The Great Gatsby Quotes Analysis

Gatsby Isn’t Who He Seems In this book, The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald uses detail to make Gatsby to make him not who he seems. Details including events at his parties that make Gatsby seem suspicious, and details in Gatsby’s “life story” when him and Nick were driving. Events at the party made Gatsby a bit suspicious. At the party in chapter three, two girls and Jordan were talking and one of the girls said that they heard that Gatsby has killed a man, but the other girl said he wouldn’t go that far (44). When Jordan and Nick go into the library, they meet an “owl-eyed” man saying that all the books are real, but the pages weren’t cut, therefore they were not being read (45-46). During the conversation between Nick and Gatsby where they first meet, Gatsby doesn’t introduce himself until later by following up with “I’m afraid I’m not a very good host” (48) This shows he wasn’t raised with common courtesy. In this conversation, Gatsby started it with “Your face is familiar. Weren’t you in the Third Division during the war?” (47) These pieces of detail from the party makes Gatsby not who he seems and made Nick suspicious of him.

Gatsby says he was educated at Oxford like his ancestors but Nick notices that he rushed the phrase “educated at Oxford,” thinking he’s lying (65). Gatsby mentions that he’s a “son of some wealthy people in the Middle West.” When Nick asked where in the Middle West, Gatsby said San Francisco, which is nowhere near the Midwest (65). Gatsby says to Nick; “My family all died and I came into a good deal of money.” (65) He’s saying that he’s old money but then he says he went into the war (66). Why would he go into the war when he had inherited a good amount of money? Nick didn’t seem to believe Gatsby life story since the details didn’t add