Quotes Flashcards
(37 cards)
chap 1 - unequal opportunities, metaphor
a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth
chap 1 - first description of gatsby, direct characterisation, attuned to the tone of a room
if personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heigtened sensitivity to the promises of life
chap 1 - start of a new story, renewal
life was beginning over again with the summer
chap 1 - description of tom, lexical field of superiority and arrogance
now he was a sturdy straw-haired man of thirty, with a rather hard mouth and supercilious manner. Two shining arrogant eyes had established dominance over his face and gave him the appearance of always leaning aggressively forward… it was a body capable of enormous leverage - a cruel body.
chap 1 - daisy connection to sirens, indirect characterisation
I’ve heard it said that Daisy’s murmur was only to make people lean toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming
A promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour
chap 1 - tom and daisy united, simile
as if she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged.
chap 2 - valley of ashes, metaphor, vivid visual imagery
where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and, finally, with a transcendent effort, of ash-grey men, who move dimly and already crumbling through the powdery air.
chap 2 - wilson’s lack of importance, indirect characterisation
mingling immediately with the cement colour of the walls
chap 2 - myrtle’s materialism
with the influence of the dress her personality had also undergone a change… converted into impressive hauteur
chap 3 - speculation about gatsby, still willing to attend his parties despite the rumours
you look at him sometimes when he thinks nobody’s looking at him. I’ll bet he killed a man
chap 4 - better that people turned a blind eye to Gatsby’s past, irony that a tribute is celebrating someone
paid him the subtle tribute of knowing nothing whatever about him
chap 4 - in new york, gatsby’s life is expected, juxtaposition of death to the optimism of the American dream
A dead man passed us in a hearse heaped with blooms, followed by two carriages with drawn blinds, and by more cheerful carriages for friends… Even Gatsby could happen, without any particular wonder
chap 4 - people’s ease at being blind sided, hyperbole - people knew it was fixed
It never occurred to me that one man could start to play with the faith of fifty million people
chap 4 - Daisy is dependent on Tom, weak and shallow, direct characterisation
If he left the room for a minute she’d look around uneasily… and wear the most abstracted expression until she saw him coming in the door
chap 5 - clock interrupts their meeting, showing how they wish to stop time
luckily the clock took this moment to tilt dangerously at the pressure of his head
chap 5 - daisy is upset over the time they have missed together, materialistic
It makes me sad because I’ve never seen such- such beautiful shirts before
chap 5 - the dream is more significant than the achievement
the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever
chap 6 - metaphor for the depth of gatsby’s dream, he can go anywhere with no restrictions
a promise that the rock of the world was founded securely on a fairy’s wing
chap 6 - Daisy doesn’t like the fast pace of the west, ironic that she can’t understand people having fun for the sake of it
she saw something awful in the very simplicity she failed to understand
chap 6 - Gatsby needs to be able to go back in time, can’t stand being able to not do something, esp. with all his wealth, rhetorical question, ignorance from wealth
“can’t repeat the past?… Why of course you can!”
chap 7 - gatsby did everything for Daisy, and her disapproval makes him stop, simile
so the whole caravansary had fallen in like a card house at the disapproval in her eyes
chap 7 - tom and daisy’s child is just a play thing for them, absent in their lives, adds complexity, ‘it’
Afterward he kept looking at the child with surprise. I don’t think he had ever really believed in its existence before
chap 7 - daisy and gatsby love each other, the heat muddles their thoughts, tom was blind to it and is hypocritical
she had told him that she loved him, and Tom Buchanan saw. He was astounded
chap 7 - gatsby explains daisy’s voice - direct characterisation, beautiful but 2D, wealthy and privelledged, a princess immature and no no understanding of consequences
“Her voice is full of money”… that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it… high in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl…
