The Great Gatsby quote test review

[She had] the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. . . . [T]here was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered "Listen," 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.

Daisy Buchanan. Nick frequently comments on Daisy's voice, and this first instance appears in Chapter 1. Instead of describing the quality of her voice, Nick emphasizes the effects her voice has on others, and particularly on men. Daisy's voice has an enticing mystique that captures the listener's attention and compels them to follow the musicality of her speech. In this sense, Daisy recalls the Sirens of Greek myth, who use their enchanting voices to lure sailors into shipwrecks. Like the Sirens, Daisy's voice issues a vague but entrancing promise of "gay, exciting things" to come, but instead her voice eventually leads to tragedy.

"I'm p-paralyzed with happiness.

Daisy Buchanan. These are Daisy's first words in the book, spoken in Chapter 1 to Nick upon his arrival at the Buchanan residence. Preceded by what Nick describes as "an absurd, charming little laugh," Daisy's affected but playful stutter suggests that she is a constant performer in social situations. Rather than express her happiness to see Nick in an earnest way, she performs happiness, and she does so ironically, which makes the reader suspicious as to just how "p-paralyzed with happiness" she really is.

I hope she'll be a fool—that's the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.

Daisy. Daisy speaks these words in Chapter 1 as she describes to Nick and Jordan her hopes for her infant daughter. While not directly relevant to the novel's main themes, this quote offers a revealing glimpse into Daisy's character. Daisy is not a fool herself but is the product of a social environment that, to a great extent, does not value intelligence in women. The older generation values subservience and docility in females, and the younger generation values thoughtless giddiness and pleasure-seeking. Daisy's remark is somewhat sardonic: while she refers to the social values of her era, she does not seem to challenge them. Instead, she describes her own boredom with life and seems to imply that a girl can have more fun if she is beautiful and simplistic. Daisy herself often tries to act such a part. She conforms to the social standard of American femininity in the 1920s in order to avoid such tension-filled issues as her undying love for Gatsby.

They moved with a fast crowd, all of them young and rich and wild, but [Daisy] came out with an absolutely perfect reputation. Perhaps because she doesn't drink. It's a great advantage not to drink among hard-drinking people. You can hold your tongue, and, moreover, you can time any little irregularity of your own so that everybody else is so blind that they don't see or care. Perhaps Daisy never went in for amour at all—and yet there's something in that voice of hers. . .

Daisy. In Chapter 4, Nick tries to describe what sets Daisy apart from the rest of the affluent, "fast crowd" she consorts with. Her "perfect reputation" makes her seem flawless, and Nick links this to her self-restraint around drinking. But Nick does not actually think that Daisy is as perfect as she seems, only that she gets away with being less than perfect because everyone around her "is so blind that they don't see or care." This fact, coupled with her enchanting voice, simply makes her seemuntouchable, even though she's as flawed as the rest.

"She's got an indiscreet voice," I remarked. "It's full of—" I hesitated."Her voice is full of money," [Gatsby] said suddenly. That was it. I'd never understood before. It was full of money—that was the inexhaustible charm that rose and fell in it, the jingle of it, the cymbals' song of it.

Daisy. This exchange between Nick and Gatsby occurs in Chapter 7, just after Tom catches Gatsby and Daisy exchanging loving glances. Once again Nick brings up Daisy's voice, this time characterizing it as "indiscreet"—that is, careless and rash with information that should remain secret or private. When Gatsby responds that Daisy's voice "is full of money," Nick suddenly understands the source of its dangerous mystique. Daisy's voice echoes with affluence. Its "inexhaustible charm" makes exciting promises, but as Nick learns, such promises cannot be kept.

Daisy was young and her artificial world was redolent of orchids and pleasant, cheerful snobbery and orchestras which set the rhythm of the year, summing up the sadness and suggestiveness of life in new tunes.

Daisy. This quote appears in Chapter 8, when Nick recounts the story of what happened to Daisy after Gatsby initially left for the war. Following his departure, Daisy launched herself to the "artificial world" of affluent society and reveled in what that world had to offer. Nick's use of a musical metaphor is significant. His reference to "new tunes" recalls the music of the Jazz Age. High-energy jazz styles created a soundtrack for the Roaring Twenties, expressing both "the sadness and suggestiveness of life." Daisy therefore abandoned herself not just to wealthy society, but to the atmosphere of popular jazz that animated it.

