The Great Gatsby

by F. Scott Fitzgerald

“Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,” he told me, “just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.

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.

looking up into my face, promising that there was no one in the world she so much wanted to see.

Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered “Listen,”

I love the way he described each character. Look at this, he described Daisy in a very poetic, beautiful way.

I woke up out of the ether with an utterly abandoned feeling, and asked the nurse right away if it was a boy or a girl. She told me it was a girl, and so I turned my head away and wept. ‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’m glad it’s a girl. And I hope she’ll be a fool—that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.’

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, that might have been at the end of a dock.

If I can pick only one thing that I truly adore about this book, then it is the green light. I have always loved the meaning behind it since I was young. The great light... Damit autocorrect, I mean the green light (actually, thank you autocorrect I like it, get it? The great light? Great? Like the book name? And it is my favourite part? Ok I need to stop now) is an incredible symbol. It is a representation of hope and deep longing. I love the “his arms” part, indicating that he was not only looking, but he was also trying to touch; he was trying to reach and touch this light, his dreams, more like Daisy, like if it was a soul.

I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life.

One of my all-time favourite lines

He smiled understandingly—much more than understandingly. It was 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 so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey.

About Gatsby

Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known.

I usually find myself among strangers because I drift here and there trying to forget the sad thing that happened to me.”

The officer looked at Daisy while she was speaking, in a way that every young girl wants to be looked at sometime, and because it seemed romantic to me I have remembered the incident ever since.

Lol, Jordan was the third wheel in this part

Tell ’em all Daisy’s change’ her mine. Say: ‘Daisy’s change’ her mine!’ ”

Why I am getting emotional here? Something about this part is always hard to watch.... and read.

She took it into the tub with her and squeezed it up into a wet ball, and only let me leave it in the soap-dish when she saw that it was coming to pieces like snow.

The letter

“I think he half-expected her to wander into one of his parties, some night,” went on Jordan, “but she never did. Then he began asking people casually if they knew her, and I was the first one he found. It was that night he sent for me at his dance, and you should have heard the elaborate way he worked up to it.

Imagine if he did not come across Jordan *credits starts* haha

A phrase began to beat in my ears with a sort of heady excitement: “There are only the pursued, the pursuing, the busy, and the tired.”

followed by Daisy’s voice on a clear artificial note: “I certainly am awfully glad to see you again.”

Look at this contradiction, “awfully glad” — it shows the clear hesitation that Daisy had from the very beginning. This is such a great part, why did they cut this part from the line in the movie! This is another hidden symbol in the book.

Luckily the clock took this moment to tilt dangerously at the pressure of his head, whereupon he turned and caught it with trembling fingers and set it back in place. Then he sat down, rigidly, his elbow on the arm of the sofa and his chin in his hand. “I’m sorry about the clock,” he said.

This is another great representation. “The clock” in this part represents the past, what Jay wanted so badly to repeat and fix. The clock represented the main goal of Jay

After his embarrassment and his unreasoning joy he was consumed with wonder at her presence.

Awww! Now I am the one who is the third wheel smh

said Gatsby. “You always have a green light that burns all night at the end of your dock.” Daisy put her arm through his abruptly, but he seemed absorbed in what he had just said. Possibly it had occurred to him that the colossal significance of that light had now vanished forever. Compared to the great distance that had separated him from Daisy it had seemed very near to her, almost touching her. It had seemed as close as a star to the moon. Now it was again a green light on a dock. His count of enchanted objects had diminished by one.

“It had seemed very near to her, almost touching her.” Again, the green light is an incredible representation of hope. In this part, the light vanished means his dream started to crumble. He was losing sight of his dreams, there were complications between the two of them during this part.

Almost five years! 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. It had gone beyond her, beyond everything. He had thrown himself into it with a creative passion, adding to it all the time, decking it out with every bright feather that drifted his way. No amount of fire or freshness can challenge what a man will store up in his ghostly heart.

Nick saw that the idealization and the romanticized portrait in Jay’s head were nothing like the reality. He saw the truth behind the illusion from the very beginning huh?! Okay enough with the analyze I am so sleepy...zzz

It is invariably saddening to look through new eyes at things upon which you have expended your own powers of adjustment.

What a line

“I wouldn’t ask too much of her,” I ventured. “You can’t repeat the past.” “Can’t repeat the past?” he cried incredulously. “Why of course you can!” He looked around him wildly, as if the past were lurking here in the shadow of his house, just out of reach of his hand.

