The Great Gatsby Flashcards
what were the working titles for the Great Gatsby?
‘Among the Ash Heaps and Millionaires’ and ‘Under the Red, White and Blue’
Nick after returning from the east (after WW1) “wanted…”
“I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; [I wanted no more riotous excursions]”
Tom and Daisy -as representatives for Old Money- “drifted…”
“drifted here and there unrestfully, wherever people played polo and were rich together”
Indicating Tom’s control, “Tom Buchanan compelled me from the room”
“as though he were moving a checker to another square”.
Daisy and Jordan Baker “talked at once…”
“unobtrusively and with a bantering inconsequence that was never quite chatter”
the phone call at “The Tom Buchanan’s”
“Tom’s got some woman in New York”
Daisy and her daughter. Chapter 1
“that’s the best a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool”
the area where George and Myrtle Wilson live
“[This is] a valley of ashes – a fantastic farm where ashes grow like wheat”
description of Myrtle
“She carried her flesh sensuously … as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering”
Description of Myrtle at the gathering
‘Her laughter, her gestures, her assertions became more violently affected moment by moment … until she seemed to be revolving on a noisy, creaking pivot through the smoky air.’
Tom’s silencing of Myrtle
“I’ll say it when I want to! Daisy! Dai-“ Making a short deft movement, Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand.’
Nick’s ‘double vision’ view on the Gathering at Tom’s and Myrtle’s apartment
“I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life”.
people came and went to Gatsby’s party quote
“In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whispering and the champagne and the stars”.
mechanisation links to “little button” quote
“If a little button was pressed two hundred times by a butler’s thumb”
description of Gatsby’s party- food focus
“Turkeys bewitched into a dark gold”
nature of relationships in the 1920s, where introductions are easily forgotten
“Casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot [and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other’s names]”
Nick’s view on women that significantly links to the view held by ‘New York’ in the Age of Innocence. Honesty
“Dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blame deeply”
in spite of the 19th Amendment and the superficial freedoms gained by women, still presented as having a reliance on men
“Girls were putting their heads on men’s shoulders in a puppyish convivial way, girls were swooning backwards playfully into men’s arms, [even into groups, knowing that someone would arrest their fall]”
Description of a woman indicates what women are valued for in society
“Like an angry diamond”
description of Gatsby at the end of his first party in chapter 3
“(end of Gatsby’s first party) A sudden emptiness seemed to flow from the windows and the great doors, endowing with complete isolation the figure of the host”
Nick’s description of New York
“I began to like New York, the racy adventurous feel of it at night … At the enchanted metropolitan twilight I felt a haunting loneliness sometimes, [and I felt it in others] …young clerks in the dusk, wasting the most poignant moments of night and life.”
continuation of Nick’s views on New York?
“[When the dark lanes …were lived five deep with throbbing taxicabs] … I felt a sinking in my heart”
Nick’s view on women that significantly links to the view held by ‘New York’ in the Age of Innocence. Honesty
“Dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blame deeply”
Quote demonstrating the new culture of America in the 1920s and decreasing importance of religion to many
“On Sunday morning while church bells rang … the world and its mistress [returned to Gatsby’s house]”
