1. Quotes From The Great Gatsby About Wealth
2. Great Gatsby Quotes And Meanings
3. The Great Gatsby Love Quotes
4. Best Great Gatsby Quotes
5. Quotes About Great Gatsby

Book: The Great Gatsby

Although “The Great Gatsby” is filled with multiple themes such as love, money, order, reality, illusion and immorality, no one would probably deny that the predominate one focuses on the American Dream and the downfall of those who attempt to reach its illusionary goals. The attempt to capture the American Dream is the central of this novel.

This can be explained by how Gatsby came to get his fortune. By studying the process of how Gatsby tried to achieve his own so-called American Dream, we could have a better understanding of what American dream is all about, in those down-to-earth Americans’ point of view.

Quote from Nick's dad Social status is shown here through Gatsby's new 'servant', he is acting rude towards Nick. When you have a lower social status and work for people, usually you behave differently, you have to be polite and do what is asked of you. Based on this new butler's. Understanding these famous quotes in The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald will make reading and discussing the novel a much better experience. Using these quotes correctly in term papers is an important part of not looking really dumb in front of your teacher. If nothing else, understanding these Great Gatsby quotes will make you feel smart and confident. Gatsby is a prime example of pursuing the American Dream. Fitzgerald uses his characters to show how wealth and the hollowness of the upper class create a false American Dream that misleads people. The Great Gytsby comments on how society viewed wealth in the 1920s and provides insight into how the American Dream was being revealed for what it truly was, a lie. The Great Gatsby Quotes. Tom Buchanan: Happy birthday. Nick Carraway: narrating now Thirty. The promise of a decade of loneliness. The formidable stroke of 30 died away as Gatsby and Daisy drove on thought the cooling twilight - towards death. Nick Carraway: Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. Top 100+ Great Gatsby Quotes. In this list we have gathered the top 100 Great Gatsby quotes for you to read. The novel of Great Gatsby is almost a century old, written in 1925 by American author called F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Explore Great Gatsby Quotes by authors including Henry Rollins, Chuck Palahniuk, and Hugh Hefner at BrainyQuote. 'The Great Gatsby' is a book I have read a few times, and it seems to get heavier every time I come to visit.'

The characterization of Gatsby is a representative figure among Americans as he devoted his whole life to achieve his dream. However, pathetically he failed to make it came true at the end, just like most of the Americans, who misunderstood what the real meaning of American Dream is, did.

The Great Gatsby, written by Scott Fittzgerald, is a portrayal of the withering of American Dream. The American Dream promises prosperity and self-fulfillment as rewards for hard work and self-reliance. A product of the frontier and the west, the American Dream challenges people to have dreams and strive to make them real.

Historically, the dream represents the image of believing in the goodness nature. However, the American Dream can be interpreted in many different ways. While some may strive for spiritual goodness and excellence, other take the dream to represent purely materialistic values, which the majority perceive at that time.

This is also the case of Jay Gatsby. We will later discover such a materialistic interpretation of the American Dream is the main cause of Gatsby’s downfall. Gatsby himself indeed is a complex symbol of the corruption of the American Dream.

He is a romantic dreamer who seeks to fulfill his life by earning his wealth as a gangster. Gatsby does not change much in the course of the novel because his whole life is devoted to the fulfillment of a romantic dream created that is inconsistent with the realities of society. At a very early age Gatsby vowed to love and to marry Daisy.

His lack of wealth led Daisy into the arms of another more prosperous man, Tom. Gatsby believed that he could win Daisy back with money, and that he could get the life she wanted if he is willing to pay for it. He wanted to do away with time in order to bliterate the years Tom and Daisy had together. Gatsby wanted to repeat the past, “I’m going to fix everything just the way it was before. She’ll see . . . “(p. 110)

Gatsby’s romantic disregard for reality changes the American Dream with his dream that love can be recaptured if one can make enough money. The corruption of Gatsby’s dream by adopting materialism as its means and love, beauty and youth as its goal is due to the corruption of the American Dream. Another example of the corrupt American Dream is the automobile, a classic symbol of material wealth in America at that time.

Gatsby owns a remarkable automobile whose appearance is envied by many. “It was a rich cream color, bright with nickel, swollen here and there in its monstrous length with triumphant hat-boxes and super-boxes and tool-boxes, and terraced with a labyrinth of wind-shields that mirrored a dozen suns” (p. 64)

Gatsby’s car in an overblown item created by wealth to fulfill the American Dream of personal material success. It is, however, Gatsby’s car that kills Myrtle Wilson when Daisy runs her over. This indirectly leads to Gatsby’s own death and portrays Fitzgerald’s theme that basing the Dream on materialism alone is undoubtedly destructive.

