THE GREAT GATSBY Flashcards
(22 cards)
“Whenever you feel like criticising anyone, just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”
– Nick Carraway / Nick’s Father
- He was born into wealth, and has had advantages
- Suggests he doesn’t judge or look down upon people
- Opportunities are decided at birth
“A sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.”
– Nick Carraway
- He was born privileged and us very aware of it.
- Family built his wealth through hard work
(Middle class)
“I was privy to the secret griefs of wild, unknown men.”
– Nick Carraway
- Foreshadows how Nick became a confidante for two opposing men
- Both Tom and Gatsby confide in Nick.
- Nick is caught in the middle of all of it
“Gatsby…represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn.”
– Nick Carraway
- Gatsby was ‘exempt’ from Nicks negative reaction to the East Coast
- BUT Gatsby paradoxically represented everything Nick hated
- believed Gatsby to be innocent.
- Ironic.
- Gatsby had possibly changed Nick’s view, and Nick is unaware or unwilling toadmit
“There was something gorgeous about him… it was an extraordinary gift for hope”
– Nick’s admiration
- Nick admires Gatsby’s gift of hopefulness. DESPITE the corruption
“Gatsby turned out all right in the end; it is what preyed on Gatsby, what foul dust floated in the wake of his dreams…”
– Nick Carraway
- Puts Gatsby as the victim and the weak and vulnerable one
- Bias as a narrator?
- Relationship of Nick and Gatsby and how Nick understood him
- Gatsby’s demise was a result of corruption the American dream has disillusioned him
“The one on my right was a colossal affair… it was a factual imitation of some Hotel De Ville in Normandy”
– Description of Gatsby’s mansion
- Hint of Gatsby’s façade early on
- He’s trying to copy old Normandy culture and imitate it
- Pretending to have old money by aesthetics of the building but is new money.
- Trying to get Daisy to notice (?) Daisy had previously gone to Europe and France
“White palaces of Fashionable East Egg”
– Description of the houses in East Egg
- Colour symbolism
- White being a symbol of eloquence, wealth, purity (Daisy and Jordan wearing white dresses)
- Palaces suggest old money
- Wealth, royalty, aristocratic
- Separates from real life, palace gives fairy tail genre
“Spent a year in France for no particular reason… drifted here and there unrestfully”
– Tom and Daisy’s lifestyle is aimless and full of leisure
- Foreshadows carelessness towards their effects on the tragedy they cause
- Lack of commitment/direction
- Cliché of old money
- Extreme wealth
- Normal lifestyle
“Arrogant eyes had established dominance”
“ Leaning aggressively forward”
“Enormous power of that body”
– Nick’s description of Tom Buchanan
- Adjectives & Adverbs related to power and control
- Creates a powerful and unpleasant character from first glance
- Superiority of his body language without even speaking
“It was a body capable of enormous leverage - a cruel body”
– Tom’s strength
- His physical strength is obvious
- Described as cruel and violent
- Foreshadows his later actions and tendency for violence towards others
‘They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house.’
– Description of Daisy and Jordan
- Colour symbolism of white
-Two are so lightweight they appear to be floating
- Imagery suggests they are restless, dissatisfied
- White symbol of purity but ironic because they appear hollow
“Boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died… the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.”
– Tom shuts down women.
- Metaphor for bringing women down to earth and oppressing them
- Realist, there’s no romance or whimsy
“her low thrilling voice… there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget.”
“A dozen people had sent their love through me.”
– Description of Daisy’s voice
- Her voice is unique and has energy to it
- Suggestion that she uses her voice to allure and coerce
- Siren like, drawing listener to her physically and emotionally
- Manipulative and uses her voice to charm people
– Daisy is not easily forgotten and is missed by her old town, she is popular.
“Tom Buchanan compelled me from the room as though he were moving a checker to another square.”
– Physical strength of Tom
- Suggests people are just players to a game
- It is easy for him to physically move someone
- Very controlling in situations
“You make me feel uncivilized, Daisy… Can’t you talk about crops or something?”
– Difference in class
- Upper class and middle class has a difference
- Class difference in the 20’s
“Civilisation is going to pieces… if we don’t look out the white race will be - will be utterly submerged” (Tom broke out violently)
– Book Tom reads highlights his insecurity
- He was born into money and privilege but he has a fear it could be taken away
- Tom agrees with white supremacy
- His insecurities leads to him showing off his power: flaunting his relationship with Myrtle, revealing Gatsby as a bootlegger, manipulating George to kill Gatsby
“I hope she’ll be a fool - that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”
– Daisy Buchanan
- Women being intelligent is undermined
- Daisy herself is made a fool of by Toms affair
- ‘Beauty over Brains’
- Valued ignorance and innocence in women
- Daisy is aware of superficiality and emptiness
- Intelligence is not prized
- Suggests Daisy herself puts on a façade.
- Societal views of 1920’s
- Cycle of women being controlled by men / inequalities
“They oughtn’t to let her run around the country this way”
–Tom’s view of how women should be
- Patriarchy and ownership of women
- Women should be controlled by family
“she had asserted her membership in a rather distinguished secret society to which she and Tom belonged”
– Tom and Daisy belonging together in the exclusivity of the rich
- Daisy seems to represent the hollow and morally bankrupt aspect of wealth during the 1920’s.
“Something in his leisurely movements and the secure position of his feet upon the lawn suggested that it was Mr. Gatsby himself, come out to determine what share was his of our local heavens.”
– First time we and Nick see Gatsby
- Gatsby is by himself and Nick observes him from a distance
- He is stood with his arm outstretched to the sea
- This description is almost god-like, powerful, and full of confidence
- However he is isolated and alone
“He stretched out his arms toward the dark water in a curious way, and, far as I was from him, I could have sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward - and distinguished nothing except a single green light, minute and far away.”
– The green light Gatsby reaches out for is the light at the end of Daisy’s dock
- Green light is a metaphor for Gatsby’s American Dream of being reunited with Daisy
- Constant recurring symbol in the novel
- The light is always there, however always out of reach
- Could symbolise the myth of an American dream, how it is unreachable
