CHAPTER 1 Flashcards
“In my younger and more vulnerable years”
Exploited
Unreliable
Still quite vulnerable
“I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that… a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth”
Natural superiority
Class divide/ dividing himself from us? (Aware of what he is susceptible to)
“I was a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler”
On one level, Nick is describing a feeling we all understand—you often first recognize that you “belong” to a particular place when you give someone else directions. For Nick, this seems to happen very quickly.
But the importance of this paragraph is in the set of metaphors that Nick uses to describe himself: “I was a guide, a pathfinder, an original settler.” On one level, this is just ironic: despite having given these directions he is new in the area, and barely knows his way around. But this phrase also gestures to the famous, magisterial ending of the novel, when Nick will contemplate the sentiments of the Dutch explorers who first set foot on Long Island, and man encountered “for the last time in history…something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.”
“life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all”
Nick fits into this group, since he has tried his hand at writing as well as bonds, but he doesn’t think this actually makes him successful – he is just doing so to please his family. In his opinion, you are better off becoming the master of one trade instead of dabbling in many. The world can be seen clearly when you are only looking at it through one window – it’s when you try to look at it through too many perspectives that things begin to get foggy.
This ends up applying to our title character as well. Gatsby dedicates his entire life to Daisy, and despite his eventual despair, the high points in the relationship made him happier than any other character in the novel.
“Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it”
It suggests that Daisy is not as simple as she expresses like a risible and sunny girl. For instance, the previous text uses the word “witty” to describe her vivid and humorous manner. She tries to cover her sadness under a passionate appearance.
“the lawn started at the beach and ran towards the front door… the front was broken by a line of French windows, glowing now”
Fitzgerald’s language here about the lawn “running” around the grounds makes it seem as if the Buchanans’ social status–represented in their house–is casual, almost natural, as opposed to Gatsby’s ostentatious, perhaps artificial, display of his wealth in his house. Furthermore, the “bright vines” of ivy here have “momentum” contrasted with Gatsby’s rather pathetic, stagnant “thin beard.”
The dynamic language—“ran”, “jumping”, “momentum of its run”—also suggests Tom Buchanan’s past as a football player, just as the ivy on the walls suggests his time at Yale.
“Do you always watch for the longest day of the year and then miss it? I always watch for the longest day in the year and then miss it”
The indication of “longest day of the year” also tells us when he story is set: it is the height of summer, close to the summer solstice.
Ideals unattainable
“You remind me of a - of a rose”
For Daisy, Nick plays into the spectacle. Like rose tinted spectacles, shes trying to convince him
“except a single green light”
This light is an important recurring symbol in the novel. Green is often associated with envy, which makes sense considering the green light represents his jealousy for Tom having Daisy. But the green light has most nearly come to represent the American Dream, and the futility of chasing it.
Literally, the light is located at the end of Daisy and Tom’s dock. And since that is all that Gatsby can see of their house from where he is, he grows to associate that light with Daisy.
The light is often described as seeming so close, but always just out of reach, and that is also a good way of describing the American dream itself.
