Great Gatsby Quote IDs Flashcards
“I’m the Sheik of Araby.
Your love belongs to me.
At night when you’re asleep
Into your tent I’ll creep—”
Speaker: Children in Central Park (Nick overhears them)
Context: Nick on a date with Jordan Baker, who is talking about Daisy’s backstory with Gatsby and Tom. Driving through Central Park and Nick hears children singing song “Sheik of Araby.”
Significance: Gatsby’s obsession with Daisy (“when you’re asleep…into your tent I’ll creep” — dream or literal creeping? romantic or stalkerish?)
“They’re such beautiful shirts…. It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such—such beautiful shirts before.”
Speaker: Daisy
Context: Gatsby invites Daisy and Nick over to his mansion, after Daisy-Gatsby reunion at Nick’s. In his bedroom, Gatsby starts throwing shirts on table.
Significance: Daisy = materialistic?, Daisy has not seen Gatsby for a long time (now he has all these shirts she’s never seen), Daisy only saw Gatsby in uniform and not casual clothes—knew little about her old love and is overwhelmed (should have waited for him and married Gatsby instead of Tom)
“But his eyes, dimmed a little by many paintless days under sun and rain, brood on over the solemn dumping ground.”
Speaker: Nick
Context: Nick describes Valley of Ashes as he passes through with Tom on train to NY. Notes Dr. Eckleberg’s eyes.
Significance: illustrates the sense of hopelessness in the lower class/laborers of America
“Yet high over the city our line of yellow windows must have contributed their share of human secrecy to the casual watcher in the darkening streets, and I was him too, looking up and wondering. I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.”
Speaker: Nick
Context: Myrtle’s Party in Tom’s NY apartment
Significance: “within and without” nick is not really having fun and is out of place—he hangs out with wealthy ppl in the novel but isn’t one himself
“… they were a satisfactory hint of the unreality of reality, a promise that the rock of the world was founded securely on a fairy’s wing.”
Speaker: Nick
Context: backstory of james gatz and dan cody
Significance:
The unreality of reality, reality is the rock, the unreality is a fairies wing. Gatsby = dreamer (caught up in what he wants to be and feels secure in this vision through his fantasies, thinking that as long as he dreams, he will get there—false American dream)
“It eluded us then, but that’s no matter—to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther… and one fine morning——”
Speaker: Nick
Context: Last page of Great Gatsby, remembering how gatsby reached out for the green light (daisy) at the beginning of the book
Significance: obsessions are often fruitless. we chase and chase and maybe one fine morning we’ll get somewhere…but Nick cuts off just as someone’s about to reach a goal. Impossible american dream
“… it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams that temporarily closed out my interest in the abortive sorrows and short-winded elations of men.”
Speaker: Nick
Context: Beginning of the GG. Nick previewing the story of Gatsby.
Significance: “foul dust… in the wake of his dreams”–reference to Sheik of Araby, foul dust = Daisy/Tom’s shallowness in the end, Nick’s cynicism
“Self-control! … I suppose the latest thing is to sit back and let Mr. Nobody from Nowhere make love to your wife. Well, if that’s the idea you can count me out….”
Speaker: Tom
Context: Tom’s big fight with Daisy and Gatsby (fighting over Daisy)
Significance: Tom has a reputation to upkeep as an upper-class person (can’t have scandal), Tom’s possessiveness of Daisy
“God sees everything,”….
“That’s an advertisement,”…
Speaker: Wilson and Michaelis (neighbor of Wilson)
Context: Michaelis trying to comfort Wilson over Myrtle’s death. Wilson thinks that whoever drove the yellow car was Myrtle’s secret affair.
Significance: Wilson thinks Dr. Eckleberg is actually god (insane!!), believes that god will be on his side for following actions (killing Gatsby) because god has watched over everything that has happened
“And I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool!”
Speaker: Daisy
Context: Daisy is catching up with Nick outside after dinner at her place in the beginning of book. Talking about her toddler daughter.
Significance: gender roles in history– reflects what Daisy had to do in life (marry Tom and be helpless for the rest of her life, let a man take care of her)
“Rise from bed…..
Dumbbell exercises and wall-scaling…..
Study electricity, etc…..
Work…..”
Speaker: Nick (Gatsby’s writing)
Context: Gatsby is dead, Gatsby’s father shows Nick old book of Gatsby’s with goals and schedule (“destined for greatness” idea)
Significance: Gatsby’s previous steps in achieving American Dream (helping the world, slower journey) vs. actual means (deceit/cheating, quick-and-easy) and what made him change (Daisy, Tom, Ella Kaye, Dan Cody, Wolfsheim)
“With the influence of the dress her personality had also undergone a change. The intense vitality that had been so remarkable in the garage was converted into impressive hauteur. Her laughter, her gestures, her assertions became more violently affected moment by moment, and as she expanded the room grew smaller and smaller around her, until she seemed to be revolving on a noisy, creaking pivot through the smoky air.”
Speaker: Nick about Myrtle
Context: at tom and myrtle’s ny apartment, myrtle changes into a different dress, which Nick observes along with her change of attitude.
Significance: Myrtle is trying to make herself look bigger than she actually is by being loud and flaunting a fancy dress. her way of acting is so obvious and unnatural that it comes off awkward—highlights her failure to assimilate to a new class despite efforts.
“He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through the frightening leaves and shivered as he found what a grotesque thing a rose is and how raw the sunlight was upon the scarcely created grass. A new world, material without being real, where poor ghosts, breathing dreams like air, drifted fortuitously about… like that ashen, fantastic figure gliding toward him through the amorphous trees.”
Speaker: Nick
Context: Nick narrates the moments before Gatsby’s death in the pool
Significance: after not receiving a call from daisy, Gatsby realizes that he built Daisy to be something that she wasn’t (grotesque = unrecognizable). like how a rose is beautiful at first (impression of Daisy), a person might not realize there are thorns that prevent people from attaining/touching it. this can also be reference to when daisy tells nick that he’s an “absolute rose.” A “new world” is Gatsby’s view opening up, realizing that he lived a life of romance and unrealistic dreams. (compares this unrealistic vision to wilson, who believes killing gatsby is god’s will when in reality its his own fantasy)
“Then from the living room I heard a sort of choking murmur and part of a laugh, followed by [a] voice on a clearly artificial note:
‘I certainly am awfully glad to see you again.’”
Speaker: Nick
Context: Daisy-Gatsby reunion
Significance: displays Daisy’s tendency to put on a show. she is overwhelmed with conflicting emotions of being happy but also uneasy in seeing her old love, especially now that she is married
“They’re a rotten crowd…. You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.”
Speaker: Nick
Context: Nick’s last conversation with GG.
Significance: showcases Nick’s insincerity. Can be interpreted as Nick telling readers “they’re a rotten crowd” and giving a two-faced compliment to Gatsby. (equating the rottenness of the crowd to Gatsby)