Fitzgerald presents clearly that a life based on materialism alone is a corruption rather than a fulfillment of the American Dream. Gatsby’s destruction shows that those who try to maintain a lifestyle based purely on materialistic values are doomed by their self-delusion. Thus, by analyzing Fitzgerald’s presentation, Gatsby’s dream, the novel suggests, is also that of America, with its emphasis on the inherent goodness within nature, on healthy living, youth, vitality, romance, a dream of the East which has been dreamed up in the West.

In this sense the novel becomes various things, an exploration of the American Dream, or perhaps a savage criticism of that dream. Gatsby, lured on by Daisy, who is no more than a symbol for him, pursues the Green Light, the dream of progress and material possessions, and is eventually destroyed.

Gatsby’s personal dream symbolizes the larger American Dream where all have the opportunity to get what they want. For Gatsby, his American Deam is not material possessions in fact, although it may seem that way. He only comes into riches so that he can fulfill his true American Dream, Daisy.

Gatsby does not rest until his American Dream is finally fulfilled. However, it never comes about and he ends up paying the ultimate price for it. In the Great Gatsby, the idea of the American Dream still holds true. One thing never changes about the American Dream which is everyone desires something in life and everyone somehow strives to get it. Gatsby is a prime example of pursuing the American Dream. Fitzgerald uses his characters to show how wealth and the hollowness of the upper class create a false American Dream that misleads people.

The Great Gytsby comments on how society viewed wealth in the 1920s and provides insight into how the American Dream was being revealed for what it truly was, a lie. His novel also comments on human society and how many people look to wealth to provide them with happiness. These concepts still apply today. Most people in our society now look to have a higher education and get a better job that pays a higher salary. Though it is different than what the American Dream was almost a century ago, the fundamental ideas are still there.

Many people now end up in a career that they are extremely unhappy with but choose to stay with that job because of the high salary. In this sense, money can again, not buy happiness but that does not stop people from believing that it will. Perhaps a new American Dream is being fabricated right now.

As our economy continues to fall, many people of the new generation aspire to make a career out of high paying service jobs, in hopes of providing themselves with a better life. The criticisms and concepts presented in Fitzgerald’s stories may or may not help steer society in the right direction this time around.

Book: The Great Gatsby

Thesis Statement:Analysis of important quotes from The Great Gatsby

Table Of Contents

• Introduction:Meaning of the quote about “new money from the mint”
• The Maecenas allusion in The Great Gatsby
• The egg as an allusion to East and West regions of Long Island
• Chapter Two – Meaning of a man resembling Rockfeller
• Chapter Three – Joe Frisco’s similarity to Jay Gatsby
• Chapter Four – Meyer Wolfsheim and Gatsby’s associations to the criminal world
• Chapter Five – Links to other literary works
• Chapter Six – Madame de Maintenon as a symbol of marriage for money
• Chapter Seven – Allusions to Roman and Greek legends
• Chapter Eight – Examples of “the following of a Grail”
• Chapter Nine – The old fiction book and Gatsby as a child
• Conclusion: What makes life in Long Island pointless and depressed

•“I bought a dozen volumes on banking and credit and investment securities, and they stood on my shelf in red and gold like new money from the mint, promising to unfold the shining secrets that only Midas and Morgan and Maecenas knew. ” (4) The name Midas is a classical allusion that refers to King Midas, the man who was given the ability to turn anything he touched to gold. Morgan is a historical allusion to J. Pierpont Morgan, a successful, wealthy banker and financer, who dominated corporate finance and industrial consolidation.

J. Pierpont Morgan was also an avid art and book collector. M? cenas is a historical reference to Gaius M? cenas, a roman diplomat and wealthy supporter of celebrated poets including Virgil and Horace. These three people were all wealthy, successful people, such as those that live on Long Island. In this quote, Nick says he “bought a dozen volumes on banking and credit and investment securities,” with the intention of becoming as successful as Midas and Morgan and M? cenas, or at least his fellow Long Islanders. Games of the gods slot game.

