Close Reading Selections
Chapter 4
The Great Gatsby
What to do with a Close Reading Selection:
 look up all unknown vocabulary and unknown allusions before you read
 read the selection slowly
 be patient with your brain (don’t rush comprehension)
 read the selection slowly again
While you’re reading, think about:
 connections this passage has to other parts of the novel/the novel’s time period
 which characters this passage gives you insight into
 whether or not any of the novel’s themes are being explored in this passage
 the author’s use of and manipulation of language
 what the author is trying to accomplish with this passage
Finally, after you have accomplished all of the above, pat yourself on the back
because you are going to be way more prepared for discussion than others.
Because of the 5 different publications of this novel that we all have, page numbers are
not listed. However, these Close Reading Selections do appear within the chapters in the
order that they are listed below.
“Once I wrote down on the empty spaces of a time-table…All these people came to
Gatsby’s house in the summer.”
“I had talked with him perhaps half a dozen times…with their crimson-lighted depths, the
gnawings of his broken heart.”
“With fenders spread like wings…’…and he sends me a Christmas card every year.’”
“’Anything can happen now…without any particular wonder.’”
“’This is a nice restaurant here…’…’I had a wrong man.’”
“’He has to telephone…’…’He would never so much as look at a friend’s wife.’”
“One October day in nineteen-seventeen…that I connected this with the officer in her
white car.”
“When Jordan Baker had finished telling all this…so that he could ‘come over’ some
afternoon to a stranger’s garden.”