Characters
What is Daisy’s primary motivation? We see it in the episode with the ‘beautiful shirts.’
What is being materialistic and driven by wealth and status?
Which common theme of the novel is illustrated by the following quote?
“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.”
What is illusion versus reality?
This industrial wasteland between West Egg and New York City represents the moral and social decay hidden beneath the glittering wealth of the 1920s.
What is the valley of ashes?
In Chapter 5, Fitzgerald uses short, fragmented sentences and frequent pauses in dialogue when Gatsby first reunites with Daisy, reflecting this emotional state.
What is nervousness and awkward tension?
What is the definition of the word “aspiration?”
What is “A hope or ambition of achieving something?"
Consider the following passage:
“Tom was evidently perturbed at Daisy’s running around alone, for on the following Saturday night he came with her to Gatsby’s party.”
What is Tom’s motivation?
What is to have control and dominance?
Which common theme of the novel is illustrated by the following quote?
“My God, I believe the man’s coming,” said Tom. “Doesn’t he know she doesn’t want him?”
What is old money versus new money?
In Chapter 5, this shift in weather during Gatsby and Daisy’s reunion mirrors the emotional movement from awkward tension to renewed hope.
What is rain clearing into sunshine?
Chapter 2 ends with a specific punctuation form to leave the reader wondering without any answers. What is this stylistic punctuation called?
What is an ellipses?
What is the word used to describe Gatsby’s yearning for the past-a sentimental longing, wistful affection, or bittersweet emotional state focused on past, often happier, times, places, or personal experiences as is illustrated in the following passage?
“Can’t repeat the past? Why of course you can!’
What is nostalgic?
Consider the following passage:
“I now realize that under different circumstances that conversation might have been one of the crises of my life. But, because the offer was obviously and tactlessly for a service to be rendered, I had no choice except to cut him off there.”
What is Nick’s motivation?
What is to be honest and objective?
Which common theme of the novel is illustrated by the following quote?
"‘Anything can happen now that we’ve slid over this bridge,’ I thought; ‘anything at all. . . .’ Even Gatsby could happen, without any particular wonder."
What is the American Dream?
This accessory, worn by Wolfsheim, reveals the grotesque and morally corrupt underworld connections behind Gatsby’s wealth.
What are molar cufflinks?
In Chapter 4, Fitzgerald uses short, clipped dialogue and strategically placed pauses—often marked by dashes and ellipses—during Gatsby’s car ride confession to create this effect around his backstory.
What is an atmosphere of hesitation and possible unreliability?
What is a paradox?
Which theme is demonstrated through Gatsby’s insistence that “He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: ‘I never loved you.’”
What is illusion versus reality?
Which common theme of the novel is illustrated by the following quote?
“James Gatz- that was really, or at least legally, his name. He had changed it at the age of seventeen and at the specific moment that witnessed the beginning of his career- when he saw Dan Cody’s yacht drop anchor over the most insidious flat on Lake Superior. It was James Gatz who had been loafing along the beach that afternoon in a torn green jersey. . . but it was already Jay Gatsby who borrowed a row boat. . . and informed Cody that a wind might catch him and break him up in half an hour.”
What is building an identity?
The green light at the end of Daisy’s dock symbolizes Gatsby’s belief in this forward-looking promise.
What is the American Dream, hope for the future?
Fitzgerald’s diction in the description of the Buchanan’s curtains—which "whipped and snapped" like "pale flags"—reveals his use of this specific part-of-speech or literary term to create a sense of restless, artificial energy.
What are dynamic verbs (or vivid imagery)?
What is the word for the following definition?
“The repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of successive clauses.”
What is anaphora?
Myrtle’s Manhattan apartment, adorned with pretentious décor and staged sophistication, symbolizes this futile attempt to transcend class boundaries.
What is the illusion of upward mobility?
Which common theme of the novel is illustrated by the following quote?
“Half a dozen fingers pointed at the amputated wheel-he stared at it for a moment and then looked upward as though he suspected that it had dropped from the sky.”
What is recklessness?
Gatsby’s lavish hospitality, extended to strangers rather than friends, symbolizes this distortion of the American Dream.
What is the pursuit of validation through material excess?
In Chapter 8 during the tense conversation between Gatsby and Tom, Fitzgerald uses sharp dialogue, interruptions, and dashes to emphasize this growing feeling.
What is conflict and rising tension?
What is the definition AND purpose of juxtaposition?
What is placing two ideas side by side to highlight their differences to draw attention to one of the two?