This quote reveals to the reader Nick’s aspiration and determination to be like his wealthy and successful “friends” that are not worth anything near how rich they are. So I wonder why Nick would want to be like them. •“They [East and West Eggs of Long Island] are not perfect ovals – like the egg in the Columbus story, they are both crushed flat at the contact end – but their physical resemblance must be a source of perpetual confusion to the gulls that fly over head. ” (5) The egg in the Columbus story is a historical allusion to Christopher Columbus’ journey around the world.

One time, at a dinner party in Columbus’ honor, some men began to mock him. Columbus gives the men a task; to make an egg stand up straight. After each man had tried and declared the impossibility of doing such a thing, Columbus takes the egg and makes it stand straight by crushing the shell. He then says, “gentlemen, what is easier than to do this which you said was impossible? It is the simplest thing in the world. Anybody can do it—after he has been shown how. ” East and West egg seem to be perfect ovular eggs, but in reality, are crushed.

Although they appear to be perfect to the innocent, or in this case “the gulls that fly over head,” they are full of error and imperfections, which is only apparent to those who have lived there and witnessed these flaws up close.

Chapter Two •“We backed up to a gray old man who bore an absurd resemblance to John D. Rockefeller. ” (27) This is a historical allusion to John D. Rockefeller. Rockefeller was a robber baron; he was a capitalist in the oil business who gained his riches through others’ work and benefited unfairly through the use of natural resources.

Nick is quick to notice the man on the street as being suspicious, comparing him to John D. Rockefeller, when in reality, he is overlooking the resemblance between Gatsby and Rockefeller. Rockefeller, a man driven by competition, represents the competitive nature of the citizens of Long Island.

Chapter Three •“Suddenly one of these gypsies, in trembling opal, seizes a cocktail out of the air, dumps it down for courage and, moving her hands like Frisco, dances out alone on the canvas platform. ” (41) A popular allusion, Frisco refers to Joe Frisco, a famous jazz dancer at the beginning of the twentieth century.

With his series of shuffles, camel walks and turns, derby hat and cigar, and backing dance line of beautiful women, Frisco was ostentatious with all his performances. In 1958, he died of cancer with not a penny to his name. After his death he was quickly forgotten. Gatsby, too, hid behind glamorous parties. When his death came, he was not poor in wealth, but in friendship, and he and his flashy parties were soon forgotten as well.

Chapter Four •“‘Meyer Wolfsheim? No, he’s a gambler. ’ Gatsby hesitated, then added coolly: ‘He’s the man who fixed the World’s Series back in 1919. (73) The man who fixed the World’s Series back in 1919 is a popular allusion to the fixing of the World’s Series in 1919. In 1919, eight of the underpaid Chicago White Sox hatched a plan to purposely lose the World’s Series to Cincinnati if a gambler was willing to pay them $100,000. These eight players approached Abe Attell, former boxing champion who was at the time a bodyguard for Arnold Rothstein, with this offer. Rothstein joined in on the plan paying them $80,000, and won himself large sums of money.

Quotes From The Great Gatsby About Wealth

Before 1919, Arnold Rothstein made a living through bootlegging, gambling, and drug dealing, just like Gatsby. By presenting Meyer Wolfsheim, a colleague of Gatsby, as “the man who fixed the World’s Series back in 1919,” Gatsby makes known his affiliation with a criminal, making it very difficult for Nick to believe he’s not a criminal himself too.

Chapter Five •“‘Are you in love with me,’ she said low in my ear, ‘or why did I have to come alone? ’ ‘That’s the secret of the Castle Rackrent. Tell your chauffeur to go far away and spend an hour. ’” (85) This is a literary allusion to Castle Rackrent, a novel secretly written by Maria Edgeworth and published in 1800. It is a novel about the mismanagement of the estates owned by Anglo-Irish landlords. Characters in the novel Castle Rackrent are parallel to characters in The Great Gatsby. Sir Kit Stopgap, the cruel husband and absent gambler, is akin to Tom Buchanan who dominates not only his wife, but his lover too. Gatsby too can be compared to the other three main characters, prodigal, generous, yet improvident. Both novels reveal the reality of other people in indirect ways.