There must have been moments even that afternoon when Daisy tumbled short of his dreams—not through her own fault, but because of the colossal vitality of his illusion.

Gatsby. Here Nick comments on Gatsby's idealism regarding Daisy. As Nick points out with these words from Chapter 5, the "colossal vitality" of Gatsby's illusions about Daisy doomed their reunion from the start. There's simply no way Daisy could live up to the image Gatsby's created of her. In articulating this thought, Nick foreshadows the inevitable failure of Gatsby's pursuit of Daisy.

He hurried the phrase "educated at Oxford," or swallowed it, or choked on it, as though it had bothered him now. And with this doubt, his whole statement fell to pieces, and I wondered if there wasn't something a little sinister about him, after all.

Gatsby. In Chapter 4, Nick once again notes an oddity in Gatsby's speech. This time the oddity relates to the moment when Gatsby says he was educated at Oxford. The way Gatsby seems to choke on the words makes Nick suspicious, as if he's is telling a lie. And indeed, as Nick finds out in Chapter 7, Gatsby was not educated at Oxford—or, not exactly. He attended Oxford for five months before dropping out. Although at this moment in the novel Nick doesn't yet know this information, he senses the lie, which in turn makes him mistrustful of Gatsby altogether.

I was looking at an elegant young roughneck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd.

Gatsby. Nick makes these observations about Gatsby in Chapter 3, just after he's exchanged his first words with the man. "Roughneck," a word used to describe workers on an oil rig, or any person who does manual labor, hints at the later revelation of Gatsby's working class beginnings. The phrase "elegant young roughneck" indicates something contradictory about Gatsby's appearance—at once stylish and rugged. Nick links this contradiction in his appearance to his strange way of expressing himself. Gatsby's "elaborate formality of speech" indicates that something is off, as if he doesn't feel truly at home among affluent society. In other words, the near absurdity of Gatsby's speech suggests that he doesn't really fit in.

It excited him, too, that many men had already loved Daisy—it increased her value in his eyes.

Gatsby. Nick makes this observation in Chapter 8 while recounting Gatsby and Daisy's backstory. It is unclear whether Gatsby said this to Nick, or if this represents Nick's interpretation. Either way, Nick's words indicate how Gatsby's desire for Daisy cannot be separated from a concept of value. Although the "value" mentioned here is not monetary value, the economic metaphor still holds: the greater the demand for Daisy, the greater her value.

It was testimony to the romantic speculation [Gatsby] inspired that there were whispers about him from those who had found little that it was necessary to whisper about in this world.

Gatsby. This quote appears in Chapter 3, during Gatsby's party. At this point in the book, Nick has yet to meet Gatsby face to face, and rumors are circulating about the party's host. One young woman puts forward an especially extreme hypothesis: "I'll bet he killed a man." In response, Nick observes that such gossip just goes to show how greatly Gatsby is shrouded in mystery. Even those world-weary and cynical folks who are not usually driven to gossip find pleasure in speculating about Gatsby.

[Gatsby] must have felt that he had lost the old warm world, paid a high price for living too long with a single dream. He must have looked up at an unfamiliar sky through 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.

Jay Gatsby. In Chapter 8 Nick speculates about Gatsby's last moments of life. Nick imagines that Gatsby must have felt a sense of grief about how the events of the previous day had unfolded. Nick describes this grief in his own characteristically abstract way, referring to the loss of "the old warm world." This turn of phrase encompasses Gatsby's desire for Daisy and his hopes for their future together, both of which Nick thinks are illusory. With Gatsby's hopes shattered, the old world of illusions gives way to a "grotesque" and "raw" reality.

If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him, some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life, as if he were related to one of those intricate machines that register earthquakes ten thousand miles away.

Jay Gatsby. With these words, which come early in Chapter 1, Nick describes Gatsby for the first time. Nick indicates that many people find Gatsby "gorgeous" because he exudes an aura of success. But this aura is just the effect of "gestures"—that is, Gatsby projects an image of success, whether or not there is any substance behind the image. Nick also implies that Gatsby is able to project an image of success because he's especially responsive to what others desire. According to Nick, Gatsby possesses "an extraordinary gift for hope," and he measures this hope with great sensitivity, like a seismograph.

That's my Middle West—not the wheat of the prairies or the lost Swede towns, but the thrilling returning trains of my youth, and the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark and the shadows of holly wreaths thrown by lighted windows on the snow.

