The Great Gatsby
Chapters 7, 8, and 9
Honors English 11
Ms. Cimino
Warm-Up
What does it mean to
be “great”?
Crash Course Literature
Was Gatsby Great?
Important Quotations: Chapter 7
“’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…” (120)
The way that Gatsby and Nick describe Daisy’s voice
helps to highlight the novel’s theme about class
differences. Wealthy people and their money cannot
be separated. It is so much a part of who they are
that it is almost literally a part of them. Gatsby is
unlike the other characters because his money has
not always been a part of who he is.
Important Quotations: Chapter 7
"Oh, you want too much!" she cried to
Gatsby. "I love you now – isn't that enough? I
can't help what's past." She began to sob
helplessly. "I did love him once – but I loved
you too.“ (132)
Daisy’s admission of her feelings for Tom
proves what everyone but Gatsby knows to be
true: You can’t repeat the past.
Important Quotations: Chapter 8
“’Well , there I was, ‘way off my ambitions,
getting deeper in love every minute, and all of
a sudden I didn’t care. What was the use of
doing great things if I could have a better time
telling her what I was going to do?’” (150)
When Gatsby tells Nick how he fell in
love with Daisy, he is inadvertently
telling him (and the reader) how she
changed his dream.
Important Quotations: Chapter 8
"They're a rotten crowd," I shouted across the
lawn. "You're worth the whole damn bunch
put together.“ (154)
Nick’s compliment to Gatsby is Chapter 8 is
important because it once again separates
Gatsby from the rest of the characters in the
novel. The play on the word “worth” is
important. Tom and Daisy are worth a lot of
money, but Gatsby’s worth is far greater than
theirs.
Important Quotations: Chapter 8
“…I said ‘God knows what you’ve been doing, everything you’ve been
doing. You may fool me, but you can’t fool God!’
Standing behind him, Michaelis saw with a shock that he was
looking at the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg, which had just emerged, pale
and enormous, from the dissolving night.”(159-60)
According to George Wilson, the eyes of Dr. T.J. Eckleburg are a
symbol of God, as they see sin the way that God does. This
quote is important because it shows how people place abstract
ideas on actual things (symbolism). It is ironic, however, that
the rims of the glasses on the billboard are yellow, a symbol of
corruption in the novel. George is the only character who views
the eyes as a sign of God’s presence, so the fact that they
“witness” Myrtle’s death after he discovers evidence of her
adultery helps to further support Nick’s idea about meaningless
symbols at the end of Chapter 9.
Important Quotations: Chapter 9
“’You said a bad driver was only safe until she met
another bad driver? Well, I met another bad driver,
didn’t I? I mean it was careless of me to make a
wrong guess. I thought you were rather an honest,
straightforward person. I thought it was your secret
pride.’” (177)
Jordan’s comparison of Nick to a “bad driver” is
significant because it highlights the importance of
cars and driving in the novel. Throughout the novel,
Jordan and driving are closely related. Even her
name (Jordan Baker) comes from the names of two
popular car brands in the 1920s – the Jordan Motor
Car Company and the Baker Motor Vehicle.
Important Quotations: Chapter 9
“They were careless people, Tom and Daisy – they
smashed up things and people 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…” (179)
Nick’s description of Tom and Daisy at the end of the
novel shows exactly how hollow the upper class is in
the novel. This quote also shows that despite their
unhappiness, they are very much alike, which relates
to the novel’s theme regarding different social classes.
Important Quotations: Chapter 9
“Most of the big shore places were closed now and there
were hardly any lights except the shadowy, moving glow of
a ferryboat across the Sound. And as the moon rose
higher the inessential houses began to melt away until
gradually I became aware of the old island here that
flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyes – a fresh, green
breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that
had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in
whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for
a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his
breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an
aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor
desired, face to face for the last time in history with
something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.”
(180)
Here, Nick’s description of the Dutch
sailors’ first view of America compares
the American dream to Gatsby’s
dream. The vision of possibility that
they see in a new land is very similar
to Gatsby’s vision of possibility when
he sees the green light at the end of
Daisy’s dock. All of the possibilities
that Gatsby once saw, however, are no
longer possible.
Important Quotations: Chapter 9
“And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown
world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked
out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had
come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must
have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it.
He did not know that it was already behind him,
somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city,
where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the
night.
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—to-morrow we will run faster,
stretch out our arms farther….And one find morning—
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne
back ceaselessly into the past.” (180)
At the end of the novel, Fitzgerald returns to
theme of the past and how it affects the
future, particularly when it comes to dreams.
Nick states that, like Gatsby, people are
unable to leave their pasts behind them. They
create future goals based on their ideas about
the past (like Gatsby with Daisy). Like
Gatsby, people will work hard to achieve their
dreams (“run faster, stretch out our arms
farther”), but use all of their energy
attempting to achieve goals that moves
further and further away from them. Nick’s
thoughts here relate to both Gatsby’s dream
and the American dream.