Theme
F. Scott Fitzgerald's book the great gatsby is about social class and reveals that differences in social class divides people in ways that are much more significant than differences in religion, race, or gender. For the real lines are drawn between the haves and the have-nots.
- "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 parceled out unequally at birth." (Fitzgerald)
- "Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all the people in this world haven‘t had the advantages that you‘ve had." (Fitzgerald 1)
- "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...." (Fitzgerald 179)
Meyer Wolfshiem
- "This quality was continually breaking through his punctilious manner in the shape of restlssness. He was never quite still; there was a always a tapping foot somewhere or the impatient opening and closing of a hand." (Fitzgerald 64)
- -"A succulent hash arrived, and Mr. Wolfsheim, forgetting the more sentimental atmosphere of the old Metropole, began to eat with ferocious delicacy. His eyes, meanwhile, roved very slowly all around the room-he completed the arc by turning to inspect the people directly behind. I think that, except for my presence, he would have taken one short glance beneath our table." (Fitzgerald 71)
Jay gatsby
- " He smileled understaningly- much more than understandingly (Fitzgerald 48)
- "If you invented a persona based entirely on reruns of Laguna Beach, you might come up with something a lot like Jay Gatsby: a fabulously embellished, impossibly perfect reflection of a kid's dreams and fantasies. Let's take a look at how he got there."(Fitzgerald )
Symbol
The eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg are a pair of fading eyes painted on an old advertising billboard over the valley of ashes. They represent God staring down upon and judging the American society as a moral wasteland, though the novel never makes this point explicitly.
