"...life is much more successfully looked at from a single window, after all." (p.10)
This metaphor suggests one needs to concentrate on one aspect of life. This also serves as a metaphor for Fitzgerald's narrative technique; a single narrator who is given glimpses into other people's lives. As a reader we must be aware of Nick, the unreliable narrator. The novel is full of verisimilitudes.
"I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life." (p.37)
Nick is paradoxically within and without. He fits in but feels he doesn't belong. The quotation sums up the partially involved narrator created by Fitzgerald.
This statement seems to also link to Fitzgerald's own attitude towards the Roaring Twenties.
"On a Sunday morning while the church bells rang...the world and its mistress returned to Gatsby's house and twinkled hilariously on his lawn." (p.60)
We are specifically told that Sabbath Day is is celebrated with parties. Gatsby seeks mystical union, but not with God; he hopes his parties will bring him closer to Daisy. Faith has been replaced by 'twinkling', a superficial hilarity.
"...the rock of the world was founded securely on a fairy's wing..." (p.96)
This concrete image describes the impossibility of Gatsby's dreams coming true. As a teenager, Gatsby imagined "the most grotesque and fantastic conceits." Gatsby, however, persuaded himself that he could build a future upon them; a dream as hopeless as balancing a rock on a fairy's wing.
"...he had committed himself to the following of a grail." (p.142)
With this metaphor, Nick romantically links Daisy and Gatsby to the Arthurian legend. The Holy Grail was the legendary cup in which Joseph of Arimathea caught the blood of Christ on the cross. In Arthurian legend, only the purist of knights were able to undertake the sacred quest to find the grail.
"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things...and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness..." (p.170)
Nick's judgement could be interpreted as Fitzgerald's view on the Roaring Twenties. Fitzgerald wrote to Marya Mannes, a friend: "The young in America are brave, shallow, cynical, impatient and empty. I like them not...America is so decadent that its brilliant children are damned almost before they are born."
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly to the past." (p.172)
This serves as a metaphor. The pursuit of the American dream and an ideal future was imperative, but, in reality the dream is a hope of recovering the past. Nick is aware that the dream isn't achievable, but paradoxically, he still strives towards it. Americans pursue the dream, only to find that, like Nick, they must go back to their past.
This metaphor suggests one needs to concentrate on one aspect of life. This also serves as a metaphor for Fitzgerald's narrative technique; a single narrator who is given glimpses into other people's lives. As a reader we must be aware of Nick, the unreliable narrator. The novel is full of verisimilitudes.
"I was within and without, simultaneously enchanted and repelled by the inexhaustible variety of life." (p.37)
Nick is paradoxically within and without. He fits in but feels he doesn't belong. The quotation sums up the partially involved narrator created by Fitzgerald.
This statement seems to also link to Fitzgerald's own attitude towards the Roaring Twenties.
"On a Sunday morning while the church bells rang...the world and its mistress returned to Gatsby's house and twinkled hilariously on his lawn." (p.60)
We are specifically told that Sabbath Day is is celebrated with parties. Gatsby seeks mystical union, but not with God; he hopes his parties will bring him closer to Daisy. Faith has been replaced by 'twinkling', a superficial hilarity.
"...the rock of the world was founded securely on a fairy's wing..." (p.96)
This concrete image describes the impossibility of Gatsby's dreams coming true. As a teenager, Gatsby imagined "the most grotesque and fantastic conceits." Gatsby, however, persuaded himself that he could build a future upon them; a dream as hopeless as balancing a rock on a fairy's wing.
"...he had committed himself to the following of a grail." (p.142)
With this metaphor, Nick romantically links Daisy and Gatsby to the Arthurian legend. The Holy Grail was the legendary cup in which Joseph of Arimathea caught the blood of Christ on the cross. In Arthurian legend, only the purist of knights were able to undertake the sacred quest to find the grail.
"They were careless people, Tom and Daisy- they smashed up things...and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness..." (p.170)
Nick's judgement could be interpreted as Fitzgerald's view on the Roaring Twenties. Fitzgerald wrote to Marya Mannes, a friend: "The young in America are brave, shallow, cynical, impatient and empty. I like them not...America is so decadent that its brilliant children are damned almost before they are born."
"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly to the past." (p.172)
This serves as a metaphor. The pursuit of the American dream and an ideal future was imperative, but, in reality the dream is a hope of recovering the past. Nick is aware that the dream isn't achievable, but paradoxically, he still strives towards it. Americans pursue the dream, only to find that, like Nick, they must go back to their past.
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