The Great Gatsby Flashcards
Give context concerning the overindulgence of luxury in gatsby.
Firstly, and most notably, gatsby was written in 1925, a mere four years before the stock market crash and the Great Depression. This has led to consideration of the novel being almost prophetic, as it deals with the themes and consequences of luxury and an over-assurance of the stability of such a life, most notably with the deaths of gatsby, myrtle and tom, as well as the aftermath of his party, which is “rent asunder with dissension” - a phrase that could just as easily be attributed to the Great Depression.
Discuss Tom
He is of aristocratic ‘old money’ opposed to gatsby’s ‘new money’. If Tom and gatsby are in conflict in this way, their rivalry over daisy, gatsby’s ‘American dream’, is given added significance. Tom is victorious overall, with gatsby having broken against his “hard malice”, giving the novel a sombre, bleak and cynical tone. He is “enormously wealthy” and drifts with daisy “here and there unrestfully”. Tom is frequently described as seeking “dramatic turbulence”, acting “wistfully” and “restlessly”. He also has a “cruel body” and is very masculine.
Quotes on gatsby + American dream
“Represented everything for which I have unaffected scorn”
“Come our to determine what share was his of our local heavens”
“Jay gatsby[…]sprang from his platonic conception of himself”
“He had found that he had committed himself to the following of a grail”
“Gatsby believed in the green light”
Green light
“Unattainable dream” that had once “seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it”
“The old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors’ eyes - a fresh, green breast of the new world”
“Gatsby believed in the green light” … “run faster, stretch our arms out further” … “so we beat on,
Boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past”
Gatsby’s house
“Imitation of some hotel de ville in Normandy[..]spanking new under a thin beard of raw ivy”
Compare to Tom and Daisy’s “red-and-white Georgian colonial mansion” with “French windows”
New York
“Enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life”
“Constant flicker of men and women and machines”
“The city seen for the first time, in its first wild promise of all the mystery and beauty in the world”
Valley of ashes
“Desolate area of land”
“Ash-grey”
“Hills and grotesque gardens”
Daisy
“Low thrilling voice”
“Singing compulsion”
“Only the dead dream fought on”
“Full of money”
Nick
“I’m inclined to reserve all judgements”
“Squeezed between two huge places”
“Partial view”
“Small eyesore”
“Within and without”
“One of the few honest people [that he] has ever known”
