Quote Analysis in The Great Gatsby

The Roman Catholic Church, and its followers by extension, do not sanction divorce; instead, they consider marriage to be an irrevocable sacrament that can only be dissolved through an annulment. Legal divorce is not grounds for excommunication, but divorced couples are still considered to be married within the Church. Therefore, neither person can remarry until the other has died. Annulments, however, are recognized as legitimate under certain circumstances and are granted if the Church does not recognize the marriage as having been valid in the first place. Such circumstances include being forced into marriage or not understanding the vows being taken. It seems likely that Tom has lied about Daisy being a Catholic in order to excuse himself from committing to Myrtle.

Nick’s disdainful label of a female partygoer as “a rowdy little girl” reflects the tone of the widespread misogyny of the 1920s. His characterization is especially consistent with the negative cultural stereotype of the “flapper girl” as self-absorbed and frivolous. Nick seems to apply this stereotype to the main female characters in The Great Gatsby as well as to the party guests: he is willing to deeply contemplate the emotions and motivations of Tom and Gatsby, and often reduces or ignores those of Daisy, Jordan, and Myrtle.

The spectacled man’s cynical praise for Gatsby includes knowing “when to stop”: he “didn’t cut the pages” of his books. Uncut—or, technically, unopened—describes pages in a book that are still joined together along one or more edges where the larger paper on which they were printed is folded. A reader would have to cut these folds to be able to see all the book’s pages. By leaving the pages of his books unopened, Gatsby is protecting them as an investment but also proving that he hasn’t actually read them. To the man in the library, Gatsby’s collection is little more than a stage for his performance of worldliness, wealth, and importance.

“Homogeneity” means the quality of sameness, that things in a group are similar or the same. Jordan’s group (despite the undergraduate spouting his “violent innuendo”) is contrasted with “rambling” guests because they have remained together, aloof from the other partygoers. They represent “the staid nobility of the countryside,” or the highest classes of East Egg looking down on this fashionable but less refined West Egg party.

An “innuendo” is an indirect remark, usually one that suggests something disparaging or scandalous. Here, the “persistent undergraduate” is saying sexually suggestive things in front of the group and expects Jordan will eventually “yield him up her person to a greater or lesser degree”—meaning that he expects her to have sexual intercourse with him. Nick’s characterization of the innuendo as “violent” indicates that the undergraduate is being obvious as opposed to discreet about his suggestions. The word choice further hints at the violence many women still face today at the hands of entitled men.

Lucille means that she believes—or at least has heard—that Gatsby spied on behalf of Germany in World War I. During the war, Germany led the Central Powers of Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and Bulgaria, and their enemies were the Allied Powers that included France, Italy, Russia, Japan, and the United States. Therefore, the rumor that Gatsby was a German spy suggests that he could have committed treason. The women’s spreading of baseless but salacious gossip seems to be a nod to the country’s growing love not only of gossip, but also of constructing fictional personas around the celebrities it worships.

Gatsby seems interested in cultivating a reputation as a generous person, both by hosting massive parties and by giving gifts. Gatsby’s penchant for giving, however, doesn’t reassure readers that Gatsby’s character is truly generous; nor does it reassure his guests, who view his extravagant gifts with suspicion. It seems that Gatsby participates in the same superficiality, whether purposefully or not, as his guests.

Nick repeatedly emphasizes the strangeness of the social interactions happening at Gatsby’s parties. Many guests are not only content to be strangers to each other, but also to the man whose hospitality they enjoy. The fact that Gatsby’s huge house is full of strangers who do not care about him indicates that his social life is superficial; he lacks meaningful connections with other people, which Fitzgerald seems to identify as an unspoken cost of pursuing wealth.

The narration often represents the superficiality of the upper class through its portrayal of women—or, specifically, through what Nick and Gatsby say about women. As seen through Nick’s eyes, it seems that none of the women in The Great Gatsby are without superficiality; even Myrtle Wilson, who seems full of “intense vitality” when Nick first meets her, devolves into artifice. Here, anonymous women who do not know each other’s names engage in enthusiastic conversation, presumably without ever bothering to get to know each other outside of Gatsby’s parties. The effect sets Gatsby’s parties apart from the rest of the world in a way that could seem fresh and exciting, but it also reveals a potential lack of authenticity in the guests’ relationships with one another.