For a moment a phrase tried to take shape in my mouth and my lips parted like a dumb man’s, as though there was more struggling upon them than a wisp of startled air. But they made no sound, and what I had almost remembered was uncommunicable forever.

So the whole caravansary had fallen in like a card house at the disapproval in her eyes.

Their eyes met, and they stared together at each other, alone in space. With an effort she glanced down at the table. “You always look so cool,” she repeated. She had told him that she loved him, and Tom Buchanan saw. He was astounded. His mouth opened a little, and he looked at Gatsby, and then back at Daisy as if he had just recognized her as someone he knew a long time ago.

And this is when Tom became the third wheel

Gatsby turned to me rigidly: “I can’t say anything in his house, old sport.” “She’s got an indiscreet voice,” I remarked. “It’s full of—” I hesitated. “Her voice is full of money,” he 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.… High in a white palace the king’s daughter, the golden girl.…

I stared at him and then at Tom, who had made a parallel discovery less than an hour before—and it occurred to me that there was no difference between men, in intelligence or race, so profound as the difference between the sick and the well. Wilson was so sick that he looked guilty, unforgivably guilty—as if he had just got some poor girl with child.

Tom was more of a possessive than a lover, and on this part it clearly shows the difference between a grieving lover and a dominant persona. This part was perfectly written. I love it.

The “death car,” as the newspapers called it, didn’t stop; it came out of the gathering darkness, wavered tragically for a moment, and then disappeared around the next bend.

“death car”, this story is full of surprises and deep meanings. Okay so I need to talk about this, in short, Gatsby’s car colour was yellow, and it was not a coincidence, it is yet another symbol in the story. You see, every colour represented something. Like in this part, Fitzgerald used Yellow/Gold, and it used to be (or maybe still) a colour of wealth (represented wealth) in many cultures, which means the car represented Gatsby wealth (new money), status and materialism. The car represented Gatsby himself and his status in the society. So in the story, Daisy leads to Gatsby’s unfortunate event, so this colour also here indicated the failure of the American dream, “death car” here indicated The failure of Gatsby's dreams. **** The book also had a line that refers to Daisy as a golden girl. I googled for this and I found this! In this part, yellow also symbolizes luxuriousness, greed and cowardice. Awesome right?

She thought I knew a lot because I knew different things from her…

“They’re a rotten crowd,” I shouted across the lawn. “You’re worth the whole damn bunch put together.” I’ve always been glad I said that. It was the only compliment I ever gave him, because I disapproved of him from beginning to end.

“I spoke to her,” he muttered, after a long silence. “I told her she might fool me but she couldn’t fool God. I took her to the window”—with an effort he got up and walked to the rear window and leaned with his face pressed against it—“and I said ‘God knows what you’ve been doing, everything you’ve been doing. You may fool me, but you can’t fool God!’ ”

This indicated to Doctor T. J. Eckleburg, meaning, the famous eye with “golden” glasses again golden. I never looked this up so I don't yet know the meaning behind it but it is a clear representation of God. God sees everything, their cruelty, infidelity, greed, racism, and materialism and every hideous act of theirs. The question that never leaves my head is, why the eye, “God”, is located at the poor area? Is this indicate that the less money you have the closer to God you are? Is this represents the lack of spirituality somehow? I don't know, but I seriously need to look this up!

“God sees everything,” repeated Wilson.

Again. Doctor T. J. Eckleburg. “The eye”

I found myself on Gatsby’s side, and alone.

*pain*

I wanted to get somebody for him. I wanted to go into the room where he lay and reassure him: “I’ll get somebody for you, Gatsby. Don’t worry. Just trust me and I’ll get somebody for you——”

*pain* 0.2

“Let us learn to show our friendship for a man when he is alive and not after he is dead,” he suggested. “After that my own rule is to let everything alone.”

“Look here, this is a book he had when he was a boy. It just shows you.”

*spoiler* I love his dad! they removed Gatsby’s dad from the movie, but I can see why.

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.

I never thought about it that way, very interesting

Angry, and half in love with her, and tremendously sorry, I turned away.

What they were? Jordan and Nick? What is the point of making them in a relationship? it felt very random but nothing is random in this story.

They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness, or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.…

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 one fine morning—— So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

I couldn’t fully grasp the meaning of this yet but somehow I find it very exquisite. This is how he decided to end the book, this is why I am amazed.