerald presents that, even in America, society is strictly ordered. For the elite to retain their high status on the hierarchy ladder, those below must remain’
Stocks
The phrase American Dream was to describe a failure not a promise
Churchwell
The novel depicts a society careening towards destruction
Marriott
Daisy is merely the key to Gatsby’s goal, rather than the goal itself
Tyson
Gatsby, like America itself.. strives to reach a place he has created in his own mind, an impossible perfect’
Staveley
Painting- Manifest Destiny
Giving the right for Europeans to settle in America
Offers the readers a sharp jolt of reality
Boggs