Nick refers to the mess made at Gatsby’s house each weekend. The specific word choice, however, implies that another type of damage has been done that extends deeper than the disorder left after a large gathering. Gatsby’s parties are ultimately frivolous and superficial, a spectacle of wealth and status rather than a show of generosity. The people who attend his parties are also frivolous and superficial: they drink copiously, behave outrageously, and spread rumors about Gatsby while taking advantage of his hospitality. The “ravages” of the parties suggest a moral degradation, not only within the upper classes, but throughout American society in general.

Generally, a commissioner is a person who has been appointed to have authority over a particular organization or area. Here, it is likely that Gatsby refers to the police commissioner, who is in charge of the local police force. Gatsby’s advantage is clearly unfair, regardless of the favor he did for the commissioner, and suggests that certain laws do not always apply to those with connections and status. Moreover, the arrangement suggests that Gatsby’s generosity may not be selfless: he may consciously use his wealth and resources to buy favors or get himself out of difficult situations.

San Francisco, California, is not part of the “Middle West” (more often known as the Midwest today); it is, of course, on the West Coast of the United States. That Gatsby calls San Francisco the “Middle West” is perhaps the most obvious indication so far that he is lying.

The green light at the end of the Buchanans’ dock has been incredibly important to Gatsby since he moved to West Egg. It urges him to press on, as a green traffic light does for automobiles, in his pursuit of the American dream—which Daisy no doubt represents for him. However, Nick imagines that Gatsby gazes at the green light with a sense of loss, for its power as a symbol to him has “vanished forever” now that Daisy stands by his side.

It seems ridiculous that Daisy is crying over Gatsby’s shirts, given that shirts are a relatively mundane thing to possess, and it falls to readers to decide why she’s reacting this way. Though Nick is willing to offer interpretations of Gatsby’s behavior and emotional state throughout this chapter, he doesn’t do the same for Daisy. Nick’s narrative objectification of Daisy, which is persistent throughout the novel, makes it easy to read her as a shallow and reactionary character who lacks interior life. In particular, her sudden outburst over Gatsby’s shirts could signify that she specifically values material goods. However, she could be feeling overwhelmed by the situation for any number of other reasons—the mundanity of shirts makes it unlikely that they’re what’s actually triggering her outburst. Nick’s failure to describe Daisy’s experience to the extent he does Gatsby’s should remind readers of the subjectivity of the narrative as a whole.

Gatsby’s clumsiness and lack of control sharply contrast with his usual poise, which has been especially obvious when he is among the drunken guests at his parties. Nick’s interpretation of Gatsby here suggests that he is experiencing his own form of inebriation; in this case, he seems to be intoxicated by Daisy’s presence and the overwhelming thrill of believing that his fantasies are finally going to become a reality.

Throughout Daisy’s visit, it appears to Nick that her presence—which is the reason Gatsby worked so hard for the past five years—renders Gatsby’s material possessions immaterial to him. They become more or less valuable depending on Daisy’s apparent appraisal, as though value itself shifts with perception. Moreover, Nick seems to think that Gatsby’s very persona, which has been tied to a show of wealth, is unraveling now that his dream appears to be coming true. The theme of reality versus illusion thus continues to develop throughout the chapter.

The relative quiet that surrounds them is jarring to Nick, whose experience of Gatsby’s mansion has been dominated by boisterous weekend parties. This stark contrast marks a turning point in the story, for Gatsby has finally gotten Daisy’s attention—which was the entire point of having so many people in his house all the time. seems to meet her standards. However, the sounds of nature surrounding Gatsby’s mansion suggest an authenticity that is not rooted in performance, which perhaps represents Gatsby’s and Daisy’s love for each other.

