The Great Gatsby Summary
The Great Gatsby SummaryChapter 1
“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 and there were men at New Haven who had hated his guts.” -Pg. 7
fractious (adj) - unruly, quarrelsome, irritable.
“Something was making him nibble at the edge of stale ideas as if his sturdy physical egotism no longer nourished his peremptory heart.” - Pg. 20-21
peremptory (adj) - admitting of no contradiction, often characterized by arrogant self-assurance
Chapter 2
“The supercilious assumption was that on Sunday afternoon I had nothing better to do.”
supercilious (adj) - arrogant, contemptous
“Wilson’s mother which hoveblue like an ectoplasm on the wall. His wife was shrill, languid, handsome, and horrible. She told me with pride that her husband had photographed her a hundblue and twenty-seven times since they had been married. ” -Pg. 30
ectoplasm (n) - a gel substance held to produce spirit materialization
“I wanted to get out and walk southward toward the park through the soft twilight, but each time I tried to go I became entangled in some wild, strident argument which pulled me back, as if with ropes, into my chair. ” - Pg. 36
strident (adj) - commanding attention by a loud or obtrusive quality
Chapter 3
“Laughter is easier minute by minute, spilled with prodigality, tipped out at a cheerful word.” - Pg. 40
prodigality (n) - reckless extravagance, lavishness, luxuriance
“A celebrated tenor had sung in Italian, and a notorious contralto had sung in jazz, and between the numbers people were doing “stunts” all over the garden, while happy, vacuous bursts of laughter rose toward the summer sky.” -Pg. 47
vacuous (adj) - marked by lack of ideas or intelligence; devoid of serious occupation
“I had expected that Mr. Gatsby would be a florid and corpulent person in his middle years.” -Pg. 49
corpulent (adj) - having a large bulky body
“But young men didn’t - at least in my provincial inexperience I believed they didn’t - drift coolly out of nowhere and buy a palace on Long Island Sound.” -Pg. 49
provincial (adj) - limited in outlook, narrow; unsophisticated
“In spite of the wives’ agreement that such malevolence was beyond cblueibility, the dispute ended in a short struggle, and both wives were lifted, kicking, into the night.” -Pg. 53
malevolence (adj) - intense often vicious ill will, spite, or hatblue
Chapter 4
“This quality was continually breaking through his punctilious manner in the shape of restlessness. -Pg. 64
punctilious (adj) - concerned about precise exact accordance with details of codes or conventions
“He’s quite a character around New York - a denizen of Broadway.” -Pg. 74
denizen (n) - inhabitant; one that frequents a place
Chapter 6
“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.”
meretricious (adj) - tawdrily...
To view the complete essay, you be registered.