“There was nothing to look at from under the tree except Gatsby’s enormous house, so I stared at it, like Kant at his church steeple, for half an hour. ” The historical allusion above is of Immanuel Kant, a philosopher who wrote and lectured on philosophy and anthropology at the end of the 1700s. In the 1780s, Kant found himself spending a great deal of his time staring out his window at a church steeple nearby to fuel the development of his theories regarding reality and morality. In this excerpt, Nick finds himself under his tree staring at Gatsby’s enormous house just as “Kant [stared] at his church steeple. Nick, like Kant, is also developing his own theories about reality and morality of everyone that he has encountered throughout his time in Long Island

Great Gatsby Quotes And Meanings

Chapter Six •“The none too savory ramifications by which Ella Kaye, the newspaper woman, played Madame de Maintenon to his weakness and sent him to sea in a yacht, were common knowledge to the turgid sub-journalism of 1902. ” (99) Madame de Maintenon is a historical allusion to Francoise d’Aubigne, Marquise de Maintenon was the second wife of King Louis XIV of France. Due to her coming from a poor background, she is said to have married him for his wealth.

In the story of the rich Dan Cody, Ella Faye can be thought of as Madame de Maintenon, marrying Dan only for his money. Ella’s and Dan’s superficial relationship parallels many of the other insincere, shallow relationships in the novel including Gatsby and Daisy, Daisy and Tom, Tom and Myrtle, Myrtle and George, Jordan and her fiance, and even Nick and some of his “friends. ”

Chapter Seven •“It was when curiosity about Gatsby was at its highest that the lights in his house failed to go on one Saturday night — and, as obscurely as it had begun, his career as Trimalchio was over. ” (113) A classical and literary allusion, Trimalchio refers to the character in the Roman novel The Satyricon. Trimalchio throws lavish parties, much like Gatsby, and therefore, The Satyricon can be thought of as an early version of The Great Gatsby. Before Gatsby’s “career as Trimalchio was over,” Gatsby and Trimalchio had more than just their lavish parties in common. Trimalchio too was a slave that gained his freedom. The guests that attend both Trimalchio’s and Gatsby’s parties are insensitive and petty.

•“Our eyes lifted over the rose-beds and the hot lawn and the weedy refuse of the dog-days along-shore. Slowly the white wings of the boat moved against the blue cool limit of the sky. Ahead lay the scalloped ocean and the abounding blessed isles. ” (118) A classical allusion, the blessed isles refers to the pure beautiful islands where the souls of favored mortals were received by the gods and lived happily in paradise in Classical, Greek, and Celtic legends.

As Gatsby shows Tom Buchanan his house across the bay, Nick describes the West Egg as the blessed isles. This hints that Daisy is a “favored mortal” and is chosen by Gatsby to live happily in “paradise”.

The Great Gatsby Love Quotes

Chapter Eight “He had intended, probably, to take what he could and go—but now he found that he committed himself to the following of a grail. ” (149) This is a classical and biblical allusion to the Holy Grail, the cup used by Jesus at the last supper. It plays a different role in each story it appears, yet in most tales the hero must prove himself to be worthy to be in its presence. Gatsby, who had grown up poor with “no comfortable family standing behind him” (149) felt the need to prove to Daisy that he is worthy of her, a task that Nick compares to “the following of a grail. Other examples of “the following of a grail” in the novel include Myrtle who tried to win Tom and even Nick who tried to fit in to Long Island.

Best Great Gatsby Quotes

Chapter Nine •“Then he returned the wallet and pulled from his pocket a ragged old copy of a book called Hopalong Cassidy. ” (173) Hopalong Cassidy is a literary allusion to a series Charles E. Mulford’s Hopalong Cassidy, in which Hopalong Cassidy is a cowboy. The copy of one of these books is pulled out by Gatsby’s father, Mr. Gatz, at his son’s funeral as he memorializes him.

In the back, as a child, Gatsby had written a schedule showing much about his personality and that he was “bound to get ahead”. Hopalong Cassidy revolves around daring deeds and the separating of “good bad-men” and bad bad-men, much like the underlining storyline of The Great Gatsby.

•“Even when the East excited me most, even when I was most keenly aware of its superiority to the bored, sprawling, swollen towns beyond the Ohio, with their interminable inquisitions which spared only the children and the very old — even then it had always for me a quality of distortion. West Egg, especially, still figures in my more fantastic dreams.

Quotes About Great Gatsby

I see it as a night scene by El Greco: a hundred houses, at once conventional and grotesque, crouching under a sullen, overhanging sky and a lustreless moon. ” (176) This is a popular allusion to El Greco, an artist. Nick uses El Greco’s distorted depressed paintings as a comparison to West and East Egg and even Long Island and his hometown, Ohio. As he draws conclusions about Gatsby’s life, he considers the people that came to Gatsby’s parties, yet no one really cared for him. El Greco’s paintings depict life in Long Island; no one truly knows or cares for one another making life pointless and depressed.