Once again, Gatsby displays secretiveness about what he does for a living. Further, he appears to have slipped up on his claim that he inherited his money by bragging to Nick that he only took three years to make the money that paid for his mansion. Gatsby’s secretiveness, mysterious entrepreneurial endeavors, and connections with a man like Wolfshiem altogether insinuate that a good deal of the “easy money” available during the Roaring Twenties was acquired through corruption.

Nick means that the brewer’s goal was to establish a sort of lineage for his family, thus making them part of the powerful “old money” class. The brewer’s plan is inspired by imagery of feudal society, which was organized into classes based on land ownership. The brewer would never have been part of the nobility; however, perhaps owing to his vision of the American dream and its fantasy of class ascension, he believed he could establish a family with superior status in the neighborhood.

The “period” craze was a brief architectural trend in which houses were designed and built to resemble those that were popular during different historical periods. Gatsby’s house was constructed by a brewer who apparently wanted to recreate a feudal setting in which his house would be the castle overlooking a neighborhood of make-believe peasants living in thatch-roofed houses. Throughout The Great Gatsby, anecdotes like this both situate Nick in the culture of gossip he comes to resent and offer clues about how Fitzgerald wanted the narrative to be interpreted.

Tom’s condescending attitude towards people with “new money” reflects the “old money” class’s interest in delegitimizing those whose wealth did not come through inheritance. Daisy, too, is “appalled by West Egg, this unprecedented ‘place’ that Broadway had begotten upon a Long Island fishing village.” The idea of people making their fortunes who would otherwise be socially and economically inferior to the Buchanans seems unfathomable to them. Tom copes by explaining away their success as a product of corruption, which by contrast reinforces the legitimacy of his position at the top of the social order.

Tom cannot believe that Gatsby would feel entitled to intrude upon the evening’s dinner, but he also cannot articulate the classist cause of his discomfort. In his confusion, he misattributes Mr. Sloane’s unwillingness to the woman accompanying them—who is apparently sincerely defending her invitation of Gatsby. When he is corrected by Nick, his retort that Gatsby “won’t know a soul there” speaks to his true objection: Gatsby will be a stranger to the other guests, an outsider from their class, and inherently unwelcome at their table.

Gatsby’s reasons for generosity become even clearer here, especially after the reader has been given more information about his past: he needs to show generosity—or at least, carelessness with money—in order to fit in with the “old money” class of which Tom and Mr. Sloane are members. His uneasiness suggests his self-doubt about belonging, as well as his discomfort reading his guests’ social cues.

Nick means that Dan Cody mentored Gatsby so that, even though he did not receive his twenty-five-thousand-dollar inheritance, he could build his own wealth independently. That the education was “singularly appropriate” to Gatsby could mean that its privileged, secretive nature upheld his sense of self-importance; it could also mean that what he learned directly contributed to his self-invention or supported his social and financial goals.

The idea of “James Gatz’s destiny” implies that Gatsby is justified in doing whatever he needs to succeed, since his eventual wealth and splendor are preordained. Therefore, Gatsby’s questionable actions and business interests must be inherently moral. Nick taking this position with his narrative can be read as a reinforcement of Gatsby’s certitude, but it can also be read as undermining Gatsby’s position through hyperbole. Here, as elsewhere, it is difficult to pin down exactly how Nick feels about Gatsby and his narrative.

The adjective “meretricious” describes something with an attractive appearance that lacks inner depth or integrity. With its use, Nick describes Gatsby’s persona as superficial, undermining his prior statement that Gatsby was “a son of God.” Describing Gatsby’s highest calling as “the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty” invites the question of whether Gatsby’s God is anything more than the “American dream,” a goal lacking any inherent spiritual value. Gatsby’s belief in his own inherent greatness is therefore portrayed as flawed as opposed to admirable or ambitious; in fact, Nick implies that Gatsby’s work ethic is empty because his aims are without real merit.

