English resources/The Great Gatsby/Nick Carraway
Nick Carraway
The narrator. From the Midwest. He watches. He says he reserves judgement. He does not, not really.
The quotes
17 quotes.
Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had.
Nick's father · Chapter 1 · class · honesty
Nick's father tells him not to judge. Nick repeats it. He still judges.
an extraordinary gift for hope
Nick · Chapter 1 · the American dream · love
This is what Nick cannot drop about Gatsby. Hope, not the parties.
there was something gorgeous about him
Nick · Chapter 1 · the American dream
Nick scorns what Gatsby stands for. He still cannot look away.
a single green light, minute and far away, that might have been the end of a dock
Nick · Chapter 1 · the American dream · the past · love
Nick sees Gatsby reaching for a light across the water. It is Daisy's dock. Gatsby does not say her name yet.
the valley of ashes
Nick · Chapter 2 · class · death
The dump between West Egg and the city. The people who serve the rich live in the dust.
the eyes of Doctor T. J. Eckleburg
Nick · Chapter 2 · honesty · death
A faded billboard. A dead oculist. Wilson later talks to it like God.
I am one of the few honest people that I have ever known
Nick says this about himself. Watch whether it stays true.
He wanted nothing less of Daisy than that she should go to Tom and say: "I never loved you."
Nick · Chapter 6 · love · the past
Gatsby does not want Daisy now. He wants the last four years erased.
Jay Gatsby of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his Platonic conception of himself
Nick · Chapter 6 · the American dream · the past
James Gatz invented Jay Gatsby. He invented a man and then tried to become him.
The "death car" as the newspapers called it, didn't stop
Nick · Chapter 7 · death · class
Daisy is driving. Myrtle runs into the road. The car does not stop.
They're a rotten crowd. You're worth the whole damn bunch put together.
Nick · Chapter 8 · honesty · class
The only compliment Nick ever gives Gatsby. He says it across the lawn. Gatsby dies anyway.
They were careless people, Tom and Daisy—they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money
Nick · Chapter 9 · class · money · death
They break Myrtle. They break Gatsby. They leave. Money is the door they close behind them.
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
Nick · Chapter 9 · the American dream · the past
The lawn is Daisy's. The dream is already behind him. He does not know.
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us
Nick · Chapter 9 · the American dream · the past
The light was a dock lamp. Gatsby made it a future. The future keeps moving away.
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past
Nick · Chapter 9 · the past · the American dream
The last line. We row forward. The water takes us back.
the white palaces of fashionable East Egg glittered along the water
Nick · Chapter 1 · class · East and West · money
East Egg is old money. West Egg is new. Nick lives in West Egg, next to Gatsby. Daisy lives across the bay.
You can't repeat the past.
Nick says the ordinary thing. Gatsby does not believe ordinary things.
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