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Quotes to Identify—The Great Gatsby
Name________________
4/29/13—Please identify the persons or things referred to in these passages. Have
your answers ready at the beginning of class for 1st Period—Wednesday, for 4th
Period--Thursday.
Nick Carraway
Myrtle Wilson
Mrs. McKee
Meyer Wolfsheim
Michaelis
Daisy Buchanan
Catherine
Jay Gatsby
Klipspringer
Henry C. Gatz
Tom Buchanan
George Wilson
Owl-eyed man
Pammy
Jordan Baker
Mr. McKee
Katspaugh
Dr. T.J. Eckleburg
1.“I’m inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious
natures to me . . . . When I came back from the East last autumn I . . . wanted no
more riotous excursions with privileged glimpses into the human heart. Only
Gatsby, . . . was exempt from my reaction—Gatsby, who represented everything for
which I have an unaffected scorn . . . . there was something gorgeous about him,
some heightened sensitivity to the promises of life . . . .—it was an extraordinary gift
for hope, a romantic readiness such as I have never found in any other person . . . “
(2). Who is speaking? ______________________
2.“His speaking voice, a gruff, husky tenor, added to the impression of fractiousness
he conveyed. There was a touch of paternal contempt in it, even toward people he
liked” (7). Who is being described? _________________________
3.“She laughed again, as if she had said something very witty, and held my hand for a
moment, looking up into my face, promising that there was no one in the world she
so much wanted to see. That was a way she had” (9-10). Who is being described?
_________________________
4.She “began to ask me questions in her low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice
that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that
will never be played again. Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it,
bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice
that men who had cared for her found it difficult to forget” (10). Who is being
described? _________________________
5.“. . . he gave a sudden intimation that he wanted to be alone. He stretched out his
arms toward the water in a curious way, and far as I was from him, I could have
sworn he was trembling. Involuntarily I glanced seaward—and distinguished
nothing except a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the
end of a dock” (20-21). Who is being described?_______________________
6.“The eyes . . . are blue and gigantic—their [irises] . . . one yard high. They look out
of no face, but, instead, from a pair of enormous yellow spectacles which pass over a
non-existent nose” (23). Who is being described?_______________________
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7.“He was a blond, spiritless man, anemic, and faintly handsome. When he saw us a
damp gleam of hope sprang into his light blue eyes” (25). Who is being
described?_______________________
8.She “was a slender, worldly girl of about thirty, with a solid, sticky bob of red hair,
and a complexion powdered milky white. Her eyebrows had been plucked and then
drawn on again at a more rakish angle but the efforts of nature toward the
restoration of the old alignment gave a blurred air to her face” (30). Who is being
described?________________________
9.“With the influence of the dress, her personality had also undergone a change. The
intense vitality that had been so remarkable in the garage was converted into
impressive hauteur. Her laughter, her gestures, her assertions became more
violently affected moment by moment, and as she expanded the room grew smaller
around her, until she seemed to be revolving on a noisy, creaking pivot through the
smoky air” (30). Who is being described?_______________________
10.“He smiled understandingly—much more than understandingly. It was one of
those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come
across four or five times in life. It faced—or seemed to face—the whole external
world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in
your favor” (48). Who is being described? _________________________
11.She “instinctively avoided clever, shrewd men, and now I saw that this was
because she felt safer on a plane where any divergence from a code would be
thought impossible. She was incurably dishonest” (57-58). Who is being described?
_________________________
12.“Everyone suspects himself of at least one of the cardinal virtues, and this is
mine: I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known” (59). Who is
speaking? ______________________
13.“’It’s pretty, isn’t it, old sport!’ He jumped off to give me a better view. ‘Haven’t
you seen it before?’ . . . . It was a rich cream color, bright with nickel, swollen here
and there in its monstrous length with triumphant hat-boxes and supper-boxes and
tool-boxes, and terraced with a labyrinth of wind-shields that mirrored a dozen
suns. Sitting down behind many layers of glass in a sort of green leather
conservatory, we started to town” (64). What is being described?
_______________________________
14.“’I see you’re looking at my cuff buttons’ . . . . ‘Finest specimen of human molars,’
he informed me” (72). Who is speaking? ______________________
15.“Wild rumors were circulating about her—how her mother had found her
packing her bag one winter night to go to New York and say good-by to a soldier
who was going overseas. She was effectually prevented, but she wasn’t on speaking
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terms with her family for several weeks” (75). Nick is narrating, but who is telling
the original story? ______________________
16.“He took out a pile of shirts and began throwing them, one by one, before us,
shirts of sheer linen and thick silk and fine flannel, which lost their folds as they fell
and covered the table in many-colored disarray. While we admired he brought
more and the soft rich heap mounted higher—shirts with stripes and scrolls and
plaids in coral and apple-green and lavender and faint orange, with monograms of
Indian blue” (92). Whose shirts are being described?____________________________
17.“’Her voice is full of money,’ he said suddenly” (120). Who is speaking?
______________________
18.“I just got wised up to something funny the last two days” . . . The relentless
beating heat was beginning to confuse me and I had a bad moment there before I
realized that so far his suspicions hadn’t alighted on Tom. . . . I stared at him and
then at Tom, who had made a parallel discovery less than an hour before . . . “(124).
Who “got wised up”? ______________________
19.“I was thirty. Before me stretched the portentous, menacing road of a new
decade” (135). Who is speaking? ______________________
20.“The lawn and drive had been crowded with the faces of those who guessed at
his corruption—and he had stood on those steps, concealing his incorruptible
dream, as he waved them good-by” (154). Who are the
“faces”?__________________________ Who is “he”?_____________________________________
21. I wanted to get somebody for him. I wanted to go into the room where he lay
and reassure him: “’I’ll get somebody for you, Gatsby. Don’t worry. Just trust me
and I’ll get somebody for you--’” (164). Who is speaking? ___________________________
22.“Jimmy was bound to get ahead. He always had some resolves like this or
something. Do you notice what he’s got about improving his mind? He was always
great for that. He told me I et like a hog once, and I beat him for it” (173).
Who is being described?_______________________ Who is speaking? ______________________
23.“I couldn’t forgive him or like him, but I saw that what he had done was, to him,
entirely justified. It was all very careless and confused. They were careless people,
. . . they smashed things up 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). What pair of people is Nick
describing?_______________________________
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24.“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). What is
being described?_______________________ Who is speaking? ______________________
25.“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past”
(180). Who is speaking? ______________________ What does the sentence
mean?__________________________________________________________________________________