The “ambitious young reporter” who seeks a story about Gatsby possibly works for a tabloid or some other gossip magazine—a relatively new genre of reporting which has already appeared in the form of Myrtle’s Town Tattle and Gatsby’s news clippings about Daisy. Fitzgerald’s inclusion of a reporter following gossip to find a story is possibly a criticism of American journalism’s pursuit of salacious details in order to sell more papers.

In describing Gatsby’s expression, Nick refers to gossip about Gatsby’s past in which he is rumored to have “killed a man once.” In light of Tom’s revelations it seems likely that Gatsby has indeed been involved in literal acts of violence as well as in the metaphorical “killing” of his identity as James Gatz.

Daisy’s voice has been a major element in Nick’s characterization of her since her introduction. Here, Nick saying Daisy has “got an indiscreet voice” seems to be saying that her voice makes discretion—modesty or reserve—impossible for her. Daisy’s not having learned to moderate her tone indicates the ease and carelessness with which she’s used to speaking. Daisy’s privileged carelessness will continue to be a major factor in the narrative’s development.

Given that one approach for an advertisement is to offer an illusion of achievable perfection in order to motivate a purchase, it is a fitting comparison for Gatsby: Nearly everything about him is an illusion that James Gatz constructed in order to fulfill his highest ideals. Daisy’s declaration that he reminds her of “the advertisement of the man” insinuates that she idealizes and objectifies Gatsby just as he idealizes and objectifies her. A secondary facet of Daisy’s comparison is its similarity to Myrtle Wilson’s story about seeing Tom for the first time. “I couldn’t keep my eyes off him,” Myrtle says, “but every time he looked at me I had to pretend to be looking at the advertisement over his head.” The conflation of romance and commercialism is a motif throughout the book, and both Daisy and Myrtle are guilty of it.

Gatsby pointing out that his huge house is directly across the sound from Tom and Daisy seems to symbolize the distance between “new money” and “old money.” Both are monied classes, and seem like they should enjoy the same social standing. However, there is great tension between them over who is deserving of status. The “green Sound, stagnant,” joins the color of Gatsby’s hopes—the green light—with an image of immobility: the gap between “old” and “new” money may not be as traversable as he thinks.

It is possible that Tom is mixing up statistics surrounding global warming—a trend identified by scientists beginning in the 19th century—with facts about the eventual fate of the sun, as well as the Earth and the rest of the solar system. Regardless, the fact that he immediately contradicts himself by saying that the sun is actually “getting colder every year” implies that facts do not matter to him.

Gatsby views Daisy’s overconfidence and flirtatiousness as a representation of her immense privilege, which enables her to do almost anything with impunity. Her money and status essentially buy her freedom, which she currently exercises by saying indiscreet things to Gatsby in front of Tom. Nick realizes this, too, and explains that Daisy is “the king’s daughter” and the “golden girl” who can do whatever she wants. Though Nick may now consider this entitlement to be selfish and abhorrent, Gatsby continues to pursue Daisy as though the “money” in her voice is another type of wealth that he can acquire through immoral means.

Nick’s gesture of helpfulness is immediately suspected as having criminal intent. This moment possibly indicates the extent to which a desire for money—as well as a willingness to commit crime in order to obtain it—had infiltrated American society during the Roaring Twenties, along with a deeper erosion of trust and community. Nick clearly accepts this reality, for he immediately holds the woman’s pocket-book out to her “to indicate that [he] had no designs upon it,” though to no avail.

Gatsby’s failure to return to the simplicity of the past is cemented by the presence of Wolfshiem’s people, who have replaced Gatsby’s servants. While Gatsby insists that this is by choice, so that his affair with Daisy can remain discreet, it is worth remembering Wolfshiem’s assessment of Gatsby’s character in chapter 4—“He would never so much look at another man’s wife”—and considering the danger to Wolfshiem’s clandestine dealings that a public scandal would pose. (Also of note is the distinct inhospitality of these former hotel owners.) Whatever the reason for it, the presence of Wolfshiem’s connections reminds readers—as it surely reminds Gatsby—that the price of Daisy’s heart was steep.

