Great Gatsby: Oppression of Women Flashcards
Anchored balloons
The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon. They were both in white, and their dresses were rippled and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house. I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of the picture on the wall. Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.
C1, P7
Synecdoche for Tom and Daisy
There was the flutter of a dress and the crunch of leather boots, and Tom and Daisy were back at the table.
C1, P12
What Daisy says about her daughter
“I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool - that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool”
C1, P13
Tom’s view of Jordan’s golfing career
“She’s a nice girl” said Tom after a moment. “They oughtn’t to let her run around the country in this way.”
C1, P14
Tom breaking Myrtle’s nose
Making a short deft movement, Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand
C2, P25
Partygoers at the end of the night
Both wives were lifted, kicking, into the night
C3, P34
Daisy’s youth
She dressed in white, and had a little white roadster, and all day long the telephone rang in her house and excited young officers from Camp Taylor demanded the privilege of monopolising her that night.
C4, P48
Daisy on her marriage night to Tom
We gave her spirits of ammonia and put ice on her forehead and hooked her back into her dress, and half an hour later, when we walked out of the room, the pearls were around her neck and the incident was over. Next day at five o’clock she married Tom Buchanan without so much as a shiver
C4, P49
Describing young Gatsby
He knew women early, and since they spoiled him he became contemptuous of them, of young virgins because they were ignorant, of the others because they were hysterical about things which in his overwhelming self-absorption he took for granted.
C6, P63
Myrtle’s death
They saw that her left breast was swinging loose like a flap, and there was no need to listen for the heart beneath. The mouth was wide open and ripped at the corners, as though she had choked a little in giving up the tremendous vitality she had stored so long
C7, P88
Wilson explaining how he locked Myrtle up
“I’ve got my wife locked up there” explained Wilson calmly. “Shes going to stay there till the day after tomorrow, and then we’re going to move away.”
C7, P87
Daisy and Jordan description
Daisy and Jordan lay upon an enormous couch, like silver idols weighing down their own white dresses against the singing breeze of the fans
C7, P73
Wilson’s reaction to discovering that Myrtle had an affair
He had discovered that Myrtle had some sort of life apart from him in another world, and the shock had made him physically sick.
C7, P79
Tom’s panic when he realises that both Myrtle and Daisy are slipping out of his control
Tom was feeling the hot wisps of panic. His wife and his mistress, until an hour ago secure and inviolate, were slipping precipitately from his control
C7, P79