Nick Carraway

In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.'Whenever you feel like criticizing any one,' he told me, 'just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.'

Nick Carraway.

When I came back from the East last autumn I felt that I wanted the world to be in uniform and at a sort of moral attention forever; I wanted no more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only Gatsby, the man who gives his name to this book, was exempt from my reaction—Gatsby who represented everything for which I have an unaffected scorn.

Nick Carraway.

Why they came East I don't know. . . . This was a permanent move, said Daisy over the telephone, but I didn't believe it—I had no sight into Daisy's heart, but I felt that Tom would drift on forever seeking, a little wistfully, for the dramatic turbulence of some irrecoverable football game.

Nick Carraway.

The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God—a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that—and he must be about His Father's business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invent, and to this conception he was faithful to the end.

Nick. In Chapter 6, when Nick finally describes Gatsby's early history, he uses this striking comparison between Gatsby and Jesus Christ to illuminate Gatsby's creation of his own identity. Fitzgerald was probably influenced in drawing this parallel by a nineteenth-century book by Ernest Renan entitled The Life of Jesus. This book presents Jesus as a figure who essentially decided to make himself the son of God, then brought himself to ruin by refusing to recognize the reality that denied his self-conception. Renan describes a Jesus who is "faithful to his self-created dream but scornful of the factual truth that finally crushes him and his dream"—a very appropriate description of Gatsby. Fitzgerald is known to have admired Renan's work and seems to have drawn upon it in devising this metaphor. Though the parallel between Gatsby and Jesus is not an important motif in The Great Gatsby, it is nonetheless a suggestive comparison, as Gatsby transforms himself into the ideal that he envisioned for himself (a "Platonic conception of himself") as a youngster and remains committed to that ideal, despite the obstacles that society presents to the fulfillment of his dream.

That's my Middle West . . . the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark. . . . I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all—Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life.

Nick. This important quote from Nick's lengthy meditation in Chapter 9 brings the motif of geography in The Great Gatsby to a conclusion. Throughout the novel, places are associated with themes, characters, and ideas. The East is associated with a fast-paced lifestyle, decadent parties, crumbling moral values, and the pursuit of wealth, while the West and the Midwest are associated with more traditional moral values. In this moment, Nick realizes for the first time that though his story is set on the East Coast, the western character of his acquaintances ("some deficiency in common") is the source of the story's tensions and attitudes. He considers each character's behavior and value choices as a reaction to the wealth-obsessed culture of New York. This perspective contributes powerfully to Nick's decision to leave the East Coast and return to Minnesota, as the infeasibility of Nick's Midwestern values in New York society mirrors the impracticality of Gatsby's dream.

He had one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced, or seemed to face, the whole external world for an instant and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself.

Nick. This passage occurs in Chapter 3 as part of Nick's first close examination of Gatsby's character and appearance. This description of Gatsby's smile captures both the theatrical quality of Gatsby's character and his charisma. Additionally, it encapsulates the manner in which Gatsby appears to the outside world, an image Fitzgerald slowly deconstructs as the novel progresses toward Gatsby's death in Chapter 8. One of the main facets of Gatsby's persona is that he acts out a role that he defined for himself when he was seventeen years old. His smile seems to be both an important part of the role and a result of the singular combination of hope and imagination that enables him to play it so effectively. Here, Nick describes Gatsby's rare focus—he has the ability to make anyone he smiles at feel as though he has chosen that person out of "the whole external world," reflecting that person's most optimistic conception of him- or herself.

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And then one fine morning—So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

These words conclude the novel and find Nick returning to the theme of the significance of the past to dreams of the future, here represented by the green light. He focuses on the struggle of human beings to achieve their goals by both transcending and re-creating the past. Yet humans prove themselves unable to move beyond the past: in the metaphoric language used here, the current draws them backward as they row forward toward the green light. This past functions as the source of their ideas about the future (epitomized by Gatsby's desire to re-create 1917 in his affair with Daisy) and they cannot escape it as they continue to struggle to transform their dreams into reality. While they never lose their optimism ("tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther . . ."), they expend all of their energy in pursuit of a goal that moves ever farther away. This apt metaphor characterizes both Gatsby's struggle and the American dream itself. Nick's words register neither blind approval nor cynical disillusionment but rather the respectful melancholy that he ultimately brings to his study of Gatsby's life.