Wilson is convinced that Myrtle’s lover murdered her, even though Michaelis has insisted that her death was a tragic accident. Regardless, murder seems plausible to Wilson, perhaps in part because he recalls Myrtle returning home from New York with a bruised face and a swollen nose—presumably he is referring to her visit to the city with Tom and Nick. For Wilson, this memory links the ideas of Myrtle’s lover and violence, though Michaelis’s recollections seem to imply that Wilson himself was guilty of similar violence toward Myrtle on her final day.

Gatsby’s “single dream” is not simply his obsessive pursuit of Daisy, nor is it his misguided desire to resurrect the romance of their past through his money and power. His childhood dream of escaping his circumstances and joining the upper echelons of American society that he believes to be his destiny and birthright has been his sole, costly purpose in life. Nick imagines that his last moments are spent realizing the “high price” of this pursuit, and perhaps feeling afraid of the “new world, material without being real,” that he must now navigate. However, Nick leaves it unclear whether he imagines Gatsby to regret his choice to live with this “single dream.”

Nick here is acknowledging a distinction between the physical reality of the world and the deeper reality of a world imbued with meaning. Without an interpretive lens to give the things around him beauty or worth, Gatsby is confronted by a “grotesque” rose and “raw” sunlight. He has never had to navigate the world without having dreams through which to filter everything, and Nick imagines him frightened and dismayed by material reality.

Nick has abruptly begun to separate himself from the “rotten crowd,” though he continues to evade any accountability for his inclusion in that crowd over the summer. It is probable, however, that he genuinely views them differently after spending the morning with Gatsby.

Calling Gatsby’s relatively new mansion his “ancestral home” sounds ironic, but recall the story of the brewer who built the house, which Nick relates in chapter 5. In many ways, that brewer was like Gatsby: an outsider with high aspirations, doomed to failure by socioeconomic circumstances beyond his control. (In the brewer’s case, the impending onset of Prohibition would have spelled the end of his prosperity, assuming he hadn’t died before it began.) Nick’s description acknowledges Gatsby’s rejection of his family and instead places him in a tradition of heartbroken social climbers, implying both the inevitability of the attempt and the inevitability of its failure.

Nick means that Gatsby did not have the right to be with Daisy because he had no money or status. Gatsby therefore “took Daisy”—whatever that might imply—as one might steal a coveted object. Further, he did so specifically because of his deception: his behavior toward Daisy is contextualized as “making the most of his time” while the illusion of status offered by his army rank still holds.

Nick’s recounting of Gatsby’s story frames Gatsby’s interest in Daisy as a preoccupation with a valuable commodity. The existence of other suitors “increased her value” to Gatsby, just as a market’s interest can drive up the demand and price of a product or stock. Gatsby’s appreciation of Daisy as a commodity as opposed to a real person is yet another example of the corrupting consequences of his aspirations: his desire projects onto Daisy’s home imagined potential it may not actually possess, and it dehumanizes Daisy herself.

In saying that he should have known better, Nick is almost admitting his own participation in this superficial world. He attended Gatsby’s parties, judged Gatsby despite knowing nothing about him, and happily socialized with Daisy and Tom.

Nick may be ashamed on Gatsby’s behalf for the shallowness of his friends, but it is also possible that he is a little ashamed of Gatsby himself. Gatsby intentionally cultivated hollow connections as he tried to get Daisy’s attention. By doing so, he attracted people like Klipspringer, who is more concerned about Nick returning his shoes than about Gatsby’s death.

Henry Gatz seems to be as idealistic as Gatsby himself about his son’s destiny. From his statement, it appears Henry Gatz is unaware that his son, unlike James J. Hill, made his fortune from crime. Fitzgerald appears to imply that the type of greatness achieved by Hill, whose entrepreneurship actually did help “build up” the United States, is not possible if one chases wealth the way Gatsby did, as an end unto itself.

Henry Gatz represents a dull reality that contrasts sharply with the sensationalist fantasy of Jay Gatsby, who has become something of a mythical figure in the community. The little boys were doubtlessly hoping for news of someone equally larger-than-life, and the idea of Jay Gatsby having something so mundane as a father must diminish him in their eyes. Gatz’s arrival signals a return of reality, including Gatsby’s humble past, and the boys have nothing to sustain their fantasy anymore.

