The Great Gatsby: Key Quotes and Analysis

“Whenever you feel like criticizing any one . . . just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.”

Chapter 1 (Nick Carraway)

These words are uttered by Nick’s father to Nick. In Chapter 1, Fitzgerald makes the reader aware of Nick’s background, focusing on his middle-class upbringing that emphasized good values and moral conduct. These words also highlight one of the most important themes of the book: social divide. As the novel progresses, we realize that one’s social and cultural roots, to a large extent, determine one’s success. People such as Tom and Daisy in East Egg seem to have the advantages that people such as Gatsby lacked. Gatsby, despite all the wealth he acquires, was unable to succeed in the absence of these “advantages.” Toward the end of the novel, we understand that society is superficial.

“I hope she’ll be a fool — that’s the best thing a girl can be in this world, a beautiful little fool.”

(Chapter 1) (Daisy Buchanan)

These lines are spoken by Daisy in Chapter 1, addressing Nick and Jordan in a conversation about her daughter. These lines give us an insight into Daisy’s character, values, and priorities. Although not a fool herself, Daisy realizes that intelligence in women is not valued by society. They are expected to have good social manners and maintain good appearances; they are expected to fulfill their husbands’ desires. Daisy, and indeed other women of her generation, believed that being a “beautiful little fool” was the best way to find good suitors.

“The truth was that Jay Gatsby, of West Egg, Long Island, sprang from his platonic conception of himself. He was a son of God — a phrase which, if it means anything, means just that — and he must be about his Father’s business, the service of a vast, vulgar, and meretricious beauty. So he invented just the sort of Jay Gatsby that a seventeen year old boy would be likely to invest, and to this conception he was faithful to the end.”

(Chapter 6) (Nick Carraway)

In these lines, spoken in Chapter 6, Nick describes Gatsby’s early history and compares him to Jesus Christ, since Jesus, too, had created his own identity. In making this parallel, Fitzgerald was probably influenced by a nineteenth-century book by Ernest Renan entitled The Life of Jesus. Although this comparison is not integral to the novel, it gives an insight into Gatsby’s character. He transforms himself into the ideal that he had envisioned for himself, despite numerous challenges and obstacles, and believes himself in some ways to be invincible.