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Gatsby: Key quotes - Coggle Diagram
Gatsby:
Key quotes
Gatsby
'Can't repeat the past? Why of course you can!'
(Chapter 6)
Rhetorical question shows rejection of reality as Gatsby cannot comprehend the limits of time
Obsessive belief in his dream and exclamatory language shows desperate insistence
Believes the past is reconstructable and attempts to control time
Tragic flaw - idealism leads to delusion - believes in the American Dream as attainable
Loves an idealised version of Daisy
'It excited him too that many men had already loved Daisy - it increased her value'
(Chapter 8)
Desire is rooted in competition not pure love and Daisy is presented as a social object reducing her to a commodity - materialism
Gatsby demonstrates status-driven desire
Gatsby idealises Daisy based on external validation and her worth is defined by male desire
'Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us'
(Chapter 9)
Green light symbolises hope, dream and unattainable desire
Overwhelming promise of fulfilment and framed as illusory - future cannot match imagined perfection
Temporal phrasing - dream is moving further away
Universal pronoun extends his failure to all humanity - social construct of the American dream as endless striving yet unachievable
'In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars'
(Chapter 3)
Simile implies guests are drawn to light (wealth and parties) but also fragile and superficial and fleeting - temporary and shallow relationships
Colours are artificial creating an illusory atmosphere and sibilance highlights the sense of mystery and excess - enchanting surface hides emptiness
Semantic field of luxury emphasises the glamour of the Jazz Age
Anonymity creates a lack of identity - dehumanised crowd
'Daisy tumbled short of his dreams... because of the colossal vitality of his illusion'
(Chapter 5)
Abrupt implying reality falls below expectation
Gatsby's dream is powerful and overwhelming but is fabricated - the failure lies in his unrealistic idealisation
Daisy is reduced to a symbol of dream implying impossibility of idealisation
Nick
I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life'
(Chapter 2)
Paradox - Nick is a participant and observer - reflects Fitzgerald's life influencing the novel - Nick as a detached reflective narrator
Moral conflict - fascination vs disgust - overwhelming excess of the Jazz Age
Duality - surface glamour vs underlying corruption - Valley of Ashes is corrupting due to excessive wealth of New York City
Foreshadows Nick's growing disillusionment with elite society
'So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past'
(Chapter 9)
Extended metaphor for the struggle against stronger forces (time, past, society) - universal
Futile persistence and the inability to move forward
Cycle is endless and inevitable - lack of control
Past is inescapable and shapes the present
Daisy
'Her voice is full of money'
(Chapter 7)
Metaphor for how her voice his equated with wealth/materialism
Reduces her identity to social class and status - Gatsby's idealised vision collapses
Symbol of old money privilege rather than individuality
Links her to a siren - alluring but deathly
'I hope she'll be a fool - that's the best thing a girl can be in this world - a beautiful little fool'
(Chapter 1)
Repetition of fool emphasises Daisy's cynicism about women's roles implying how beauty is valued over intelligence - critique of patriarchal society
Harsh truth - infantilises women reinforcing a lack of power
Ironic as Daisy is not foolish because she is aware of her oppression - despite flapper image women are still limited
'She was incurably dishonest...Dishonesty in a woman is a thing you never blame deeply'
(Chapter 3)
Dishonesty is presented as a permanent ingrained trait
Exposes gender stereotypes about women - trivialises female dishonesty - patronising - 1920s sexist assumptions
Undermines Nick's reliability - unreliable narrator
'They were careless people Tom and Daisy - they smashed up things and then retreated back into their money'
(Chapter 9)
Reflects moral irresponsibility and lack of empathy of old money
Destructive impact - emotional/social damage caused by the elite
Escape from consequences and avoid accountability - wealth acts as a shield - old money class insulated from punishment
Tom
'Making a short deft movement Tom Buchanan broke her nose with his open hand'
(Chapter 2)
Violence is presented as casual and normalised - sudden brutality - highlights male physical dominance
Not impulsive rage but controlled aggression - normalises violence
Reflects 1920s gender inequality and domestic abuse hidden by social respectability
'He gave her a string of pearls valued at three hundred dollars'
(Chapter 4)
Pearls symbolise status and commodification of love - reduces romance to transactional exchange
Love expressed through financial display not intimacy - relationships built on money not sincerity
Gatsby also uses wealth to attempt entry into Daisy's social world - she becomes part of a gift economy of status and possession
'Once in a while I go off on a spree and make a fool of myself, but I always come back, and in my heart I love her all the time'
(Chapter 7)
Normalises infidelity and moral carelessness - justifies it separating himself from emotional responsibility
Sense of entitlement - assumes stability despite betrayal - claims love while repeatedly acting unfaithfully
Daisy is treated as an owned object not an equal partner
Myrtle
'She carried her flesh sensuously...Then she wet her lips'
(Chapter 2)
Overtly sexualised and objectified - reduces her to physicality and a lack of agency
Sexual tension and desire - Myrtle constructed through Nick's perspective
'There was an immediate perceptible vitality about her as if the nerves of her body were continually smouldering'
(Chapter 2)
Presented as intensely energetic and noticeable - stands out in contrast to passive upper-class women
Controlled fire imagery - repressed desire and sexual tension
Her energy reflects a desire to escape lower-class life through Tom - heat suggests instability and inevitable destruction
'Her left breast swinging open...The mouth was wide open and ripped at the corners'
(Chapter 7)
Brutal graphic imagery - futile violence
Body is exposed and destroyed - violent distortion and dehumanisation of Myrtle
Objectified in death - lack of identity
Reckless actions of elite class result in lower-class suffering
Parkinson - 'The impersonal death machine violates her female identity... symbolic rape'
'Violently extinguished
' (Chapter 7)
Brutality and forceful destruction of life
Implies she will disappear and become irrelevant like the 'Valley of ashes'
George
'Valley of Ashes... where ashes take the forms of houses and chimneys and rising smoke and ash-grey men'
(Chapter 2)
Symbol of decay and wasteland of capitalism - moral and social corruption
Lifeless suffocating environment - lack of identity
Industrial landscape replaces human vitality - neglect - contrasts glamour of West and East egg
Working class shown as victims of the wealthy elite's excess
'He was a wife's man not his own'
(Chapter 7)
George is defined through Myrtle - emotional submission and lack of agency
Wilson is passive and powerless vs Tom who is dominant and controlling - lower-class masculinity shown as weak reinforcing inequality
Wilson appears emotionally detached but Myrtle is detached and unfaithful - his emotional dependence heightens his later vulnerability and tragedy
'God sees everything'
(Chapter 8)
Religious reference - moral authority and belief in divine judgement
Contrasts theme of human corruption with idea of higher moral accountability - divine justice feels absent
Desperation for meaning or order after Myrtle's death
Belief in 'seeing' leads him to a misdirected judgement and tragedy
'He wasn't fit to lick my shoe'
(Chapter 2)
Reduces Wilson to beneath the basic worth - lack of respect
Humiliating servile image - Myrtle asserts dominance and ambition - Myrtle asserts superiority over Wilson as he has failed to provide wealth
She measures worth through power and money