For Nick, Dan Cody seems to represent the origin of Gatsby’s downfall. Though James Gatz was already ambitious, Cody introduced him to the world of lavish wealth and unsavory characters. Like Gatsby, Cody met his end under suspicious circumstances and left behind only one true friend. The specific “forgotten violence” the picture represents for Nick could be the violence of Cody’s life, which he taught to Gatsby, or it could refer to the violence and suffering upon which both the “old” and “new money” worlds are built, which Gatsby could perhaps have avoided it if he had not met Dan Cody.

Nick’s clarification points to the sad irony of Gatsby’s circumstances. When Gatsby was alive, he was a figure of great interest to many people—they stayed in his home, drank his liquor, and talked about him incessantly. Now that he is dead, the superficiality of that interest has been revealed. Despite Gatsby’s massive social circle, only Nick appears to have had genuine feelings for him. Much of Nick’s disillusionment appears to be rooted in his discovery of this innate hypocrisy and his slow realization of how devalued a human life is by the upper class.

At no point does Nick, or anyone else, explicitly state that Wilson murdered Gatsby. There is enough ambiguity surrounding Gatsby’s murder—the still-floating inflatable mattress and his staff ignoring the gunshots, among other things—to support a narrative wherein Gatsby’s killing was ordered by Wolfshiem, possibly to prevent the scandal with Daisy from becoming possible leverage against their organization. By this reading, Wilson would have been merely a hapless bystander—like his wife, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and the competing ambitions of the wealthy destroyed him. By this point in his narrative, Nick is utterly uninterested in the machinations of the upper class, and if he gave the matter of Gatsby’s killer any serious thought he doesn’t bother to include the reader in his considerations.

For Nick, being a “Westerner” seems to mean being ill suited for the fast-paced, inauthentic, and ruthless world of the East. Tom, Gatsby, Daisy, and Jordan are all unhappy and morally compromised, and Nick ascribes this to them possessing an innate quality that makes them unable to live well in the social and economic environment of the East Coast. This stance assumes that there are people for whom “Eastern life” is not a corrupting influence. Perhaps Nick truly sees himself and his cohort as somehow set apart, in that they’ve been raised with Midwestern values that native New Yorkers wouldn’t have to overcome to succeed. However, it is just as likely that he is incapable of seeing the systems in which they participate as innately destructive. In other words, Nick is not faulting the American dream itself; rather, he is faulting his friends for not having the necessary character to to pursue it well.

Nick imagines the overwhelming, sublime feelings that must have arisen in the Dutch sailors when they entered the Long Island Sound for the first time. However, he hints at the destructive nature of ambition when he envisions the “vanished trees”—the color green again emerging to represent hopes—that were cut down to make room for houses like Gatsby’s. Still, Nick believes that the settlers must have experienced one “enchanted moment,” forced into “an aesthetic contemplation” of something greater and more powerful than themselves. These feelings of enchantment were soon set aside as they, followed by other Europeans, began their brutal conquest of the continent.

Nick means that Gatsby did not understand that his past was irretrievably gone. Like the Dutch sailors in Nick’s imagination, confronted with the unknown coast, Gatsby is mistakenly (and perhaps fatally) drawn in by the overwhelming wonder he has projected onto the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He fails to understand that the feeling is unachievable and rooted in something he can’t return to. Like the sailors cutting down the trees that awed them, Gatsby’s achievement of Daisy would have meant the loss of his wonder.

Nick concludes his story by portraying all of humanity as rowing “against the current” of time in order to reach an idealized future. According to this metaphor, people struggle to free themselves from the effects of the past, which keep them from achieving their goals. Gatsby commits this error by refusing to envision a future without Daisy, though she is lost to him. To Fitzgerald, ambition involves a fruitless pursuit of what is gone, for everything that is present today exists because of the past—and the past is all that one knows.